Let’s face facts… AI is everywhere and it is here to stay.

For some AI is a fantastic tool and resource that allows for lightning fast productivity, speed of light answers, and helps your working life.

For others, AI is a dangerous slide into “Terminator” style scenarios or (at best) the “lazy” option.

For recruiters, we love a bit of technology, anything to make the recruitment process faster and more efficient we leap on. However, there has been a rise in AI-written CVs.

While this is not necessarily a bad thing we have noticed a growing similarity between CV after CV after CV.

Even just searching Google for “AI CV Writer” generates about 14,200,000 results. A staggering number given how only last year that would seem like a distant futuristic software.

While you may be tempted to use these services there should be a word of caution regarding them.

1. Don’t ever just copy and paste whatever ChatGPT (or whichever one you use) has written and use that without checking,
2. Be careful who you trust your data to,
3. Beware of scams that just churn out generically written CVs with no thought or actual quality or customisation to the job you’re applying for.

We know that landing a job is hard, and it takes a long time too! Some of the latest stats show that;

• We spend hours (1-8 hours on average) creating an amazing CV
• Recruiters typically will only spend anywhere between 8 seconds and 15 minutes to review it
• And out of all applicants, only 2.5% actually make it to an interview

Luckily, we can now use AI to quickly build, write, and enhance our CVs. That’s a lot of time saved and a lot of potential stress gotten rid of.

Here are some steps to use AI to build the best CV, effectively.

Summarise the job with AI

Job descriptions can be really confusing sometimes. Sometimes there is either a lot of jargon or there seems to be an overabundance of information.

Throwing the job description into something like ChatGPT and using that to summarise the role will help you better understand how to tailor your CV.

Having a clear understanding of what the job description is asking for, and what areas you should prioritise in your CV, will help you tailor it much more effectively.

Keyword Optimisation

This is a two-part tip, but a very useful one.

With the job description get AI to pick out the most useful keywords to use in your CV.

More and more recruiters and companies are using software and AI to pick out keywords and automatically filter candidates before they are ever read by human eyes.

This means you are more likely to be rejected by a machine than you are a person.

How to overcome this? Keywords.

The machines will look for keywords in your CV that match the job description and then select your CV based on how many and how close they are to what’s been written.

So use AI to your advantage.

First, get AI to scan through the job description and pick out the core keywords, skills, and responsibilities that you will need to highlight in your CV.

Now that you have that list you can write your CV with this list in mind to ensure that you are meeting the requirements.

Once you have completed your CV you can get AI to scan your CV and see where you can rewrite and/or add keywords neatly into your CV.

This will give you the best odds at clearing through the machine screening and actually getting your CV in front of an actual person.

Proofread your CV

Another great use of AI is to proofread your CV.

Don’t get me wrong this isn’t foolproof but AI can go way beyond just checking for spelling and grammar (although that is vitally important).

With AI you can also make sure you’re not using the wrong kind of language or the wrong tone of voice.

You can use it to double check that everything you have written is as clear as possible.

This will never truly replace you reading through your CV carefully before you send it, but it will definitely help save you plenty of time.

Small Changes – Big Results

The key point to remember is that AI is a tool, not a replacement for your hard work.

You should still, always, write your own CV injecting it with your personality, experience, and skills carefully and with thought.

AI can then enhance and build on that, but it can never replace that.

We will say again that you should NEVER just get an AI to create a CV and send that off without checking or editing it.

These CVs will usually be vague, unoriginal, and worse filled with overexaggerations and lies that can get you in trouble. They’re also ridiculously easy to spot and you will likely be rejected instead of accepted through to interview.

AI has and will continue to change and completely reinvent what it is like to work, write, and create – embrace this tool and use it well.