AI Generated Resumes Love “Easter eggs”

Undercover Recruiter estimates that over 100 million resumes were sent out last year. And, while I can’t say for sure – I can pretty much guarantee they all looked similar and most were written by people. An AI generated resume would have access to an enormous amount of data and may not require input from the job seeker. Assuming all the privacy issues were worked out, think of all the “Easter eggs” you have left behind. Data could be pulled from a wide range of social media, financial transactions and online browsing history to name a few sources. The resulting resume might look like the graphic above with the job seeker having no chance to shape their response to the job posting.

Many resumes have an Executive Summary; how AI interprets everything relative to the attributes a recruiting company desires is where it gets interesting. Based on the small sampling of data included in the “resume” above, an AI generated Executive Summary might read as follows. And since I did not write it, my immediate question would be, “Is it accurate”?

AI generated resumes would be more “accurate” than our hand typed version used today. Ok… so I did write the Executive Summary above and I could not help but summarize my digital footprint with a a bit of Pollyannaism that comes with being human. The underlying data is accurate, and I hope (but can’t guarantee) that AI would draw the same conclusions.

Considering that my first resume included “Fluent in Spanish”. Oye espara un minuto… I know what you are thinking... With three years of high school Spanish and having the occasional dream in Spanish, “fluent” was a fair assessment at the time it was written. Not so much today… Maybe the AI resume would give me a little credit for having recently watched the music video “Despacito”.

Would an AI generated resume benefit the job seeker or the prospective employer? This one is definitely an “it depends” scenario. If the AI generated resume is more accurate, then the benefit goes to the Employer. If you have an aggressive online persona and that is not what the company is looking for, then again the benefit goes to the Employer. But those who have worked with data and software know that the quality of the output is only as good as the quality of the input. Having participated in many leadership discussions on what attributes make an excellent employee or even trying to align on the year’s top three business objectives, don’t underestimate what it would take to achieve consensus on desirable traits to load into an AI recruiting engine. The need for diversity and the fact that you never want to surround yourself with people who think exactly like you further complicates how to define the “perfect candidate”.

Prepare today for a job market that may include AI generated resumes. You still need to be true to yourself but think about where you are leaving your “Easter eggs”. Perhaps a bit of curation of your “digital you” is needed as well. Do you remember the “AI resume” helpful hint regarding my 4.82 Uber rider rating? The next time I go for “a night out on the town” with my friends, I will not be the one ordering an Uber. Or at a minimum, I will pay more attention to where I “place the pin” when requesting a ride.

Originally published Jan 2020 on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:6627249791661338624/

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