Headlines surfaced by a simple “job market” search describe it as “a humiliation ritual” or “hell” and “an emerging crisis for entry-level workers.” The unemployment rate in the US for recent graduates is at an “unusually high” 5.8%—even Harvard Business School graduates have been taking months to find work. Inextricable from this conversation is the complication of AI’s potential to automate entry-level jobs, and as a tool for employers to evaluate applications. But the widespread availability of generative AI platforms begs an overlooked question: How are job seekers themselves using AI?
An interview study with upcoming master’s graduates at an elite UK university* sheds some light. In contrast to popular narratives about “laziness” or “shortcuts,” AI use comes from job seekers trying to strategically tackle the digitally saturated, competitive reality of today’s job market. Here are the main takeaways:
They Use AI to Play an Inevitable Numbers Game
Job seekers described feeling the need to apply to a high volume of jobs because of how rare it is to get a response amid the competition. They send out countless applications on online portals and rarely receive so much as an automated rejection email. As Franco, a 29-year-old communications student put it, particularly with “LinkedIn and job portals” saturating the market, his CV is just one “in a spreadsheet of 2,000 applicants.”
This context underlies how job seekers use AI, which allows them to spend less time on any given application by helping to cater résumés or write cover letters and thus put out more applications. Seoyeon, a 24-year-old communications student, describes how she faced repeated rejections no matter how carefully she crafted the application or how qualified she was.
[Employers] themselves are going to use AI to screen through those applications….And after a few rejections, it really frustrates you because you put in so much effort and time and passion for this one application to learn that it’s just filtered through by some AI….After that, it makes you lean towards, you know what, I’m just gonna put less effort into one application but apply for as many jobs as possible.
Seoyeon went on to say later that she even asks AI to tell her what “keywords” she should have in her application in light of AI in hiring systems.
Her reflection reveals that AI use is not a shortcut, but that it feels like a necessity to deal with the inevitable rejection and AI scanners, especially in light of companies themselves using AI to read applications—making her “passion” feel like a waste.
AI as a Savior to Emotional Labor
The labor of applying to jobs and dealing with constant rejection and little human interaction makes it a deeply emotional process that students describe as “draining” and “torturing,” which illuminates that AI is a way to reduce not just the time of labor but the emotional aspect of it.
Franco felt that having to portray himself as “passionate” for hundreds of jobs that he would not even hear back from was an “emotional toll” that AI helped him manage.
Repeating this process to a hundred job applications, a hundred job positions and having to rewrite a cover letter in a way that sounds like if it was your dream, well I don’t know if you can have a hundred dreams.…I would say that it does have an emotional toll….I think that AI actually helps a lot in terms of, okay, I’m going to help you do this cover letter so you don’t have to mentally feel you’re not going to get the shot.
Using AI thus acted as a buffer for the emotional difficulties of being a job seeker, allowing students to conserve mental energy in a grueling process while still applying to many jobs.
The More Passionate They Are, the Less AI They Use
AI use was not uniform by any means, even though the job application process often requires the same materials. Job seekers had “passion parameters” in place, where they dial down their use for a job that they were more passionate about.
Joseph, a 24-year-old psychology student, put this “human involvement” as “definitely more than 50%” for a role he truly desires, whereas for a less interesting role, it’s about “20%–30%.” He differentiates this by describing how, when passion is involved, he does deep research into the company as opposed to relying on AI’s “summarized, nuanced-lacking information,” and writes the cover letter from scratch—only using AI to be critical of it. In contrast, for less desirable jobs, AI plays a much more generative role in creating the initial draft that he then edits.
This points to the fact that while AI feels important for labor efficiency, students do not use it indiscriminately, especially when passion is involved and they want to put their best foot forward.
They Understand AI’s Flaws (and Work Around Them)
In their own words, students are not heedlessly “copying and pasting” AI-generated materials. They are critical of AI tools and navigate them with their concerns in mind.
Common flaws in AI-generated material include sounding “robotic” and “machine-like,” with some “AI” sounding words including “explore” and “delve into.” Joseph asserted that he can easily tell which one is written by a human, because AI-generated text lacks the “passion and zeal” of someone who is genuinely hungry for the job.
Nandita, a 23-year-old psychology student, shared how AI’s tendency to “put you on a pedestal” came through in misrepresenting facts. When she asked AI to tailor her résumé, it embellished her experience of “a week-long observation in a psychology clinic” into “community service,” which she strongly felt it wasn’t—she surmised this happened because community service was mentioned in the job description she fed AI, and she caught it and corrected it.
Consequently, using AI in the job hunt is not a passive endeavor but requires vigilance and a critical understanding to ensure its flaws do not hurt you as a job seeker.
They Grapple with AI’s Larger Implications
Using AI is not an unconditional endorsement of the technology; all the students were cognizant of (and worried about) its wider social implications.
John, a 24-year-old data science student, drew a distinction between using AI in impersonal processes versus human experiences. While he would use it for “a cover letter” for a job he suspects will be screened by AI anyway, he worries how it will be used in other parts of life.
I think it’s filling in parts of people’s lives that they don’t realize are very fundamental to who they are as humans. One example I’ve always thought of is, if you need it for things like cover letters, [that]s OK] just because it’s something where it’s not very personal.…But if you can’t write a birthday card without using ChatGPT, that’s a problem.
Nandita voiced a similar critique, drawing on her psychology background; while she could see AI helping tasks like “admin work,” she worries about how it would be used for therapy. She argues that an AI therapist would be “100% a Western…thing” and would fail to connect with someone “from the rural area in India.”
The understanding of AI shows that graduates differentiate using it for impersonal processes, like job searching in the digital age, from more human-to-human situations where it poses a threat.
Some Grads Are Opting Out of AI Use
Though most people interviewed were using AI, some rejected it entirely. They voiced similar qualms that AI users had, including sounding “robotic” and not “human.” Julia, a 23-year-old law student, specifically mentioned that her field requires “language and persuasiveness,” with “a human tone” that AI cannot replicate, and that not using it would “set you apart” in job applications.
Mark, a 24-year-old sociology student, acknowledged the same concerns as AI users about a saturated online arms race, but instead of using AI to send out as many applications as possible, had a different strategy in mind: “talking to people in real life.” He described how he once secured a research job through a connection in the smoking area of a pub.
Importantly, these job seekers had similar challenges with the job market as AI users, but they opted for different strategies to handle it that emphasize human connection and voice.
Conclusion
For graduate job seekers, AI use is a layered strategy that is a direct response to the difficulties of the job market. It is not about cutting corners but carefully adapting to current circumstances that require new forms of digital literacy.
Moving away from dialogue framing job seekers as lazy or unable to write their own materials forces us to look at how the system itself can be improved for applicants and companies alike. If employers don’t want AI use, how can they create a process that makes room for human authenticity as opposed to AI-generated materials that sustain the broken cycle of hiring?
*All participant names are pseudonyms.
Log in
