Resumes aren’t the full story
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I spent years getting human experience to build a resume, only for AI to take a one-second look at it and reject me from the job. A robot shouldn’t evaluate the amount of time and effort it took to get this far. Leaving AI as the deciding factor in whether I get the job takes away the whole purpose of applying in the first place.
I spend hours rereading my cover letter and adjusting my resume for the internship or job I am applying to. I take extra precaution on what the classes and experiences I’ve listed are, making sure they are in the right order, what font size I should use and which specific jobs I want to highlight. A great deal of thought and preparation goes into tailoring my resume for the specific position I’m applying for, and I think I deserve an equal amount of consideration.
Over 50% of hiring managers today use AI to go over resumes. When I hear the news headlines saying that about 90% of agencies use AI to process job applications, I don’t feel encouraged to apply anymore. How does the amount of time and consideration I put into my resume compute against a split-second overview by an AI machine? And how does that machine decide whether I should move forward in the application process?
AI is not enough, and it doesn’t amount to the human effort I put into my work. Whether I get the job or not is very important to my career and my growth as a person. AI is a shortcut that people have started using, completely dismissing human authenticity and personality. When a human looks at my resume, at least I know there is some emotion and thought behind the decision-making process. I might have a fighting chance. When AI looks at my resume, it might miss something that a hiring manager would consider, therefore sabotaging my opportunity.
2026 is the toughest time to be in the job market because everyone is competing with AI in all different ways. In some cases, AI isn’t just deciding if I get the job — AI just might go ahead and take the job instead. So not only am I fighting with thousands of other applicants, I am now in combat with AI too. With every job listing two to five years of experience and proficiency in a number of skills, having a degree is simply not enough anymore, even though it took four years to earn it. AI has more life experience than my four human years of college work and the extracurriculars that came with it. That shouldn’t be the case.
Hiring managers and employees may argue that there are too many applications to look at. They receive more thouseands of resumes to look at every cycle. It's exhausting, and no one has time or energy for all of that. It’s a competitive market. It's a tough argument. Using AI can make life easy and speed up the process. It can get scary when we start relying too heavily on AI to do our jobs for us. AI doesn’t see authenticity, work ethic and personality; AI doesn’t participate in the deeper evaluation of the hiring process.
A hiring manager is paid to look at applications — that is the job they signed up for. It’s becoming a little hypocritical when agencies write “AI is not permitted at any time during this application process” and then continue to use AI to file applications.
I believe that every student deserves a fighting chance at getting their desired job. I don't trust AI to tell me whether I am qualified for the role. A resume only tells you the surface level of my experience. A resume isn’t always able to showcase my strong work ethic, attention to detail, my level of confidence and my ability to grow and adapt, which would make me a strong employee. AI is just a robot that scans a list of my jobs and skills with no critical thinking.
It's already a long battle to gather all the required experience I need, only to have my resume looked at for merely a few moments by a human being who has seen a thousand others similar to mine. Now that AI is another thing to worry about, many job seekers and I worry about what will happen to our careers.
As we go further into the AI revolution, it’s important we keep in mind that human traits are irreplaceable. AI is smart and fast, but it can never provide an authentic and meaningful human experience. One of the most important skills you can have is knowing how to be a human being with integrity, curiosity and ambition. AI can never take that away from us.