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About half of all job seekers are using artificial intelligence tools to apply for roles, inundating employers and recruiters with low-quality applications in an already squeezed labour market.
Candidates are turning increasingly to generative AI -- the type used in chatbot products such as ChatGPT and Gemini to produce conversational passages of text -- to assist them in writing their CVs, cover letters and completing assessments.
Estimates from employers and recruiters who spoke to the Financial Times, as well as multiple published surveys, have suggested the figure is as high as 50 per cent of applicants.
A "barrage" of AI-powered applications had led to more than double the number of candidates per job while the "barrier to entry is lower", said Khyati Sundaram, chief executive of Applied, a recruitment platform.
"We're definitely seeing higher volume and lower quality, which means it is harder to sift through," she added. "A candidate can copy and paste any application question into ChatGPT, and then can copy and paste that back into that application form."
In recent months, recruiters have received more applications for each job because labour markets on both sides of the Atlantic have weakened. Employers need to fill fewer vacancies, and more people are job-hunting after being made redundant.
Longer-term trends, such as the rise of online job boards that make openings visible to a broader pool of potential candidates and make applying easy, have already boosted the number of applications.
About 46 per cent of job hunters are using generative AI to search and apply for posts, according to a survey of 2,500 UK workers from HR start-up Beamery. In a separate poll of 5,000 global job seekers by creative platform Canva, 45 per cent had used generative AI to build or improve their CVs.
"We are seeing increased use of AI," said Andy Heyes, regional managing director for the UK-headquartered tech recruiter Harvey Nash, adding that "tell-tale signs [like] American grammar", and "bland" applications gave "an indication of whether candidates have used AI".
Many recruiters are now contending with large volumes of AI-generated CVs from candidates who have used the tools to polish their personal statements and add key search words. The actual figures could be higher, some added, but these estimates are based on those that are obviously detected, usually because they have been cut and pasted without editing.
"Without proper editing, the language will be clunky and generic, and hiring managers can detect this," said Victoria McLean, chief executive of career consultancy CityCV. "CVs need to show the candidate's personality, their passions, their story, and that is something AI simply can't do."
Many large employers have a zero-tolerance attitude towards the use of AI, according to multiple people with knowledge of their processes. The Big Four accountants -- Deloitte, EY, PwC and KPMG -- have warned graduates against using AI in their applications.
An increasing number of candidates are also using generative AI to cheat on recruitment assessments.
"Over the last 18 months, I have seen the most significant level of turmoil on the employer side that has ever existed," said Jamie Betts, founder and chief product officer at Neurosight, a consultancy that advises companies including Virgin Media, Grant Thornton and the NHS on psychometric testing.
Betts highlighted the early careers sector, where applicants tend to be younger and "highly adept" at using advanced generative AI and "able to avoid detection".
Neurosight, in a recent survey of 1,500 student jobseekers, found that 57 per cent had used ChatGPT to support job applications.
It also discovered that those who used the free version of ChatGPT were less likely to pass psychometric tests, while those who used the paid-for version were highly likely to.
The one-quarter of job seekers who paid for ChatGPT passed "with flying colours", Betts said, and are "overwhelmingly those from higher socio-economic backgrounds, male applicants, non-disabled, mostly white because there's a correlation with socio-economic status".
Many employers and recruiters are hopeful that, if a candidate has cheated or lied in the process, the final in-person or virtual job interview will catch them out.
"Candidates are becoming quite lazy about how they stand out in the job market, so they just turn to generative AI to give an inflated version of their actual experience," said Ross Crook, a global managing director at recruitment agency Morgan McKinley.
"Everything is being automated at the moment as much as possible, but . . . there is always going to be the need for human-to-human interaction before final selection."
