‘Don’t Let AI Write Your Resume’, Career Expert Warns New Grads

New college graduates are having a tough time landing a job, and using AI to game the application process might not improve your chances of getting hired.

New York Federal Reserve data shows that recent college graduates aged 22 to 27 had an unemployment rate of 4.8% compared with 4.0% for all workers.

Chris Martin, a lead researcher for Glassdoor, advises new grads to focus on personal touches and IRL networks—not just ChatGPT—when applying for jobs. Investopedia spoke with Martin about whether companies are replacing young workers with AI, how people can boost their chances of getting hired, and whether AI screening systems are preventing you from getting in front of the recruiter.

Why Graduates Are Having a Tougher Time Finding Jobs

Investopedia: What are some of the reasons why the unemployment rate is higher for recent college graduates than it is for the general population? 

Martin: There are some obvious reasons why it’s harder to get a job today as a new grad than it has been historically, and that’s just related to the downturn in the labor market more generally.

Of course, the elephant in the room is AI. I think it’s too soon to tell from the data whether AI is driving this downturn for new grads in particular. I’m not convinced that it is, and I think it’s because of these other macroeconomic factors, like tariffs or higher interest rates, that are causing companies to slow down hiring.

Investopedia: What can new college grads do to make themselves more competitive in this job market?

Martin: One thing I would say is don’t despair. Hang with it. The people who did graduate in 2008/ 2009 during the financial crisis … were still able to get jobs and make careers for themselves, and I think that’ll be the case with new grads today. While it’s really difficult, people are still getting jobs—you will still get a job [and] have a career. Keep your head up.

It does make sense to widen your aperture. Even if you’re a software engineer or you want to be a financial analyst, you may not need to work for a tech company or an investment bank to get your career started in those fields.

For example, there’s been a lot of growth in jobs in health care over the past couple of years, and health care companies need software engineers and financial analysts. Think broadly about where you could start your career, and don’t get too tied to a particular industry or company as a way to start your career.

This ties in with cities, too. If you really want to go to a city, then look for a broad set of jobs in that city. But it’ll be advantageous for you to think about a broad set of cities as well.

And I’ll give one piece of advice [about what not to] do: don’t let AI write your resume for you because you want [it] to stand out. You want your voice to come through in the resume—and sort of by design, AI doesn’t do that. While I like the idea of using a chatbot to refine your resume or think about what other jobs or career paths you might want to explore, don’t hand over the reins of actually writing your cover letters or resume to large language models—or you’ll end up with a resume that looks like everyone else’s.

One more piece of advice is on this old piece of research about how people actually get jobs—and I don’t think that it’s changed. That’s through this idea of weak ties. It’s like a friend of a friend or like a co-worker of your parents, or someone that you would cross paths occasionally. That’s how people have historically gotten a lot of jobs. That network of weak ties, [or] your broad network, is a good way to get a referral into a company

On Not Giving AI Too Much Power in Your Job Search

Investopedia: Do you think companies use AI to screen applicants at the initial stages? Should workers use AI to get past those systems?

Martin: It’s new in some ways, but it’s old in other ways. Employers have always used automated systems. Since job applications went online and technology was involved, there’s always been some sort of prescreening. Humans don’t typically go through every resume.

That’s why, for example, this network of weak ties is a way to get a referral and make sure that someone actually sees your resume. I personally don’t think that AI is the solution to breaking through AI noise…. If you give it [AI] too much power over your job search, you’ll end up with a job search that feels like it’s driven by AI, which is both going to be less personal to you and, in my opinion, less appealing to a recruiter.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.