Artificial intelligence (AI) is all over the place, together with the hiring course of. From candidates utilizing instruments like ChatGPT to apply interviews to recruiters utilizing applicant monitoring techniques (ATS), AI has grow to be a element that requires deft navigation expertise inside these realms. Optimizing your resume is a method to ensure your utility has the perfect likelihood of being thought of, however how have you learnt if it’s actually at its finest?
Nicely, who higher to examine than AI itself?
I dug into the world of AI optimization instruments aimed toward job seekers to find how they might help candidates, the perfect choices out there and the issues to be careful for whereas utilizing them.
What AI job utility checkers can do
Like most expertise, not all AI optimization instruments are created equal. Take into account commonplace phrase processors like Microsoft Phrase, Pages and Google Docs. Every one does the identical fundamental factor, but they differ in how they’re used, what their capabilities are and the way correct sure options like grammar help could be. That is simply as true of AI-powered optimization instruments.
There are tons of choices for utilizing AI to examine the optimization of your job utility supplies, however the ones we examined for this text have been: Weekday, NodeFlair, ResumeGo, MyPerfectResume, SkillSyncer, Enhancv, ResyMatch and Jobscan.
Whereas not common, the commonest fundamental features that AI-optimization instruments provide job seekers embody:
- Resume and canopy letter scoring and optimization suggestions: Helps to determine formatting, key phrases, phrasing and extra to make sure your supplies are as skilled wanting and sounding as they are often. When scoring, many present a quantity out of 100 to indicate how optimized your supplies are at a look.
- Resume match score: Compares your resume to others of an identical job title (as an illustration, an “editor”) or compares it on to the job description of the job you’re making use of for. They’ll additionally provide recommendations for translating your expertise to be extra relevant to the job posting.
- Resume constructing: Offers format templates, transfers information from present resumes and presents different straightforward methods to change your resume over to an ATS-friendly format.
Does rating on an AI checker actually make or break your utility?
Let’s be clear right here: No AI-powered software can assure that you just’ll get employed someplace. They’ll’t even assure a human will see your utility. Whereas it’s true that seven in 10 companies plan to make use of some type of AI inside the hiring course of by the top of 2025, that doesn’t imply {that a} machine is making the ultimate name.
Profession coach Rebecca Henninger notes that “ATS, or applicant monitoring techniques, are actually not more than digital submitting cupboards. They’re the techniques HR and recruiting professionals use to handle the hiring course of, from preliminary consumption by means of interview phases and even for extending presents.”
Russell Ayles, founding father of Etisk, conducted some research of his own into the subject and located that the massive majority of recruiters didn’t have their applicant pile scored or pre-selected by an ATS. When resumes didn’t make it to a human recruiter, it was extra usually to do with sure or no questions (that are a sort of “killer question” or “knockout question”) than something associated to an optimized resume. As an example, knockout questions similar to whether or not you’re approved to work in a specific location or whether or not you meet a fundamental job qualification had far more influence on an utility’s success than key phrase selection.
How a lot do AI checkers value?
The price of utilizing these AI-optimization instruments varies drastically. Some, similar to NodeFlair, promote being fully free. Others, similar to Jobscan, provide a number of free scans monthly, however then add a paywall for extra.
Under is an instance of how a lot a few of these AI-powered utility optimization instruments value monthly on the time of this writing. Although some provide free or discounted charges at the beginning or for a number of scans every month, these charges are what you possibly can count on to pay if you happen to plan to make use of the instruments repeatedly.
Weekday: Free
NodeFlair: Free
ResumeGo: Free to one-time $10 fee
MyPerfectResume: $8 to $24 monthly
SkillSyncer: Free or $12 to $15 monthly
Enhancv: $13 to $25 monthly
ResyMatch (Cultivated Tradition): $14 to $28 monthly
Jobscan: Free to $50 monthly
The key behind the scoring
Whereas the scoring and score techniques will be an attractive strategy to see the place your resume presently stands, you shouldn’t depend on them to inform the entire story. If an organization is making its cash primarily by serving to candidates optimize, reformat or in any other case revise their resume, it’s within the firm’s finest curiosity to say {that a} resume wants a whole lot of assist.
To check out these websites, I used my very own resume and in contrast it throughout a number of the hottest AI checkers. First, I examined an outdated resume that I knew wasn’t optimized effectively for AI, and my optimization scores ranged extensively from 39% to 75%.
Subsequent, I used NodeFlair’s free resume builder to revise my resume to be absolutely up to date and optimized in keeping with the ideas every web site had offered.
Picture: Earlier than and after picture of my resume pre-optimization and post-optimization utilizing NodeFlair’s resume builder. (Contact info has been eliminated at prime.)
From there, I did a closing scan with every web site utilizing the newly optimized resume. With some websites, similar to NodeFlair, these adjustments made an enormous distinction in my rating. I used to be capable of go from 45 to 87 out of 100. Nevertheless, this didn’t essentially translate to a greater job match or a stronger resume optimization rating for the entire websites. A number of the scores remained the identical regardless of my adjustments, whereas others rose however nonetheless had hassle studying key elements of my resume (similar to my contact info).
That stated, on the websites with paywalls, there was a moderately suspicious pattern. Even with the adjustments, I couldn’t get my resume into the “good” space for any of them. For instance, MyPerfectResume initially scored me at 52 and gave the brand new resume a 79, but it surely categorized my optimized resume as merely “common resume energy,” since their “good” score is something above 80.
Picture: Rating on MyPerfectResume earlier than and after making AI-optimization adjustments.
Whereas it’s completely attainable that it was consumer error that saved my resume out of the “good” sections, it was nonetheless reminder to not depend on the optimization checkers completely.
In accordance with Henninger, “Instruments like Jobscan can be utilized, similar to ChatGPT, to assist candidates perceive what the required and desired {qualifications} for a task are, however the scoring function and all the opposite ‘hacks’ do extra hurt than good for jobseekers.”
After testing out the entire instruments talked about above, listed below are a number of suggestions that I like to recommend when utilizing any of them:
- In the event you’re utilizing the scores or score techniques, examine your resume throughout two totally different websites to check.
- The customized recommendations for enchancment are considerably extra helpful than the score itself. As an example, on my resume, each web site agreed I ought to have a abstract, so I knew that was a change that I wanted to make.
- Resume builders are high-quality to make use of, however be cautious of paywalls if you happen to don’t plan to subscribe. Many gained’t allow you to obtain or edit your new resume with out paying, which can imply a complete lot of wasted work.
- Simply because a web site claims one thing is an ATS-friendly format doesn’t imply it’s true. A number of instances websites created columns, added footage, used uncommon fonts and created different parts that may be arduous for an ATS to course of.
- Keep in mind that on the finish of the day, an AI-optimized resume is sweet, however a resume that’s ugly, boring or arduous to learn for human eyes will trigger issues of its personal. AI isn’t hiring you—recruiters are. Make it possible for your utility works for each.
Photograph courtesy of Good Wave/Shutterstock
