As artificial intelligence becomes deeply embedded in hiring, job seekers face a clear dilemma: How much AI help is useful—and how much crosses the line into sounding generic, inauthentic, or even dishonest?
Conflicting advice is everywhere. Some career coaches urge candidates to lean on tools like ChatGPT for resumes and cover letters. At the same time, many recruiters report fatigue with applications that feel mass-produced by AI. A Gartner survey of nearly 3,300 applicants found that almost 40% used AI during the application process. Of those, more than half generated resume or cover-letter text with it.
To cut through the noise, three experts in AI, talent, and the future of work shared practical guidance on where AI helps and where it hurts.
Use AI as a Research Assistant and Editor—Not a Ghostwriter
Brian Elliott, future-of-work strategist and CEO of Work Forward (and a former Google and Slack executive), says he would turn to AI first for deep company research. It can quickly surface what a company does, the kinds of people it hires, the nature of the work, and how it supports employee growth and skills development—information that once took hours to gather.
Margaret Burke, Principal and Talent Acquisition & Development Leader at PwC, offers similar advice even to her own children. AI can tighten a resume and strengthen a cover letter, she says, but the voice and experiences must remain the candidate’s own. She also values AI for rapid company research, interview-question preparation, and understanding how current market conditions affect a target employer.
Her biggest “don’t”: using AI during the interview itself. Real conversations require genuine examples from a candidate’s own experience. AI-polished answers often come across as sterile, and interviewers detect the difference quickly.
Think in Terms of “Apprentice Mode” vs. “Productivity Mode”
Clara Shih, founder and executive director of the New Work Foundation (and former Head of Business AI at Meta), frames the issue around learning stages.
In “apprentice mode”—when someone is new to writing cover letters, coding, or another skill—AI can serve as an excellent coach. It can review a draft, highlight strengths, and suggest improvements. The key is that the person still does the work and learns through the process. Delegating the entire learning phase to AI is a mistake, especially for early-career professionals.
Only after someone has enough experience to evaluate, critique, and improve AI output should they shift into “productivity mode.” At that point, AI becomes a time-saving tool rather than a substitute for foundational skills.
Practical Guidelines
Do use AI to:
- Research companies, their culture, recent performance, and market challenges
- Generate suggestions for improving grammar, structure, and clarity in materials you wrote yourself
- Prepare for interviews by exploring likely questions and industry context
Don’t use AI to:
- Fully write your resume or cover letter
- Generate writing samples or assessment answers
- Script or deliver interview responses
The underlying principle is consistent across the three experts: AI works best as a powerful assistant that amplifies your own thinking, research, and voice. When it replaces those elements, it often creates applications that feel hollow—and that can undermine both the hiring process and the candidate’s long-term success.
In today’s job market, the candidates who stand out are those who use the technology thoughtfully while remaining unmistakably human.