Demystifying AI in the Job Search and Hiring Process - Transcript of Live Event

We recently had a conversation about AI in the job search and hiring process. The hosts of this conversation are Lori Golden and Molly Wheaton. We discussed a few hot topics in the space, including: 

1️⃣ How AI is used in the hiring process + implications for job seekers, recruiters and hiring managers. 

2️⃣ How job seekers are using AI in their searches...is using AI considered "cheating" in the job search? 

You can read the transcript below or click here to watch a recording of the event.

00:00 Thank you to everybody for being here today. Um, I’ll do a quick intro on like why we’re here and then, uh, quick intro of myself and then as well as Lori, and then we’ll dive into some questions.
00:13 Um, we will also read the Q&A. We might not be up to date on it in real time. So we’ll definitely check it at the end.
00:21 But if we don’t respond to your comment immediately, know that we will get to it. Um, okay. So why we’re here.
00:27 We are talking about AI in the hiring process and the job search questions we get asked common misconceptions. We see hot topics being discussed and just trying to debunk some of the myths out there and provide inputs from our perspectives.
00:46 So Lori, do you want to introduce yourself first and then I’ll go and kick us off with the first question?
00:51 Sure, sure. I’m Lori Golden. I am about a 25 year veteran in recruiting and talent acquisition. I’ve been primarily lodged in the tech startup space scaling, really interesting disruptive companies.
01:06 And now for about the last year, year and a half, I’ve been building the Rebel HR, a small community of other talent leaders and senior talent professionals who are looking to shape shift and and and level up as well as some who are in-house right now and looking to add intelligent friction to the top
01:24 of the funnel to deal with all the applicant. So that’s me and I’m excited to see all of you. Awesome.
01:31 Thanks Lori. My name is Molly Wheaton. I’m a co-founder at Earnbetter. We are a company that uses AI to help folks in the job search.
01:42 Before that, I worked at a couple different tech startups, mostly in operations, most recently one in the labor space, specifically for energy companies and I met Lori probably eight or nine months ago and we’ve just been touched and have had great conversations and you know decided something like this
02:04 would be helpful for the community. So hope you guys enjoy and I’ll kick us off with the first question which Lori will take point on and that one is how is AI being used in the hiring process and like kind of a part to what are the implications for the various actors?
02:23 So recruiters, hiring managers, jobs totally. Well, I can tell you for let’s start with saying and the reason I love doing these models is because, you know, I spend a lot of time out there in the comments, people see me out there in the comments trying to like, you know, really clarify some of the misconceptions
02:42 . But it’s hard in the comments to add the kind of context and nuance that is required for this. So I’m super excited to do that here.
02:49 For one, I want to say that everything that companies are adding right now in the hiring process is a reaction to a lot of challenging moving parts, one of which is unprecedented applicant volume for roles.
03:08 I’ve heard story after story of people getting 1,000 job applicants for one role. they posted the role, they went to bed, they woke up in the morning, and the rest, that was an applicant.
03:22 So knowing that recruiting teams are operating very lean right now, and there’s a bandwidth issue, and the processes were never built to handle that kind of volume to begin with is where we end up with companies basically experimenting with new AI technology to try and offset some of this.
03:44 So it’s really an effect of the cause of AI mass supply. So I mean, there are good ways. There are good versions of AI to add that top of funnel.
03:56 And then there are some very, there’s some challenging tools as well that job seekers are specifically being turned off by.
04:05 So I want to just say that the friction at the top of the funnel is necessary, generally speaking. but applying the right friction, intelligent friction that isn’t going to alienate your target audience and talent pool, that’s the harder part, okay?
04:25 And I do believe eventually companies will get there but what we’re going through is a very uncomfortable, transitionary period, okay?
04:32 So people are saying let’s use one specific use case that I see a lot and that is what people are calling one-way interviews, okay?
04:42 So one-way interviews, and there are many different iterations of a one-way interview, okay? Some companies are just asking for a 60-second video and send it.
04:53 That’s not really a one-way interview, although it is all being conflated into that category. But many of these are platforms, they’re AI platforms, where you’re being asked very specific questions, not so dissimilar to the types of like textbook questions that we’re now finding in the applications, 
05:14 right? Tell me why you want to work for this company or tell me about a time when you had to strategically blah, blah, blah, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter.
05:22 But this technology is now allowing us to basically review more people in the process, okay? So the initial mindset around job seekers is it’s impersonal I get it it’s impersonal there’s not a person it’s cold it’s awkward it feels uncomfortable I completely understand doing this me being on video was
05:49 super uncomfortable two years ago I’ve just gotten over it so I understand like anything new and especially seeing yourself and hearing yourself on video can be a little challenging and uncomfortable.
06:01 But let me explain what is really driving this and why you should maybe reconsider how you see it and your willingness to engage with it.
06:11 Okay. If I get a thousand applicants for one job, top of fun. We’re talking top of fun. I’ll know you’ve not talked to anybody.
06:19 I’ve not talked to anybody. Thousand. I can do so. There is some AI right now being used for ranking and scoring.
06:27 It’s not not just keywords, but it’s a lot of algorithmic minutia in the background that says, these people are the top 20% of all your applicants or whatever.
06:39 And then as a recruiter, I can choose to review those 20% or if my policy aligns or whatever the case may be, I can go through all of them anyway.
06:48 And I can tell you, personally, I would definitely test the ranking before I trusted it to just you. But either way, that exists and you guys should know that.
06:58 But if I have 1000 applicants and say I can get down to 100 qualified candidates, that’s a lot of qualified candidates.
07:08 In this job market with a lot of people, great, wonderful, talented, wonderful people who’ve been laid off, there’s a lot of great qualified candidates looking for work.
07:19 So out of a thousand, ten percent being actually qualified is not, it’s not crazy. But how am I going to get, how do I decide who the interview of those hundred candidates?
07:31 I cannot schedule and set up a hundred phone screens. That’s ridiculous. Nobody can do that. What I can do, though, is send out another ask.
07:43 And that’s where this kind of one-way interview comes into play. Okay, this would be the alternative, okay? So people think that that one way interview is replacing a human step in the process.
07:55 It is not, the human steps still exist, a little lower down the funnel. This is replacing you being qualified in or out without any chance to do anything about it.
08:10 Without being able to weigh in and say a little more, that’s what this replaces. Yeah. So the willingness to like really like engage with that.
08:21 First of all, great way to stand out right now with like 50% or better people are automatically like if they asked me to do something I’m not doing it.
08:30 If I they want me to do a one way interview or video myself, I’m not doing it. Well, that automatically helps you with this overly competitive market if you are willing to do it, right?
08:41 It’s like practice like anything else. You can get, you know, there are many, many people who are very uncomfortable showing up to an in-person interview or an on-video interview with a human.
08:52 So like discomfort in interviews is not new nor is it like a benchmark that’s super relevant, right? anything you learn and practice doing you can get comfortable with.
09:05 But right now understanding why it’s being put in place and what it’s actually adding to the process, not replacing in the process, is I think really helpful for people to understand.
09:18 There may be some areas of bias or discrimination or things like that I don’t know. I don’t know. Is it more biased than a person?
09:29 Probably not. People trained these LLMs in the SAI so is it more biased than people or is it just the same bias as people?
09:40 At least it’s objective because here’s the thing. AI reviewing your answers or your resume is going to be reviewing from the same baseline all the time.
09:56 Whereas me, I could look at your resume this morning when I’m high energy and push you forward. Or I could review your resume tomorrow after a really long day at like five o’clock at night and not see what I saw today when I’m in my energetic space and miss you because of that.
10:14 And reject you. That’s the reality of human, right? So like when we call AI biased, I mean, we all are great like it’s more but it’s not adding more bias to the process.
10:27 Let’s get honest about that, right? Well, and to your point, starting you know, going from a thousand candidates to a hundred that are qualified and you know, talking through these, you know, AI sorting and kind of ranking tools, they’ll at least be able to get through reviewing each of those and getting
10:47 everybody like an equal shot at being reviewed. Now we won’t talk about, you know, what algorithms based on and how exactly they’re measuring folks, but recruiters a lot of times are overwhelmed and you know, don’t have a ton of time on their hands and they might not even be able to get to all hundred
11:03 of those candidates or by the end of the stack they’re like, you know, starting to get, you know, mentally drained, whatever.
11:10 So it’s, you know, Neither one is perfect, but it is helpful for folks to understand like what’s happening and kind of driving these.
11:18 Absolutely. And I really encourage people to try it out. So one thing that I offer is like a mock AI interview.
11:26 Like I send you the link, you do the one way interview and then I’ll review it with you. That will never happen in the in the wild, right?
11:34 No one’s going to review your results of your interview with you, but I will as an offering, right? like so you this isn’t like you’re gonna fully understand all of what’s in the black box and the algorithm and all that but it’s a way to make you more comfortable.
11:50 I stand firm on the fact that all new things start out as uncomfortable. Yeah that it is on us to adapt and shift and do our part to understand it enough to navigate it.
12:05 You don’t have to love it you just have to be able to navigated. Think of the opportunities that you’re going to open yourself up to if you’re willing to and comfortable doing a thing that the majority are not.
12:19 Like there’s a way to get ahead. This is an edge folks. And like I don’t know about you, but an edge right now sounds really useful in this market.
12:28 Yeah, totally. All right, it’s it’s 45. So 15 minutes. Should we move on to topic two? Well, let me grab a question or two and then we can hop into question two.
12:40 Is that cool? Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s see. I mean, I can like high level summary talk about like what kinds of things are ranking space on, but here’s the thing you also should know folks.
12:58 Each of these platforms, the actual differentiator of each of these tools and platforms is within their intellectual property, which is their algorithm.
13:09 The algorithm, none of us have access to the details of what are being put, it’s all the things. It’s the kinds of companies you’ve worked for, the educational background you have, kind of what did your progression over your career look like your growth trajectory?
13:27 Have you been promoted in multiple positions? There are a lot of signals on a resume that the average person doesn’t think about or even, you know, consider, but those are the kinds of things that we’re looking for and then it’s been replicated by AI.
13:41 Now, yeah, you probably know more about how what works and how it goes down inside of the Black Box for sure.
13:49 Well, yeah, and I I think there’s just plus one to what you were saying, Lori. It will, then again, it depends on how the algorithm has been trained and what it’s looking for.
13:59 But if the job description is calling for a certain number of years of experience or they’re looking for folks that have worked at a financial services company or health care tech or whatever it might be, the AI is basically going to parse through the resumes and look for those types of experiences or
14:15 skill sets or maybe it’s experience with certain systems or software tools, it really depends on how it’s been built, but it’s more holistic than a lot of folks that are doing like just you know keywords, searches, and an ATS, it might just be like Salesforce, and then you only pop up if your resume 
14:34 has that keyword or term in it. So it’s typically a little bit more holistic than that, but yeah, that’s, that’s what I mean.
14:42 And intuitive as well, like it’s, I can tell you that, and I’ve given a little feedback to a lot of people on these platforms and the best ones are the ones that allow the recruiter to say like yeah that was a bad like that’s not a great match or you know like we are part of training the algo to be better
15:02 to be able to better align so while it’s really bad right now the good news is all these platforms have deep machine learning capabilities and over time if they keep the same recruiting stuff in place for five minutes, which company should.
15:19 Then they will, these machines will get trained, they will get better. Remember everybody, when we first gots, okay, so I probably have the people listening, don’t remember when cell phones were introduced.
15:30 But I’ll tell you about that day, these things were like bricks, they were like 20 pounds, it was, and it was about $100 a second.
15:37 And I mean, you know, like it was really bad. but they got great fast. The iterative process of that technology was mind-blowing and now we have full computers like in our pockets all the time.
15:52 Now, if you had asked me, you know, 40 years ago or whatever, when I saw the first, like, you know, brick, if I thought that this was possible or that we were gonna get to something that, I would have laughed, but like here we are, AI is going to get better.
16:08 A.I. is not going to replace you, but it might replace you if you don’t learn how to adapt to it.
16:15 Yeah, I agree with that. I think that’s a good segue to the next part of this. Yeah, so the next part is, well, we’re digging in basically on how job seekers now are using A.I.
16:30 in the process. There are several different types of ways that we’re seeing job seekers using A.I. And they’re not all equal, but again, often are clumped and conflated together much like on the recruiter side of things.
16:45 So Molly’s going to dive in a little bit on what some of those different use cases look like. And some that are better than others.
16:52 I mean, like, I’ve loud out there about my disdain around lazy apply. That’s any AI mass apply. I call it lazy apply.
17:00 There’s actually a company called lazy apply. But, you know, we’re going to talk about the difference between that and other much better ways to use AI.
17:11 Yeah. And yeah, I think just to kick it off, like job seekers are using AI in a lot of different ways.
17:18 You know, like from updating resumes, defining jobs to apply for, prepping for interviews, you know, figuring out how to price themselves in negotiation conversations.
17:27 kind of the whole nine yards and just like anything all about people using technology to help themselves. If it can help you be more effective, save you time, you know, do your job better, be more creative, whatever it might be.
17:43 Also a proponent of, you know, doing the right thing and being ethical and responsible and how you’re applying technology to whatever you’re doing, you know, one thing I’m often asked before I hop into like the good and bad use cases are like is AI considered cheating in the job search?
18:00 Like should job seekers be using AI? I do not think it is cheating. I could go out there and pay, I could hire a resume writer, or a career coach, or I could, you know, ask Laurie.
18:12 Like can you give me feedback on my resume or my job search approach? Nobody would bat an I, or judge me for that.
18:18 And AI is doing something similar, but making it accessible to more people. So if that folks that can’t afford necessarily to hire a resume writer or a career coach.
18:28 So as long as people are engaging and doing it responsibly, I’m all for it. Obviously, there’s gray areas and we’ll go into a couple of these examples, but I personally think job seekers should be using it to their advantage in a responsible way.
18:45 And on the recruiting side, I’ll just say that especially when we’re recruiting for tech companies and innovative environments. We want to see good use of the tools that are available to you, but you have to also understand good use of the technology available to you means adding your own voice and style
19:04 or editing it, just proofreading it. Everybody’s heard of the Pfizer, banana, keyword, job description, like game, I guess people think it’s a game, but that’s to catch people who aren’t using it responsibly, they’re not proofreading.
19:22 They would notice the word banana in the middle of their resume if they looked at what they submitted before they submitted it.
19:28 So again, that kind of understanding, it’s all about the good use of the tool you know we’re looking for, not that you use the tool.
19:38 Totally. Use it as a baseline. I mean I personally would be a lot less productive in my everyday life if I didn’t use AI but you shouldn’t rely on the output would be you know you’re your final deliverable.
19:52 So a good use case in my opinion so like using AI to prepare for an interview I do not mean having a tool that answers the questions for you in real time which I know that exists.
20:07 It’s a real thing right now. I mean, like helping you to do research on the company, figure out what questions to anticipate, practicing those questions ahead of time.
20:19 So you’re, you know, feeling more comfortable and confident walking into it. And you can do this with a bunch of AI tools.
20:27 Like we offer one at earn better, there’s Google warm up. And just that, just the practicing of it before you walk in is super important.
20:35 And you can work out a lot of kinks. So I think I that’s an example of a good use case.
20:40 There’s plenty more, I think, like, cutting out all of the, you know, manual tasks and like hours of like customizing resumes and cover letters is another great use case.
20:51 And it’s really better, does that awesome. Sorry to interrupt, but Molly’s humble, she’s not gonna say it. Bern better is incredible for adding that.
20:59 You can bring your own job description and your resume and it’ll not rewrite your whole resume, but it’ll add like very cleverly the missing keywords and the missing points.
21:10 I know Chanel asked about this. Go check out Earn Better. It’s like anyway back to Molly. Thank you. I appreciate it.
21:19 And yeah, so I think for our bad use case and there’s plenty of these as well. Like Lori touched on one with the easy applies, which I tend to agree that that’s just pumping a lot more noise into the system.
21:31 I understand why a frustrated job seeker might turn to that. I just don’t think that’s ultimately, you know, gonna be the solution for both sides here.
21:40 But another bad use case would be, you know, if I tried to falsify my background or experience and, you know, I went into Chachi BT and said, write a resume for me to help me land this software engineering job at Apple or Google.
21:56 You know, I have zero experience in that. So yes, I could use AI to help me, you know, try to stand out if I wanted to apply for that job, that’s messed up, not right, unethical, and you know, similar situation if I tried to use AI to cheat my way through an assessment or an interview.
22:14 But like I truly believe bad actors will get smoked out and people could also do these things with or without AI.
22:23 AI can make it easier to do it, but it’s really more about like there’s good actors and there’s bad actors.
22:31 And AI can serve bad purposes if people don’t have, you know, the best intentions, but there are plenty of people out there using it in the right ways to help themselves, you know, be more efficient, be more effective and I’m definitely a proponent of that.
22:47 Yeah, totally. Listen, the same integrity that you would apply prior to AI should be applied with AI if not maybe a little more.
22:56 But yeah, it’s no different, just like Molly said, the bad actors are gonna find a way to cheat, lie, and steal regardless of where we are in our technology journey, and that really shouldn’t be the biggest concern.
23:13 Sure, it’s an uptick and scams and weird stuff, but again, I’m all for people just focusing on how you can leverage what is to have better results for you.
23:25 That’s really what this is about, right? We can argue all day long about right, wrong, philosophical, pontifications about AI and blah, blah, but like, what has that to do with you need a job?
23:38 This is what’s going on in the market, and how can you best navigate and leverage it while keeping your mental health intact?
23:46 The other really downside of like the AI mass apply, which I call all things lazy apply, I’m not to be mistaken with easy apply on LinkedIn.
23:55 It isn’t a little different. I’m talking about standalone platforms that you go to that apply for 100 jobs a day on your behalf without your knowledge.
24:04 And that’s the real thing that people are doing. So, you know, like the think of the uptick and rejection you’re gonna get.
24:12 That’s like inherently like just all that built in additional unnecessary rejection. You’re gonna get plenty of rejection in any job search.
24:22 probably not adding more. I’m all for having a very high targeted search and you can even use AI well in a targeted search.
24:31 So yeah, totally. Plus one on that. All right, so we have a couple minutes, should we take a few more questions?
24:40 Yeah, Chanel, I really go check out Earn Better. What I like about Earn Better and not just because Molly’s here and that’s her tool is because, and though honestly, like this wasn’t even about earned better, this conversation, I just happen to really like it.
24:52 What I like about it is it’s free for job seekers. I like it that if you bring a job description or if you find a job through their platform either way, it’ll customize your resume to that job, it’ll also give you a custom cover letter and it’ll give you follow-up emails around that specific role and
25:10 opportunity like these are incredible tools all free for you. Go check them out. Like There aren’t a lot of really fantastic platforms that don’t over do the AI invasiveness, like the lazy apply stuff, but this one is like the perfect combination of supporting you without taking over your job search.
25:33 So earn better go check it out for sure. And the other platforms can also be used, like I like pulling an interview prep guide and I don’t know if earn better has this it may.
25:45 But that’s something that I have created through a chat GPT. If you upload the job description and what I like doing is telling it to explain the job to me like in layman’s terms or like I’m a kindergartener.
25:58 And it literally, because you know, job descriptions are full of fluff. It like extracts all the fluff and it’s like this is the job.
26:05 Like core bones job. It’s really like cool. Yeah, and my answer about like AI tools out there that I use, I mean, it’s kind of vanilla, but I do use jet GPT the most and like every day that I like a lot for text image creation is mid-journey.
26:25 I do a lot of our content. So that’s very helpful for me, but that’s pretty niche. I don’t know how helpful I’d be for anybody else depending on their function.
26:34 And then Chanel, your other question about how specific should you be with keywords? You know, this one’s kind of tough because you want to make sure, and this is why one another reason or another is great is because we’ll parse the job description and pull out, you know, the pertinent keywords that 
26:49 are listed. So if Salesforce is listed 10 times, you know, that on your resume, we would prompt you. We’re not just going to add it blindly.
26:56 You have to confirm you have that experience. But your question, I think, is what happens if the recruiter on the other and searches SFDC, which is the acronym for Salesforce, will the ATS be able to connect the dots on that?
27:10 And from my understanding, and Lori correct me if I’m mistaken, but I think there are some ATSs that can make that connection, but for the most part, they probably can’t.
27:20 And so at that point, you’re kind of how granular you get with keywords on your resume, you don’t want to drive yourself crazy and spend an hour on every single resume because that’s just not, there’s not enough time to be.
27:32 If you’re doing that, you’re probably not a fit, sorry to say. Yeah, like just look at, look at the job description, figure out what the, you know, from there, what are the five to ten things that are the most important?
27:44 Are those represented in your JD? I mean, sorry, in your resume? Yes or no, if you have them, add them.
27:51 But yeah, I wouldn’t spend too too much time going for like the exact word to word, because that will drive you crazy.
27:58 I want to address real quick, AI does not understand what ethics and integrity means. No, because it’s tech, it’s not sentient, and it doesn’t have to.
28:08 We do. We’re the ones using it. It isn’t using itself, right? We’re not there yet, and hopefully not close to that.
28:16 But we’re still guiding the usage of AI. Our integrity has never been more important than it is in 2024 and going forward.
28:27 So, like, really remember responsibility lies within each of us as a human being part of the collective. Yeah. That’s what I’ll put.
28:40 What are the most innovative ways to prepare for an interview using AI? So look, I haven’t seen this offered, but this is a great way to plug myself on our way out here.
28:50 Like, I am offering, I’m calling it the AI Black Box interview. If you know you have an interview coming up, or you know that there’s a likelihood that you will face a one-way AI interview at some point in the future, which we all eventually will.
29:06 If you are curious enough about it and want to try your hand, I will, you know, we can book that, book that with me on my booking, and I will basically send you the link.
29:16 You send me the job that represents your target job. I send you the link created for that job specifically. You do the interview on your own.
29:27 It takes under 15 minutes and you just click a button. You don’t have to record anything in your own technology.
29:33 It’s all built into the platform, super easy to use. And then I will get the report back and then we’ll get on a call and I will show you what recruiters and hiring leaders will see about you, how they’re using this technology so that you can get comfortable and I’ll give you feedback on it and like 
29:50 coach you around how to better come across on an AI interview. But it’s a great opportunity. I mean, I’m not even saying I love the idea of it or that I would want to implement it in my process, but it’s a reality of where we’re going in tech.
30:07 So I do always believe we should try it out and navigate it. There are people who say they hate one way interviews and then I ask, well, have you ever done one?
30:16 And they say no. So again, And it’s like, I hate broccoli. Cool, have you ever tried broccoli? No, okay. I’m here to introduce broccoli.
30:25 So, let me know if you want to try some broccoli. I love it. And yeah, I definitely recommend checking out Lori as a resource.
30:34 We have some interview prep materials on earn better as well, they’re also free. You can get an interview guide, which is basically two pages of information on the company, questions to anticipate, questions you could potentially ask and then we do what we also do mock interviews with AI so you answer
30:52 a couple questions and get feedback and it’s all tailored to the job and the company that you’re applying for so I think at the end of the day the most important thing is to do your research and prepare before going into an interview.
31:05 There’s a plethora of tools out there that can help you and if anybody wants to chat more about that I’m sure Lori or myself would be interested in providing more intel there.
31:14 Absolutely absolutely any other questions we can grab real quick right now. I’m looking through one person saying that they get three job offers a day which is incredible.
31:34 I think that’s not the norm for most people. So yeah, I would say do a do a do a happy dance and call yourself lucky.
31:44 Yeah. Um, I think we got to the rest of it. Yeah. Hey, listen, if you’re if you already found something and you’re getting like lots of now traction in your job search, but you already landed, go find people in your network like you pass those things on.
32:01 Yeah, cheer the love. Right. Like it’s rough out here. We need to help each other. Support and community is like, you know, everything right now.
32:08 So help people out. I find the best way when I’m struggling with anything is to get out of my problem and into solving someone else’s and man, it does wonders for me.
32:18 I love that. Yeah. So this was awesome. This was great. Thank you, Laurie. Thank you, Molly. I’ll do it anytime we can chop up this stuff anytime I love it.
32:30 And if anybody has feedback, I think we want to see less of more of If we do a future one topics you’d want us to cover questions, let us know.
32:39 Otherwise, happy Tuesday, and I hope everybody has a good rest of their week. Happy Tuesday.