Robots screening robots: Inside the AI arms race reshaping hiring

Good morning! More than half of job candidates are using AI to apply for jobs. Meanwhile, nearly 90% of companies are using AI to screen candidates, overwhelmed by a staggering volume of résumés. So, if both sides are using AI with such regularity, are any humans actually winning here? That’s the question I set out to answer this month as I explored the “AI hiring doom loop”—and what it means for candidates and recruiters alike. Jeremy Schifeling, a career coach who has held roles at Linked In, Khan Academy, and Apple, now teaches job seekers at more than 350 universities how to get past the AI systems filtering them out. His advice? Step away from ChatGPT. Using AI to churn out cover letters or spam application portals simply won’t work, he said. Instead, candidates should think about what a recruiter actually wants to hear, and write a heartfelt, human message that can break through the AI slop. “We got into this AI arms race that no one wins. It’s mutually assured destruction,” he told me. He argued that the real question isn’t how to cram more AI into hiring, but how to use it in ways that actually help companies build stronger, more diverse teams and develop the next generation of talent. But that talent pipeline is already at risk, according to Indeed chief economist Svenja Gudell. “Employers [are] saying, ‘I don’t hire entry-level anymore,’” she said at the Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit last month. “In three to five years from now, you’re not going to have the people with that experience—because you never hired them to begin with.” So how can HR leaders break this AI hiring doom loop? Watch our full video deep dive here. P.S. We’re kicking off our third-annual Fortune COO Summit today, where I’ll be interviewing Lattice CEO Sarah Franklin and Cisco chief people, policy, and purpose officer Fran Katsoudas on how they’re reshaping their org charts in the age of AI. Follow along with us live here. Kristin StollerEditorial Director, Fortune