Of all the hot button topics in HR, AI is easily the most controversial. Like it or not, it has transformed talent attraction and hiring. It has taken over many of the steps that once occupied huge chunks of recruiters and hiring managers’ times, practically doing away with manual CV screening and interview scheduling entirely.
These efficiency gains are undeniable. The question is, however, as to whether or not these efficiency gains have made the process more intelligent or, somewhat paradoxically, more human-oriented.
Welcome or otherwise, AI’s encroachment on hiring has created a new bundle of problems. The process can be mechanical and impersonal to a fault, and increasingly detached from the candidates who companies genuinely want to hire. Meanwhile, jobseekers are hugely frustrated and disillusioned by the paradigm shift. On Reddit forums and message boards, they trade tips to bypass these AI-first systems by inserting invisible prompts in their CVs.
Therein lies a larger problem. CVs and cover letters lose all their meaning when AI is the only one writing and reading them. Now everyone “thrives in fast-paced environments” and “works well in teams.” Hiring is swimming in a sea of sameness that makes it harder to spot genuine potential. Candidates are drowning in it. And, like it or not, more automation cannot and will not be the life raft.
CV blindspots and fair hiring projects
The traditional CV is a static document attempting to represent a dynamic person. It tells you what someone has done in their professional life. It showcases their skills, if not exactly their personality and more ephemeral qualities like curiosity, motivation, and drive.
Everyone talks about moving beyond CVs, but what does that look like? A “show, don’t tell” approach can be a good start. Instead of asking candidates to describe their experience, invite them to demonstrate their creativity and initiative through ideation projects or custom proposals.
Let’s say you’re hiring for an AI-native role that needs to bridge the gaps among product, tech, HR, and marketing teams. This role happens to be heavy on building. Rather than demanding a polished deck filled with corporate-speak, ask your candidates to design an AI project idea that would be relevant to the role and the company at large. You’re looking for big-picture problem-solving and imagination, and an ambitious project idea proposal will convey that better than a deck ever could.
You don’t need proof they can build or automate, after all. If you’re hiring for this role, you’ve presumably already narrowed down the candidate pool to people who are demonstrably capable of automating a process. You saw this based on their CV alone. Now you need them to prove not the know-how but the imagination to come up with things to build in the first place.
By keeping these hiring projects focused on the ideation and description stages, you’re also being reasonable. Candidates are not there to do unpaid work for you, and it’s unfair to ask for hugely involved hiring projects. The idea is to see their vision and get a sense of their resourcefulness, not pump them for free labor.
AI should be used in recruitment, but not in lieu of recruiters
There’s a lot of hype about AI replacing recruiters. This shouldn’t even be a goal. AI is there to support the process rather than to decide outcomes. If we’re surrendering our better judgement to the machines, we’ve already lost.
Recruiters and hiring managers are still the stars of the show and AI should be managing things behind the scenes. Use AI to summarise notes and automate logistics, thus freeing up time for real conversations. Use it to personalise outreach and feedback, so communication always feels authentic and on-brand. Use it to speed up early screening, so we can respond to candidates more quickly. Do not use it to make the final decision on a down-to-the-wire competitive hire.
To that end, don’t use it to even rank candidates or predict “fit.” AI doesn’t work at your company or go to lunch with your colleagues, and no amount of quantification can make culture and connection hackable by algorithm. It’s there for the repetitive work so we can do the meaningful work. If you’ve used AI to free yourself from the most human aspects of recruiting, then what’s the point?
Designing a better candidate experience with AI
Recruitment is a candidate’s first real encounter with a company’s culture, and every initial interaction matters. Used thoughtfully, AI can help also make those interactions smoother and more personal.
Generative AI integrated into communication workflows is one way to do this. It gives an individual quality to correspondence that were once a series of cold, copy-paste messages. The AI can tailor messages to candidates using publicly available data, such as professional interests and projects pulled from their LinkedIn. This conveys curiosity and respect from the first contact.
On top of it all are straightforward practical improvements. Smart scheduling tools cut down the endless back-and-forth of finding interview slots. AI-generated summaries of applications allow recruiters to digest information faster and respond more thoughtfully. Feedback, arguably the most difficult part and often the weakest link in hiring, can be improved by AI. GenAI is able to write constructive responses that go well beyond “thanks but no thanks” templates that are functionally useless and dispiriting to rejected candidates.
Candidates are people, and people deserve to feel respected rather than processed through a system where they never had a chance. When a rejected candidate leaves the process feeling respected, that’s a success in and of itself.
Responsible AI use will keep humans in charge
In any industry, AI should be used not to replace human judgement but enhance it. Humans inspect culture fit and always make the final call. AI isn’t a co-pilot. It’s a full-fledged team of mechanics, doing the grunt work so the hiring plane flies smoothly and rapidly to its destination. It provides the fuel, but it never takes the controls.
Whether it’s AI or otherwise, the same questions should be asked with the introduction of every new tool to the hiring process. Does this make the experience more transparent for candidates? Does it reduce bias or risk amplifying it? Does it create space for recruiters to make better connections with more people? If the answer isn’t yes to all, then it shouldn’t be implemented until the right tweaks are made.
The point and promise of AI in HR is not to hire faster. If you hire the wrong candidates faster, you’ve only set your company further back. The point is to hire better—which can and does happen when recruiters are freed from the repetitive work and rededicate that time to working directly with candidates. Talent discovery happens in conversation, not via a quick scan of a CV.
Genuine human interactions between candidates and recruiters cannot be the price of AI-improved efficiency. This technology shouldn’t be a gatekeeper but a superhighway to get to the smartest and best hires. And ultimately, the future of recruitment (and the best talent) will belong to companies that understand this.
With over 20 years of international HR experience, Alessandro has held senior roles at AWS, Booking.com, and American Express, specializing in talent development, organizational design, and building inclusive, high-performing teams in fast-scaling environments.
