Are all AI-generated job applications bad for employers?

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[00:00:28] Welcome to Episode 84 of the High Volume Hiring Podcast. I am one of your two co-hosts. I'm Stephen Rothberg. I'm the founder of College Recruiter Job Search Site, where we believe that every student and recent grad deserves a great career.

[00:00:55] And it should be easy and inexpensive for employers to hire them. And if you notice that I slowed down there, it was deliberate. I realized I was talking very fast and I was talking very fast because I'm really excited about the topic that Jeanette and I are going to be talking about today. But Jeanette, before we get into that, tell people who the heck you are for those who haven't listened to us before. For those who do not know, I am not Wonder Woman. I see my head is actually perfectly positioned for those who are actually looking at the video.

[00:01:23] I'm Jeanette Leeds, HR tech entrepreneur and leader and AI evangelist in the space. And we today are going to be talking about AI and applications. And are all of them equal? Is this good? Is this bad for employers? Like this is a trend and hot topic. So we want to do a special episode like on this topic today. So solve everything in 10 seconds. What are your thoughts?

[00:01:50] Well, like everything else in life, it's not a black or white answer. Yeah. So the answer is, it's like, it depends, right? There's some that I think are really good and some that are not so hot. So yeah, that's a, so let's dive into that. Yeah. So in, in the green room, as anybody who's ever been like, been on TV, radio, podcast, whatever, understands the green room thing. It just means that you just haven't hit the record button yet.

[00:02:17] So in our green room, when you and I were talking before, we were talking about there being like a spectrum, right? And so I think it like one end of the spectrum in my mind would be AI assisted, uh, assistance, like think grammarly spell check. Like, I don't think any employer would care if Jeanette, you're applying to work as a salesperson,

[00:02:42] an electrical engineer, an auto mechanic, whatever that you used grammarly to make sure that you didn't have run on sentences, that you use spell check, an auto complete kind of thing like that. Right. That's one end of the spectrum. To me, the other end of the spectrum is, and you know, cover the ears of the youngsters out there, but the total shit products like lazy apply, like here's my resume or CV.

[00:03:13] Here's 20 bucks. Send out my application to a thousand employers. I don't even know that I'm applying to them. Exactly. I, I, I totally agree. Again, things like those sorts of companies, it's this, you know, I call it what spray and pray, right? Yeah. You're applying to whatever salesperson role. And really maybe what you're looking for is a retail salesperson type of role on, at a store. And these things are just sending out your resume to all sorts of, maybe it's a tech company.

[00:03:42] It's just these inappropriate, unintended kind of applications versus what you were saying, like a grammarly or even, you know, Hey, I need something to help me, you know, make sure my cover letter, if you're, I don't know how many people are using cover letters, or let me edit my resume a bit to make sure it highlights my experience to the actual job. Like that, you know, that's, that's a nice to have. That's a, that's a nice, that that's okay.

[00:04:09] Let, let me use that to assist me as a tool versus like, I don't even know what's happening. Yeah. It's like, so when I was a teenager and I have three older sisters, if I was applying to a job, I could show my application to one of my older sisters. What do you think? In addition to making fun of me for any number of reasons, they probably gave me some good advice. And so that was great. So I, I don't think that the vast majority of employers have any problems with that. Right. It's like, we would expect you to be using spell check when you're sending emails on our behalf,

[00:04:38] when you're writing a document. Right. That's good. Yeah. The other end where the candidate doesn't even know they're applying to a job. I can't think of any employer that would want that. And it's interesting because I was talking to someone, I guess it was last week. And they were saying like, you know, their recruiters are calling up, actually calling up and I assume emailing, reaching out, connecting with candidates who don't even know that they've applied to the jobs, not interested. So you're talking about like, it's an interesting, like, where is the good use of time?

[00:05:06] It's like, and then presumably if they're paying for it. I mean, that's where it's, it's an issue. And I'm glad that you mentioned the, I didn't even know I applied scenario because I hear that too from, from some of our customers. And I hear that going to conferences. I see that on LinkedIn, like every single day, employers are complaining about this. They're right to complain about this. It's a waste of time. I'm not at all convinced that this is AI.

[00:05:34] I think it's just as likely that this is a symptom of, in a lot of cases, hourly employees, high volume roles where the employee, it's like, it's Monday. I need to find a new job. I'm going to go to ZipRecruiter, Indeed, whatever my favorite job is. I'm going to apply to several dozen. And then I'm going to sit back and wait to hear from those employers. And oh, by the way, when I apply to them, I'm going to use one click apply.

[00:06:01] I have my resume on Zip, Indeed, LinkedIn, whatever, apply, apply, apply, apply, apply. And then three days later or three weeks later, the employer gets back to you. And the reality is, of course you don't remember. I mean, that's true, too. So it's like the symptomatic issue. I mean, it's also really interesting. I was reading, I think it was Ashby that just came out. I think it was, maybe it was last month. What month of the year is February, right? Where they have a talent trends and they were able to analyze all

[00:06:31] of their ATS data. And it has where like the number of applications has gone up in the past like year, like number of applications per job. Like I think it's three or four times the amount, right? And so that makes sense, right? AI generated, like auto apply. It's just easy apply. It's a whole variety of reasons. It's, I'm trying to tease it out, but I mean, in high volume. So when you and I first crossed paths, you were on the talent acquisition side of the table,

[00:07:01] not the vendor side of the table. If you were on the talent acquisition side today, I'm needing to hire, you know, a hundred people for a warehouse, call center, restaurants, whatever. And you were getting in all of these applications. How would you even know which ones are AI and which ones are because you chose to have a one click apply? You could also choose not to, right? I think that's what's interesting.

[00:07:28] Right now, I haven't heard anyone like, how do you know? Like, how do you know is it human, right? Was it a human? Was it AI? Who was it? I mean, it's, it's, I think it's really difficult. I mean, I was hearing some, you know, stories of, you know, forget about even like AI generated, but like even bad actors, right? Or bad country, like corporate espionage kinds of like, okay, is this a Netflix movie that's like coming to life where it's, and I don't even want to say any names of countries, but

[00:07:57] maybe some countries, but like what's happening. And they're like, okay, we want to get people hired in to whatever, you know, company to, get information out or plant bad things into the system. And so they're like, and this, I get, I was hearing this story. I'm like, this can't be real. And then dug into it. Oh my God, this is, this is. Corporate, corporate espionage for sure. But it's next level, right? And so you have AI and like, let's figure out what the right profile is to get the injury

[00:08:25] or maybe get to the assessment level, which a lot of people, maybe it's programming, take Python tests. And you have one person who takes that or whatever algorithm takes that test, right? It gets them through then an injury, maybe it's virtual cameras, not where, and then all of a sudden whoever shows up is not even that person or people that you interview, but you think it was one. And it's like this insanity. So, I mean, I think from an employer standpoint, from a trust and secure and all that, I mean,

[00:08:53] it's, the world is changing really fast, whether it's from that bad actor standpoint or just an individual or individuals trying to. Hi there. I'm Peter Zollman. I'm a co-host of the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces podcast. And I'm Steven Rothberg. And I guess that makes me the other co-host. Every other week, we're joined by guests from the world's leading job sites. Together, we analyze news about general niche and aggregator job board and recruitment marketplaces sites.

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[00:10:04] The bad actor situation, right? It's one thing, as bad as it is for somebody to apply to your job by having their buddy take the assessment, right? That to me reminds me of back in like 1863 when I was taking SATs. Lincoln was still president. You know, it was that era. When you walked into the SAT exam room or ACT or whatever you're taking, you know, you had to show some kind of photo ID.

[00:10:34] There was a validation that you were who you said you were. But the reality was, even if you paid somebody like in Suits, the TV show Shoots, even if you paid, you know, Michael to go in and take the exam for you, it wasn't that you were trying to infiltrate, you know, PWC or EY or Amazon or whatever the employer was to do harm to them. You were just trying to make a living. It's like that's one thing.

[00:11:04] Yeah. And you're trying to, or the kid paying for it or parents paying for it, just trying to get into Harvard or whatever. It wasn't malicious. Right. But if you're like employed by the government of North Korea to infiltrate a defense contractor, that's a different thing. That is a different thing. And if you're part of an organized crime syndicate, that's applying to be a bookkeeper for some company so that you can get access to their bank account.

[00:11:33] That's also a bad thing. By the way, we think about a year ago that happened to us at College Recruiter. We interviewed someone and there were just some red flags, never extended an offer. They weren't hired. They didn't have access to our systems. But we certainly wasted a couple of hours emailing, talking. It was weird. There was a lot of things that were like, wow, is she awesome? And there were other things like her street address was not correct.

[00:12:02] You know, it was like, instead of like first street North, it was like first lane North, you know, that kind of thing that doesn't quite match up. But I think every employer would agree those sorts of bad actors. There's never a time where you want to hire them. There's probably never a time that you want to hire somebody with a lazy apply. How do you identify them? I did see online, I think it was on LinkedIn, an employer shared like a screenshot of applications.

[00:12:32] You know, first name field, last name field, email address field. And you could tell just by looking at that, that a lot of them were bogus. You know, Cindy Jones, but the email address was like XR4TI at gmail.com. It was like Cindy Jones 25 at, yeah, Gmail. Right. Or even- I don't know if there is a Cindy Jones at Gmail. Yeah. And it was just like application after application. And they were all like two minutes apart.

[00:13:01] Very obvious from that standpoint. Yeah. And the resumes all started off, it was obvious that AI had a field day. Again, employers, when they see that, I think they can see at a glance that it's bad. That these are AI generated, not AI assisted. I think it's EY has, at least last year, they went to a system where when candidates showed up for their assessments, they were in person, they had to show ID, which reminds me of the SAT.

[00:13:29] You can't really scale that though. Wait, how do you scale that? Right. We're high volume. All of a sudden you want to hire hundreds of thousands, assuming also you're flying people in, driving people in. Like, how do you get people, you know, again, depending on where they're coming around, like that's, that, that is, that is interesting. I have, you know, it's interesting. It reminds me, there was one client that I worked with a couple of years ago.

[00:13:55] I don't know if I can say who, so I won't say exactly who it was, but they actually did. Acme Incorporated. Acme Incorporated. The same, the same company that Wiley E. Coyote spends his money with. What they actually were doing was doing an interview, background, everything all in one go, like almost like a career fair. You show up. Okay. And it was just, they had everything set up where you would walk out with an offer, but it was. In person. In person.

[00:14:22] Everything was from like fill out that, you know, applicant granted, it wasn't like paper application, but fill it out. You know, great. You pass some checks. And if you do a great go over there. Now you have this, you know, extra thing that you have to do. Great. Now you're good. Go to this next, almost like a. And so, you know, in person, assuming that that person, I mean, you know, is a person that shows up a few days later, which is, which is interesting, but that is. Yeah. It's, it's a bit of a, and we were talking about this. It's a bit of an arms race, right? Between. Yes.

[00:14:51] And employer, which is happening here. So I think it'll be really interesting how this starts to shake out. I've not, you know, normally we'd be, we'd say, oh, in the next year, two, three, five years. I think this is even in the next six months, right? Everything is evolving so quickly. And how does everyone on both ends, right? Like an employer and a candidate really harness the power of AI in a way that helps, that doesn't harm both sides.

[00:15:18] Because ultimately, I think in the end, there's kind of who want jobs, employers want to hire. It's like finding that right match, making this all work. And it's just. Without, well, feel free to name names if you wish. You're not shy. I'm not shy. That's why these conversations are so fun. But are there any solutions out there that you've seen that allow candidates to apply online and for the employer to be able to validate that this is a real person?

[00:15:47] Like, is there stuff out there that you've seen it's like that more employers should be doing that? Oh, it's interesting. I haven't seen anyone, at least that hasn't like launched. It's starting to like really tackle that. Okay. Per se. I'm just thinking, I think it's like, because I'd say we're early days, right? We're seeing the rise of the lazy applies. Yeah. I am hearing some tech vendors that are like starting to think about, okay, some of this fraud, right? Yeah. Like again, from a fraud standpoint. Okay.

[00:16:16] Is it, but it's, but it's, it's like, yeah. I mean, there's a variety of different ways to tackle, to tackle that. It's just a matter of time. Yeah. Speaking of time, we're almost out, but I'll give you, I know, right? It just flew by. I'll give, I'll give you one that I think is really promising. And I think we're going to see a lot more of it. So I think it was maybe last spring or summer, LinkedIn introduced their, I can't remember what they call it, but basically they partnered with clear and you upload a copy of your driver's

[00:16:46] license, your passport, something like that. And then LinkedIn through this partnership validates that you are who you say you are. You get a nice little badge on your profile, which I assume they probably then also trust your content. Right. More than others. So more people are going to see your posts. And if you apply to a job on LinkedIn, the employer likely sees that LinkedIn has validated

[00:17:12] that this is a real person, that this person is who she says she is. I could see ATS and chatbots, anything that is kind of managing those employment records where, whether it's iSIMS or smart recruiters or whatever, Fountain, if they built something like that into their system so that no matter what the source was, all of their applicants have

[00:17:40] to upload that kind of ID. I think that has promise. It does. On the flip side, if we think of like privacy, right, you're applying to a job, like I'm about to give you all my information, right? Like my driver's license. Hell no. You want to steal my identity? Am I sure you're this right company? Like, I mean, it's interesting. It's, it's a, it's, it's this trust, right? On both ends of like, I'll tell you, but like, are you about to take my stuff too? Like it's interesting. It's really tricky.

[00:18:10] That's a really good point. So I would have more trust within Clear than I would in LinkedIn. Not that I distrust LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is not built to write from the ground up to sort of secure those sorts of documents like Clear is. True. And then another step removed would be a large employer, Fortune 1000 government agency. I think I would trust LinkedIn more than the employer.

[00:18:40] And then a small employer, the mom and pop pizza shop that has no real systems. You know, you walk, you walk past the counter into the back room, there are paper files in there with social security numbers, credit card receipts, right? That for sure. I don't want them having my passport essentially. Well, I guess for high volume employers, the good news is they kind of have an inherent advantage then over these small employers.

[00:19:09] I mean, it's true. If you have a brand name and you're known. You're trusted. It's more trustworthy for sure. Yeah. So drop a comment for the listeners. Let us know what you guys think. Let us know which of the two of us you would trust more with your documents. Jeanette or Steven? And I think we both know it's her.

[00:19:36] I have a secure fireproof filing cabinet right here next to me. So we're good. And you also have a bridge in Brooklyn that you would like to sell us, but that's, yeah. I do. Actually, I do. This has been fun, but yeah, employers, ATS folks, whatever, put your ideas in. This is definitely, to me, this is like a rising tide lifts all ships. Exactly. Evolving area. We will see. All right.

[00:20:06] Until next time. Cheers, Jeanette. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Jeanette.