|
Last week’s newsletter was about the Stanford hiring AI study. Or, more accurately, what social media decided it said. But it is not a reason to stop thinking. If you have applied for 60 jobs and heard nothing back, the answer is not automatically: “algorithms hate me.” It might be your resume. It might be the roles. It might be the level. It might be the market. But it also might be weak evidence or poor positioning. It might be that you are applying through the most crowded channel and hoping to be discovered like a lost Hemsworth brother. Or yes, it might be a screening tool. But you will not know if all you are tracking is vibes. This is why I’ll continue to come back to application tracking. Not because I enjoy spreadsheets. I’m not a monster. But because “I’ve applied for heaps of jobs and heard nothing” tells us almost nothing. What roles? Which employers? Which sectors? Were you rejected immediately? After a test? After a phone screen? After the interview? Were you applying through job boards, referrals, recruiters, direct approaches, or all of the above? Did the employer use psychometric or game-based assessments? Did you keep getting knocked out at the same stage? That is the useful information. Not because it makes the job search less frustrating. It doesn’t. But it stops you turning every rejection into folklore. The Stanford study should give the recruitment sector a swift kick up the ass. What’s happening in California with Workday’s class AI action discrimination case should put tech companies on notice. It should make regulators in Australia pay attention. And it should make you more strategic. Improve your resume, cover letter, and selection criteria, yes. But do not treat your application as the whole job search. Your job is to diversify where opportunities come from. Use referrals where you can. Build relationships before you need them. Track where you are dropping out. Pay attention to assessment steps. And do not hand your fear to someone online who is selling certainty. The job market is hard enough without panic merchants putting a fog machine in front of it. ~Lisa Your Q&AI sound like AI Hi Lisa, I’m updating my LinkedIn profile, and I’ve been using AI to help. The problem is, I’m worried it sounds too polished, too generic. How do I use AI without making my profile sound fake? Stella
Hi Stella, Use it, but don’t let it drive the bus. AI can be useful for LinkedIn, especially if you are staring at the About section like it personally offended you. It can help organise your thoughts, pull themes from your experience and give you a few different ways to say something. But it can also strip out the good stuff. And by good stuff, I mean the evidence. The decisions you influence. The problems you solve. The work that would slow down, break, or become messier if you left. The projects you have dragged over the line while everyone else was still “circling back”. LinkedIn needs your story. It needs warmth, not a copy/paste of your resume. So feed AI the real context. Then make it prove itself by roasting its own content to tell you if you sound clear, credible and real. Thanks for writing in. ~Lisa |
