I Got Laid Off. A.I. Wrote My New Cover Letter. It Was Surprisingly Good-Except for One Alarming Mistake.

"I got laid off five months ago. Every morning I drink a pot of coffee while I write cover letters, tweak my résumé, and submit job applications into the abyss, knowing they will likely never be seen by human eyes-only crawled by the cold, lifeless algorithms of an artificial intelligence. I feel like General Zod from Superman, floating off into space trapped inside a two-dimensional phantom zone, screaming in silence about my job qualifications and core competencies."

"But the main difference I've noticed is that the old system worked, and this one doesn't. A.I. is advancing faster than our ability to process it. It's overloading outdated applicant tracking systems-aging software designed to sort, rank, and track job applicants online-with a firehose of generative slop, polluting the job market with A.I.-written résumés, and creating so much noise that quality signal gets lost in the static."

I got laid off five months ago and spend each morning writing cover letters, tweaking my résumé, and submitting applications that are likely read only by algorithms. The job market is chaotic, with legacy systems failing to cope with rapid advances in A.I. Outdated applicant tracking systems are flooded with A.I.-generated applications and resumes, creating noise that buries qualified candidates. Applications sometimes advance briefly but are quickly buried among thousands more, and listings are inexplicably reposted. Hiring teams' hesitation perpetuates a cycle of inaction and deteriorating practical hiring outcomes.

Read at Slate Magazine