A growing number of jobseekers are facing a mounting cycle of rejections, with many suspecting that their applications are never being reviewed by human eyes.
Sheeraz Gulsher, CEO of the London-based non-profit organization People Like Us, reports significant anxiety among candidates who feel caught in an intensifying ‘AI war’. As many simply aren’t aware of it, we’re trying to remind people of that right. Barb Hyman’s company grades candidates on text-based chat interviews.
This conflict arises as applicants increasingly use generative tools to strengthen their CVs, while employers struggle to process overwhelming volumes of applications using automated screening software. There are lots of different types of recruitment tools. But there are growing concerns that these tools could be biased, employers use them to save time sifting through applications. With candidates “resorting to AI to bolster their applications” while “employers are dealing with huge amounts of applications”, he describes the current situation as an “AI war”. They know the culture, they can see the type of language that you’re using in your CV, in your cover letter, during a phone screen, if you’ve got an in-house recruitment team. And applications, through the lens of ‘an AI bot is going to be reviewing this rather than a human’, that perception gap is a problem because candidates are now writing their CVs. Or polished by AI”, he adds this is a problem because recruiters are seeing all CVs look the same because “they’re all written by AI. According to he, This creates a “perfect storm” because AI is then more likely to be used to filter through a large volume of applications. Every company we speak to is very conscious of the EU AI Act, even if they don’t see themselves as having to comply with that yet, at least in the enterprise space.
Campaigning for Transparency and Fairness
- Campaign focus: The ‘Reject the Rejections’ initiative led by People Like Us.
- Key concern: A lack of certainty that companies are using automated systems without bias.
- Proposed solution: Mandating that companies audit their AI systems, publish findings, and undergo independent assessments.
- Legal right: The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) confirms that individuals subject to automated decisions have a right to request human intervention.
A recent Censuswide survey of 2,000 UK workers who applied for jobs within the last two years revealed that 75% of respondents were unaware they could legally challenge automated rejections.
Furthermore, the research highlighted a troubling trend regarding diversity: 70% of ethnically diverse jobseekers admitted to altering or hiding personal details—such as their name, religion, or country of origin—out of fear that software would automatically disqualify them.
This compares to 57% of white candidates who took similar measures.
Experiences of the Job Hunt
For many, the process has become demoralizing.
Vivi, a business consultant from Lewisham, described a recent instance where she received a rejection early on a Saturday morning, just hours after the application window closed. According to vivi, She needs feedback as a jobseeker. There’s one instance where applications closed on Friday and I got a reply on a Saturday morning basically saying that I should work on my skills and come back in six months. But it was so obvious that nobody had assessed my skills.
She admitted she would have approached her job search differently had she realized she could demand a human review of her application.
Similarly, Hema, a 49-year-old HR professional from Surrey, has tracked nearly 100 applications since being made redundant in June. Hema, 49, from Surrey, is an HR and talent professional who has worked internationally across multiple sectors. So to be nearing 100 is completely out of this world, she added: “I’ve always landed a job in 10 applications. In the four years to December 2022, Stanford researchers analysed four million job applications processed by an AI hiring tool, external. And other factors such as education and immigration status could have also played a role, they only looked at one AI hiring tool. The hiring tool assessed did not respond to our requests for comment. According to the case is ongoing, but Workday denies the claims and, Its tools do not make hiring decisions.
She noted that many are rejected automatically within 24 to 36 hours, describing the scale of her search as ‘out of this world’ compared to her previous experiences.
Recruiter and Regulator Perspectives
- Recruiter usage: Approximately 90 out of 425 surveyed recruiters use AI for CV screening.
- Perception gap: Alec Stanwell, director of marketing at CV Library, suggests candidates often assume AI is involved even when it is not, leading them to use AI to write their own applications.
- Official stance: An ICO spokesperson stated that while automation can improve efficiency, it must not compromise legal rights or introduce bias.
- Government position: A government spokesperson emphasized that recruitment must remain fair and transparent, noting that existing equality and data protection laws already apply to AI-driven processes.
As the use of AI in hiring continues to evolve, the debate remains centered on trust. While some candidates remain hesitant to request human reviews for fear of damaging their chances, others argue that recruiters should be upfront about when and how automation influences hiring outcomes. Until then, the sense of uncertainty regarding what happens after a user clicks ‘apply’ remains a central feature of the modern, digitized job market.
