The next resume you send out will almost certainly be screened by software before a person reads it. In SHRM's 2025 talent research, 51% of organizations said they use AI to support recruiting, and screening resumes is one of the most common use cases. If employers are bringing AI to the hiring process, it makes sense for you to explore how it can help your job search.
But there is a right way and a wrong way to do that. A 2025 Resume Now survey of 925 HR professionals found that 77% of employers are more likely to interview candidates who use AI thoughtfully. The same survey found 62% reject AI-generated resumes that lack personalization. The difference between those two outcomes comes down to how you apply the tools. These seven tips will keep you on the right side of that divide.
1. Tailor your resume to every job posting
This has always been good advice, but AI has made this much easier for jobseekers. This is the highest-value move AI offers you. Here’s how you can do it:
- Paste the job posting into a tool like Claude or ChatGPT.
- Attach your current resume.
- Ask the LLM to analyze the job posting for its relevant skills and keywords, providing you with an overview of which ones are (and aren’t) currently present in your resume.
- For skills or keywords where you have relevant experience, add them in.
Applicant tracking systems rank resumes partly on how well they match the posting's language, so mirroring the employer's terms, when they're true of you, helps your application get past the first filter and in front of a human.
Helpful hint: Use this sample resume tailoring prompt
Here’s a sample prompt you can use and tweak as needed:
“Here is a job posting and my resume. List the top skills and keywords in the posting that my resume doesn't clearly show and point out which of my bullet points could be reworded to match the responsibilities of the role.”
Once you get this information back, ask the LLM to update your resume to better align with the job posting. Ten minutes of tailoring beats sending the same document to dozens of employers.
Please note what this advice is NOT indicating: to fabricate information. Never let AI add experience or credentials you can't back up. You'll be asked about them in the interview and if you get the job, you’ll need to back up any claims you made during the interview process.
2. Keep your own voice in the final draft
Recruiters have read thousands of AI-written applications by now. Generic resume copy stands out for the wrong reason. Consider the following when you use AI to draft a resume:
- More than half of the employers in the Resume Now survey said impersonal, AI-generated outreach frustrates them.
- Carnegie Mellon's career development center advises treating AI as a starting point or an editing aid rather than a replacement for your own words, and recommends revising anything AI drafts until it reflects your voice.
- The same standard applies to cover letters, where generic AI is even easier to spot. Give the tool specifics to work with, like why this role interests you and one real story from your work history. Delete anything you wouldn't claim in an interview.
Helpful hint: Take five minutes to read it out loud
When your resume is at a place where you think it’s ready (or nearly ready), read it out loud. If it doesn’t sound like something you’d actually say in an interview, rewrite it until it does.
3. Speed up your job hunt and company research
AI chatbots can suggest job titles that fit your skills and summarize what a company does before you apply. Research that used to take hours now takes minutes.
Helpful hint: Always double check what comes back
Verify any important information. Carnegie Mellon's guidance notes that a chatbot's training data can be outdated, so check details like facts about the company or requirements of the role.
4. Refresh your LinkedIn profile
LinkedIn is a major search tool for many recruiters, so your profile works like another resume. You can use AI to experiment with different keywords to include in your profile. You can also optimize portions of your experience to highlight those keywords.
Helpful hint: Use AI for proactive LinkedIn outreach
AI can help with your outreach on LinkedIn as well. If you're nervous about sending a message to a recruiter or hiring manager for a role you’re interested in, ask AI for a short, polite draft that mentions something specific about their team's work. But remember: always personalize your messages. Recruiters will write you off if they think you sent them hastily composed AI copy.
5. Rehearse interviews with an AI mock interviewer
This may be the most underused AI move in a job search. You can use AI to generate interview questions for your target role based on the title and company, and then critique your answers using the STAR method (situation, task, action, result).
Helpful hint: Role play to practice interviewing
Push the practice further by asking the AI to act like the interviewer for a specific posting with this prompt:
“Act as the hiring manager for this job description and ask me five questions, one at a time. After each answer, tell me what was strong about my response and what needs more details.”
6. Protect your privacy and stay honest
Before you paste your resume into any AI tool, strip out personal details like your street address and your references' contact information. Data privacy is important. Don’t upload anything that puts you at significant risk.
Helpful hint: If it’s not on your LinkedIn profile, don’t upload it to AI
Information like your previous employers is probably fine, but anything personally identifiable should probably be left out.
7. Build AI skills, not just AI-assisted applications
The strongest long-term move is adding knowledge of AI as a skill you can offer in a future role rather than just a tool you used to apply. Pew Research Center found 21% of U.S. workers now use AI in their job, up from 16% a year earlier. As AI becomes more prevalent in the workplace, more employers will value candidates who can use it effectively. It’s also important to apply integrity when using AI in all pursuits. Using it as a tool to become more skilled and knowledgeable beats using it as a cheap shortcut every time.
Helpful hint: AI + the right career path = a winning combination
Pairing practical AI comfort with a career credential makes you a stronger candidate in nearly any field. If you're training for a new career, U.S. Career Institute's online certificate programs are self-paced, so you can build job skills and practice with AI tools on the same schedule.
Put AI to work for you in your job search
AI can’t land the job for you, and it can’t give you skills you don’t have. What it will do is help you apply to more of the right openings with an improved resume.
You don’t have to tackle all these recommendations at once. Start with one tip this week. The resume tailoring item is easy to implement and can have the greatest impact on your ability to land interviews. Then, as you get more comfortable using AI, add the others to make yourself an even stronger candidate in the job market.
And if your job search has you thinking bigger about a career change, contact us to see how a U.S. Career Institute program could fit your goals.