Don't make these AI mistakes on your resume, career experts say: 'It could ruin your chances'

Job seekers are turning to AI for everything from career advice to cover letters, but according to experts, too many candidates are putting "blind faith" in AI tools.

According to the 2025 Market Trend Report from recruitment firm Career Group Companies, approximately 65% of candidates use AI at some point in the job application process.

Jen DeLorenzo, a career coach and founder of professional coaching business The Career Raven, says that job seekers can run into issues when they rely too heavily on AI.

She cautions that many AI tools are prone to hallucinating, or fabricating information in an effort to fulfill user requests. In DeLorenzo's experience, when AI is asked to rewrite a resume to coordinate with a job description, "it is going to start to lie if the title doesn't 100% align," she says.

And even if all the information is accurate, AI-generated applications tend to share a certain uniformity, according to Jessye Kass Karlin, a fractional recruiter and former career coach.

"You can totally tell when someone has used AI, because suddenly I have six applications that all have the same sort of structure and format," she says.

According to Karlin, authentic, thoughtful answers are what make top candidates stand out among hundreds of applicants.

When everyone is trying to tailor their applications to the job description, "a lot of times, people lose sight of what we're actually looking for," she says.

Signs of AI can be 'crystal clear'

Both Karlin and DeLorenzo have seen clients run into trouble using AI on job applications.

One of DeLorenzo's clients found herself in a difficult situation after using AI to rewrite her resume for multiple different jobs. She didn't read the edited resumes before sending them out, and later found that the AI tool had exaggerated her work experience and inserted inaccurate information.

"When she would get an interview, she'd be terrified because she didn't know how to prepare," DeLorenzo recalls. "You have to be able to speak to your bullet points, and if you don't have a story, it's going to become crystal clear."

Karlin says that she's seen multiple job applicants accidentally include AI prompts in their responses to online application questions.

She remembers a particularly memorable instance of AI gone wrong: One applicant responded to the question "Why do you want to work here?" with "As artificial intelligence, I do not have emotions."

"I was like, OK, we definitely need to proofread," Karlin laughs.

Best practices for using AI

DeLorenzo isn't against using AI for job applications, but she cautions that the process still requires human oversight.

"You have to be really careful with it," she says. "Unfortunately, with people wanting to rewrite their resume every time, it's easy to get lazy with it."

AI-generated resumes are often stuffed with keywords, which can make them "jarring" to read, Karlin says.

"What we end up getting is a lot of word salad," she says. "People who actually use their own words to tell me their impact are much more effective than people who are using AI."

Instead of using AI to generate a first draft, DeLorenzo recommends that job seekers write their resumes or cover letters on their own, then ask AI to polish up the language.

Even when you train an AI tool to accomplish a task, "it still gets a lot of stuff wrong," DeLorenzo says. She's seen AI make major errors such as misnaming the company on a job application.

"You really still have to take a look and double check before you send it over, because that could be embarrassing," she says. "It could ruin your chances for sure."

The job process can be "exhausting and overwhelming," Karlin says, and it can be tempting to "just let the tools take over."

However, she says, employers ultimately "want to hire you, not the tools you can use."

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