{"id":266322,"date":"2025-03-25T11:48:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T11:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/25\/ai-job-application-rise-risks-employing-incapable-staff-boss-warns\/"},"modified":"2025-03-25T11:48:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T11:48:32","slug":"ai-job-application-rise-risks-employing-incapable-staff-boss-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/25\/ai-job-application-rise-risks-employing-incapable-staff-boss-warns\/","title":{"rendered":"AI job application rise risks employing incapable staff, boss warns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"AI<\/div>


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Huw Thomas<\/span><\/p>\n

Business Correspondent, BBC Wales News<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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AI chatbots can be useful to candidates but should never replace “human judgement”, a careers adviser says<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in job applications risks employers hiring candidates who cannot do the work, a business owner has said.<\/p>\n

Advertising boss James Robinson said he and other business leaders were seeing a “real trend” in applicants using generative AI chatbots, and warned that candidates who were good at using the technology could “engineer” the process without being “capable of doing the job”.<\/p>\n

Careers adviser Megan Cooper said that while AI could be a useful tool for job hunters, it should never replace “human judgement”.<\/p>\n

A recent survey of more than 2,000 job applicants<\/a> in the UK found just under half had used AI to help them with the application process.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Robinson, who runs Hello Starling, a Cardiff-based advertising agency, said vacancies at his business were attracting applications that were riddled with AI-generated sentences.<\/p>\n

“There are some common sentences that we see. People are always trying to ‘leverage their skillset’,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They’re often saying things like ‘my skills align with your organisation’s objectives and goals’.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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James Robinson has spotted common phrases and “Americanisms” that have been copied from AI chatbots and pasted into job applications<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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He said the chatbot ChatGPT confirmed that these were phrases it was likely to generate for a covering letter.<\/p>\n

“[It is] very difficult for me to try and work out who is real, versus which ones are robots,” he admitted.<\/p>\n

Mr Robinson shared his experiences of receiving AI-generated job applications on LinkedIn and said the responses from other business leaders “really surprised” him.<\/p>\n

“I was really, really surprised to receive messages from people saying, ‘I’m in exactly the same boat as you. How are we going to tell them apart?’ <\/p>\n

“You know, ‘do we need to be using AI to fight against this and get on top of it?’ <\/p>\n

“So I think it is a real challenge in itself, but I don’t think that I’m alone.”<\/p>\n

Mr Robinson said however that “appropriate” use of AI could help his business, and that the technology was helping applicants to be more succinct in their applications.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What is AI?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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AI allows computers to learn and solve problems in ways that can seem human.<\/p>\n

Computers cannot think, empathise or reason, but scientists have developed systems that can perform tasks which usually require human intelligence, trying to replicate how people acquire and use knowledge.<\/p>\n

Generative AI is used to create new content which can feel like it has been made by a human. It does this by learning from vast quantities of existing data such as online text and images.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Megan Cooper, a careers consultant at Cardiff Metropolitan University, says she encourages students to demonstrate “what makes them unique” in their job applications<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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At Cardiff Metropolitan University, careers advisor Megan Cooper said she was trying to steer students through the ethics of using AI as they applied for jobs.<\/p>\n

“AI can be used as a tool. It can be used as an aid. It’s something that can complement, but absolutely not replace, human judgement,” said Ms Cooper.<\/p>\n

Ms Cooper said that in many cases, students were responding to an expectation from employers that candidates understood Generative AI and could use it with confidence.<\/p>\n

“They don’t want to be seen as cheating or getting it wrong in any way at all.”<\/p>\n

She said the university was encouraging students to understand when it was appropriate to use AI.<\/p>\n

“Maybe that’s in the research stages of the application process. It might be asking AI to give feedback or help structure their CV.<\/p>\n

“Maybe it’s asking AI to help read a cover letter that they have already written to help refine it and help it sound a little bit more eloquent.”<\/p>\n

Ultimately the job interview process required applicants to ensure “what makes them unique is able to shine through”, she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘It’s too much of a risk’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Student Jasmine James, 18, said she was avoiding using AI for her university work.<\/p>\n

“I feel like it’s too much of a risk, with plagiarism and stuff like that,” she said.<\/p>\n

“But I can understand why people do use it, because it is a quicker and easier alternative. <\/p>\n

“I just feel like the information isn’t always correct, so it’s best to avoid it for uni work.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Cardiff Metropolitan University student Jasmine James says AI was “too much of a risk” to use for job applications<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Fellow student Jacob Morgan, 19, said he believed AI could be a “really helpful tool”.<\/p>\n

“I use it a lot, especially instead of Google. Sometimes I’ll just search up on AI instead, because you get better results. So it’s definitely very useful,” he said.<\/p>\n

AI technology was “here to stay” and “it’s only going to get better and better”, he added.<\/p>\n

Timothy Mitchell, who is in his second year of studying computer security at Cardiff Metropolitan University, said he believed those who did not use artificial intelligence were “cheating themselves”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Timothy Mitchell, who is studying computer security, says AI could be used in a way that “aids us rather than replaces us”<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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“Everybody uses it. Tutors use it, employers use it,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Mitchell accepted there were “definitely some fears” around the wider use of AI, “but I personally believe they are somewhat unfounded”.<\/p>\n

He added: “What humans are best at is the creative stuff and creating new things. And AI, by principle, can’t think beyond what it’s been taught.”<\/p>\n

Generative AI could be used “in a way that aids us rather than replaces us”, he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Huw Thomas Business Correspondent, BBC Wales News BBC AI chatbots can be useful to candidates but should never replace “human judgement”, a careers adviser says A growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in job applications risks employers hiring candidates who cannot do the work, a business owner has said. Advertising boss James Robinson said he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bbcx\/grey-placeholder.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[604],"tags":[15544,791,204803,29293,9644,572,650,500,5219],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266322"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266324,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266322\/revisions\/266324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}