Originally posted on LinkedIn on July 24, 2023

Ages ago, I was corresponding with a man on a dating site. When we met, months later, I was shocked to learn the photo he shared was taken decades earlier, with his first wife, conveniently cropped out.

Deceptive? Absolutely.

Online dating, chat rooms, and multi-player games are known for people not being forthright about their appearance, age, sex, occupation, and other attributes.

Nearly every day, I receive an email about an app that uses AI to create resumes and cover letters that can be tailored to match specific jobs, helping ensure my submission bubbles to the top once laundered by an employer’s applicant tracking software.

Admittedly, I’ve tried a couple, pasting my resume on one side of a screen, and the job description on the other. Out popped a spanking new resume, replete with the exact phrases, and accomplishments as the job posting.

I’m not comfortable, however, submitting modified resumes because they over-amplified and pepper in too much jargon. And the wording isn’t how I’d describe my experience and skills. More concerning is the circulation of dozens of differing resumes, which potentially varied from what I’d listed in my LinkedIn profile.

I imagine landing an interview and having to recall what was presented on my “tailored” resume. As an example, I asked ChatGPT to improve the first two sentences of my summary. It dashed out, “Result-driven marketing professional with a strong storytelling background, specialized in managing product and service launches for technology companies. Skilled in developing comprehensive marketing strategies, creating audience personas, and executing integrated traditional and digital marketing campaigns.”

I then asked it to revise the summary to match a posted role for a product marketing manager. It complied, “Highly skilled and results-oriented marketing professional with over 5 years of experience in channel marketing. Proficient in collaborating with marketing departments and channel organizations to develop and execute marketing programs that drive leads and revenue through resellers, technology partnerships, and MSSPs.”

The second one is accurate – more or less – but it’s now how I’d describe my professional experience. And it’s now the words that would naturally fall out of my mouth during an interview.

To me, using AI to create resumes and cover letter, which exactly match job descriptions, feels like feeding a prompt into DreamStudio* and hoping no one notices the resulting product is a three-armed woman. It looks realistic, but isn’t quite accurate.

*FYI: DreamStudio rocks. It’s more fun and addictive than Candy Crush.