‘Spray and pray’: why AI job applications are backfiring on graduates
A new survey of the UK’s largest graduate employers has found growing tolerance for artificial intelligence in job hunting — but also a sharp rise in suspected misconduct, as a tactic recruiters call “spray and pray” reshapes the graduate market.
The Institute of Student Employers (ISE) polled 155 of Britain’s biggest graduate recruiters this summer and found firms are becoming more willing to accept AI use at certain stages of hiring, most often for polishing cover letters, CVs and online application questions. Yet 92% of employers said they had encountered or suspected AI “misconduct” during selection, up from 85% a year earlier — typically candidates leaning on AI in real time during video interviews or online assessments.
Stephen Isherwood, joint chief executive of the ISE, says the growing practice of firing off AI-assisted applications to dozens of vacancies at once is “driving up the competition and pressure on students” in an already fierce graduate jobs market, where each role now attracts an average of 141 applicants.
Tom, a 22-year-old geography graduate from Maidstone, knows the grind firsthand. After submitting more than 200 applications, he finally landed a job as a restaurant manager last month, following what he describes as an “exhausting” and “demoralising” slog in which employers frequently never replied. He leaned on AI for cover letters and CVs, and to find the “buzz words” that automated screening tools look for — though he says he never used it during assessments or interviews. “Employers want you to put your absolute best into the application, but if I’m applying for 10 to 20 jobs in a day, the reality is you can’t do that.” He also calls it hypocritical that firms discourage AI use while using it themselves to filter candidates: “That’s where it feels like a weird tightrope. You can’t use AI too much because otherwise you’re not human. But if you don’t write like an AI, you may get skipped by the AI screening.”
Employers are feeling the squeeze too. EDF’s graduate scheme opened three weeks ago and had to close early after 12,000 applications arrived — 10% more than last year — a surge Hollie Moody, the energy firm’s head of early careers recruitment, largely attributes to AI. She doesn’t blame candidates given how “brutal” the market is, but worries about fairness: “What we don’t have is a level playing field, because what you’ll find is that some candidates will absolutely use AI throughout the whole process, and other candidates won’t.” EDF now issues AI guidance and has pushed CV screening to later stages, relying instead on behaviour-based assessments and video interviews — though Moody says the cracks still show. “A lot of the answers [we hear] are the same. Or people might pause whilst they wait for AI to come back to them with an answer. It’s almost like people are reading a script.”
One recently hired trainee accountant, who asked not to be named, applied to 50 jobs using AI throughout — though only, he says, for research, CV tidying and mock interview practice. He understands the temptation to go further: “I know people who have applied for 100 jobs and after a while they become desperate. If they see everyone else is using AI, they think how can I compete?”
Only 16% of employers currently use AI in recruitment, the ISE found, though 29% say they expect to adopt it in the coming year. For Moody, the technology’s growing role remains a “moral dilemma” — one that can’t replace what EDF is really looking for in new hires. “It’s about authenticity, but also personality. We want diversity of thought in the business.”
Source: BBC News