This Is Your Resume on AI

And AI won’t get you the results or career track you expect.

By Tim Tolan & Russ Riendeau, PhD

?Scanning thru the executive’s resume, I clicked to LinkedIn to view the person’s profile. Hmmm, this is interesting. Different job titles, different dates, different duties, different skills sets being claimed. Maybe I’m missing something.

?Calling this executive, the conversation went like this:

?Russ: I’m reading the resume you sent me however it doesn’t match up with your LinkedIn explanations. I’m confused?”

?Him: No worries. Tell me what you’re looking for in the job?

?Russ: Sorry, not yet. Which is the accurate record of your work history? LinkedIn profile or your resume?

?Him: It depends on the job I apply for. AI tells me what to write down. What do you need?

?Russ: I need a truthful answer that can be proven with evidence that you worked at these companies and had these responsibilities and have these skills. Could you do this if interviewed by my client?

Him: Click. Dial tone.

?All the buzz today is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) that is saturating the market with new tools, ideas, shortcuts and yes, even some really cool, legit tools to make life easier and show a more professional impression. Yet, the real struggle that employers and search professionals—even coaches and managers are experiencing—is that it is masking the real abilities of business professionals. It masks a person’s ability for demonstrating critical thinking, use of a working vocabulary for higher skilled roles. It’s luring average and marginal performers into trying to game the system by using AI to write their resume, cover letters, business proposals, contracts, follow-up letters, presentations, speeches, etc. They’re trying to amp up their income, show proficiencies in areas they are far from adept at; they’re risking being held accountable to demonstrate their skills and abilities in an interview, only to be seen as a fraud-or worse yet, not as smart as they thought they were.

?Call this phenomenon of using AI to set a pick for oneself to be arrogance, ignorance, naivety, clever, manipulative, lazy, unfocused or yes, smart, has the attention of every hiring manager on the planet. Their radar is up and running hot to spot the manufactured resume of experience and more buzz words than a late night commercial to sell us supplements to cure death.

?As longtime search professionals, trainers and business owners, we understand the frustrations today’s worker may have to try and get noticed and get a better job in today’s frenetic hiring landscape. We know millions of unqualified workers are treating LinkedIn job postings and Job Boards as if they’re vending machines. See a cool sounding job title? Push F5, submit your resume in the slot and wait for a sweet job interview to drop in the tray below. This doesn’t work.

?If you have the skills to do a job, prove it with evidence you’ve done the work and research to prepare and earn the chance to interview. AI tinkering to tweak your false claims of some success will be disaster.

?·????? Write your resume with your words, not a robot program. Explore your abilities and shore up weak spots with study, research and reading up on an industry.

·????? What if you are required to take an assessment profile to demonstrate competency in some field?? Uh-oh, is right. Disaster.

·????? Your LinkedIn profile and the effort you put into it tells the world how much you understand the power of the platform’s reach. If your profile is boring, abandoned or fabrications that can be proven, you are done.

·????? Study your cell phone use to be sure your time is not one of doom scrolling as entertainment during breaks in your day. Brain Rot—the 2024 word of the year will do more to reduce your creative thinking, concentration, and ability to generate more income than you can imagine. “Why am I looking at my phone right now?” should be the question you ask yourself 100 times a day.

·????? If you can’t show you use LinkedIn or your phone as a business tool, you are seen as a dinosaur in the market—and hiring managers can’t find you even if you send a resume.

·????? Stop just hitting click/apply, click/apply to jobs you see posted in hopes you’ll get a call. AI savvy managers will see thru your fa?ade in a nanosecond. ?Toss it against the wall to see what sticks?? Not in today’s competitive landscape. Do the work to prepare and accept that you may not be ready or worthy to secure the job you think you qualify for. Tough to swallow, but a reality.

·????? Start facing yourself in the mirror and take steps to improve your value to the marketplace. Stop telling yourself and your family it’s not your fault your career and your income is not advancing. It’s not the job, not the manager, not the industry, not the company that is in your way of success. It could be your unwillingness to accept reality that you are not doing enough or engaging in the right behavior and education pursuits to be more successful.

·????? AI tools that measure writing skills, body language in interview, vocabulary are all in testing and not a reliable or valid approach to consider using right now. Talent, proven in the field,??????????????????????? is the true measure of potential.

?2025 can be the year you turn your world around and accept the challenges and opportunities ahead. Seek out ?performance coaches, mentors, and areas of study in your field to prove to yourself and others that can influence referrals and references for you that validate your efforts.

?To Sum this up, Tim deftly says it best.

The art of having a meaningful conversation to understand a candidate’s motivation and career goals, and building a long-term relationship, happens between two humans. It requires a two-way dialogue, not an automated process using a bot as the HR department’s proxy to convince an executive to make a career change. I think search firms and HR teams should embrace AI to improve the recruitment process, enhance repetitive tasks, help create job descriptions (I said help — not perform this task without modification by a human), and other things that increase productivity. However, the art of having a conversation with someone you have an emotional connection with, to convince them to make a change and then help guide and shepherd them through a career transition, takes place between two living, breathing human beings, not through technology. Recruiting and job searches, in so many ways, can be a long process with lots of steps and many twists and turns along the way. No two processes are ever the same.

?AI is a tool used properly will save you time and earn you more money. It’s not a magic trick to make a lack of effort or direction vanish behind the curtain.

?Invest in yourself first. Why should somebody else if you haven’t shown you’re worth it?

?Note: AI was not used to generate any content in this piece.

?About the Authors

?Tim Tolan is Founder and Managing Partner of The Tolan Group (TTG), an executive search firm based in St Augustine, Florida which he started in 2005. TTG is a Hunt Scanlon Top 40 healthcare search firm with decades of experience recruiting executives for a variety of leadership roles in privately held, publicly traded and PE backed companies.

?Russ Riendeau, PhD., is Founder of New Frontier, a long-time executive search practice, as well as a focus on customized wellness coaching for high-performing executives. Based out of the Chicago area, Dr. Russ is a Mayo Clinic trained/certified wellness coach, behavioral scientist, TEDx Talks presenter and author of 13 books on leadership, sales and peak performance. He is also a designated LinkedIn Top Voice--one of only 4000 out of one billion users. [email protected] ?

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