The Promise and Peril of AI in Resume Writing: What Executives Must Know

The Promise and the Peril of AI in Resume Writing

The Promise and the Peril of AI in Resume Writing

AI is everywhere. From the way we shop, to the way we date, to the way we order a takeout! And now, the way professionals write their resumes and LinkedIn profiles.

At first glance, it looks like a gift. Open ChatGPT or another AI resume writer, paste in a job description, and you’ll have a shiny new resume in seconds. No late nights, no staring at a blank page. All for free. Magic, right?

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: when it comes to your career, AI can just as easily trip you up as help you out.

Let me be clear at the outset. You might be expecting me to “hate on AI” as a professional resume writing company who doesn’t use AI to write any client documents. But you’d be wrong. I think AI is amazing in many ways. What I do want to highlight, though, are the traps you can fall into if you’re using it without care when it comes to your career.

AI Is Fast - But Is It Smart Enough for Your Career?

AI is brilliant at speed. It can structure sentences, pull together bullet points, and fill white space quickly. That’s why so many jobseekers are turning to it as a “first draft” tool or experimenting with free AI resume builders.

But here’s the problem: recruiters don’t hire fast. They hire impact. And impact comes from more than generic descriptions of responsibilities.

A resume written carelessly with AI often:

  • Sounds the same as everyone else’s
  • Leans on cliché phrases like results-driven professional or dynamic leader
  • Misses the nuance of your unique story
  • Breaks in Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) because of formatting issues, keyword abuse, or overused AI phrases

📊 According to Jobscan, 98% of Fortune 500 companies now use ATS, and research from MIT Sloan shows recruiters increasingly use AI recruiting tools to filter applications before a human ever sees them. If your AI-generated resume is missing detail or mis-formatted, you’re out of the running… fast.

In other words, without the right care, AI can make you blend in; when the whole point is to stand out.

🔍 Searching question for you: Have you asked AI to write your resume and now you’re wondering if it’s actually holding you back? The hard truth is, it most likely is.

👉 Call to action: If you’re not sure, grab our Professional Resume Review Service to stress-test your document.

What Recruiters Really See

Recruiters are sharper than ever. They’re reading hundreds of resumes each week, and they’re already tuned in to the “AI voice.”

One global recruiter recently told me:

“We can usually tell within the first two lines when someone’s pasted ChatGPT output onto their resume. It looks slick on the surface, but the voice is hollow. There’s no real substance.”

📊 In fact, a Resume Builder survey (2023) found that 90% of hiring managers could tell when a resume had been written primarily by AI and nearly half of them viewed it negatively.

If your resume reads like AI, even if it is you underneath, you risk being dismissed before you’ve even had a chance to explain yourself.

AI vs Human: Who Wins?

AI has no context. It doesn’t know the difference between a COO who grew revenue by $300M and a COO who managed daily sales reporting. If you don’t feed it the right details, it will flatten your achievements into beige wallpaper.

Humans; whether that’s you carefully editing, or a professional resume writer helping you shape your story,  bring context, nuance, and strategy. We know that:

  • “Responsible for leading a $50M budget” isn’t nearly as powerful as “Delivered $6M in cost savings while leading a $50M budget across North American operations”
  • A resume is more than a list of duties; it’s a story of leadership, results, and potential

AI can’t see the golden thread of your career story. But humans can. And whatever AI can deliver in recruitment, it is still a human making the Yes/No decision on your ideal role.

And much of that decision will be based on how you fit into an organization. Your personality is important - use it to help you stand out.

The Real Risk: AI vs AI

Here’s where it gets even more ironic. Most job applications today go through ATS, which themselves are powered by AI.

So, when you use AI to write your resume, you’re actually setting up an AI vs AI battle:

  • Your AI writes with buzzwords and generic phrasing
  • The recruiter’s AI filters based on keywords and formatting
  • Which AI wins? Spoiler: usually, the recruiter’s

📊 According to SHRM, 75% of qualified candidates are rejected by ATS before a human even sees their application.

If your resume isn’t tailored with care, it gets filtered out. And remember, the “battle” for the candidate is threefold:

  1. Pleasing stringent ATS
  2. Pleasing the recruiter
  3. Pleasing the hiring manager

That is a lot of ‘pleasing’ for one document to do. No wonder job searches feel so brutal in today’s competitive market.

🔍 Searching question for you: If AI can’t get your resume past another AI, how much time are you losing applying for roles you’ll never even be considered for?

👉 Call to action: Stress-test your presence with our LinkedIn Review Service and make sure you’re seen where it really matters

So Where Does That Leave You?

It’s tempting to let AI “do the work.” But your career is too important to outsource blindly. AI works best as a co-pilot, not the captain.

✅ Use AI wisely to:

  • Brainstorm bullet points
  • Draft rough structures
  • Spark ideas you can polish

❌ Avoid using AI as:

  • A one-click resume solution
  • A substitute for your unique story
  • A way to cut corners on credibility

Because at the executive level, your reputation is everything. A recruiter or board member only needs 7 seconds to decide whether you’re credible. An AI-generated resume might get you through an application portal, but it won’t get you respect.

⚠️ A final point of caution: be wary of AI that makes you sound too different from the actual you. If you wow at the resume level and crash at the interview stage, you risk losing credibility, confidence - and your reputation could be irreparably damaged.

Questions to Ask Yourself This Week

  • Does my resume sound like me? Or does it sound like a templated, AI generated John/Jane Doe that could be anyone?
  • Is my resume leaning too heavily on clichés and generic buzzwords?
  • If a recruiter read my resume aloud, would it sound credible, or manufactured?
  • Is AI helping me, or is it hiding me?

Where We’re Going This Week

This is just the beginning. Over the next few days we’ll dive deeper into:

Call to Action

Want to know if your resume or LinkedIn profile has the AI look? Or if it’s actually the one thing letting you down?

Try our range of Executive Review Services. These backstage reviews pitch your resume against an actual job description and give you an ATS score - before you even apply. That way, you can make the recommended changes before hitting “send” for real.

👉 To get in touch, visit us at www.resumepilots.com or you can send us an email at team@resumepilots.com . You can also find us on LinkedIn and Facebook.