Same CV, 800 times: why AI-written applications vanish, and what to do about it

Siobhan Stericker, Talent Insights and AI Lead at HMRC, told the TA Disruptors podcast that application volumes had more than doubled since AI tools arrived. One role in her own team received over 800 applications.

I spent twenty years in executive search before becoming a Gen Z career coach, and that number didn't surprise me as much as it should have. The Institute of Student Employers reports an average of 140 applications per graduate vacancy, up from 38 twenty years ago. In some sectors it is 290.

The problem isn't AI itself. Around half of employers in the ISE survey are perfectly relaxed about candidates using it to help draft CVs. The problem is what happens when hundreds of people paste the same advert into the same tool. They get back the same polished, plausible, faintly beige document. HMRC saw exactly that: the same structure, the same buzzwords, and no evidence behind any of it. From the employer's side, 800 applications become one application, submitted 800 times. So when young people tell me they have sent 150 applications and heard nothing, I believe them. But 150 identical applications are not 150 chances. They are the same chance, taken 150 times.

What works instead is less glamorous and far more effective.

Spend a day on one application you really care about rather than an afternoon on fifty. Read the advert closely and match every requirement with a specific example of your own, with numbers and outcomes. Write your first draft yourself, then use AI as a critical friend to challenge it, not as a ghostwriter to replace you. And step away from the job boards now and then, because a person who has met you is a short cut past every automated sift ever built. When new clients fill in my questionnaire, a surprising number leave the question about their strengths blank. Not because they have none, but because nobody has asked them to look. That material, their own experience in their own words, is the one thing AI can't produce for them. It is also the thing that gets them noticed.

If you deleted your name from your CV, could anyone tell it was yours?

Tech Industry Gold accredited learners can read Claire's full guide,with step-by-step advice, in the Tech Industry Gold Learner Portal

Sources:

• TA Disruptors podcast (Arctic Shores), February 2025: How AI is disrupting talent acquisition, with Siobhan Stericker,HMRC
• Institute of Student Employers: 5 trends you need to know from ISE’s Recruitment Survey 2025