An 'AI arms race' is reshaping how people find and apply for jobs

Most innovation set out to solve a problem

For one software engineer now living in New York City, that problem was how long it took to apply for jobs

After a while, I thought, this is not something I want to do. I mean, I'm looking for a job, but looking for a job

it shouldn't be like a second full-time job. Srdar Aksoy wanted to find a way to replace the five to six hours a day

he was spending on the job hunt. He tapped his classmate at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology

where he was getting his master's. With my friend, we talked about that and we thought, okay, we are like two software developers

We can make something better, right? And we worked about that and we developed Wobo AI for the last two years

On Wobo AI, you upload your resume, put in job preferences like titles, locations, and salary

And the bot starts its hunt, scanning employer websites for jobs. By answering a series of questions, the AI gets a good bank of information to write cover letters on your behalf

Paid plans start at $24.99 a month, while the higher tiers send out 40 applications a week

Wobo is not alone in the space. AI-powered job bots are popping up across the Internet

They promoted as services that apply to jobs while you sleep We want job search to be as easy as watching Netflix Artem Zaharaf is the CEO and co of JobHire AI He got the idea while working on an AI

product for the other side, recruiters and employers. I saw that everyone is trying to

automate how candidates are assessed. And I thought that it's a bit unfair that while companies have

capabilities to, for example, process 1,000, 2,000 candidates. And nobody is thinking what's

happening on a different side. The average corporate job posting brings in hundreds of

applications, but the company may interview just a handful of candidates. Using what he knew from

the hiring side, Zahara set out to build an AI where job candidates can apply at scale

and increase their chance of getting a call. It's not without its kinks. Dive into Reddit threads

and there is plenty of criticism about AI-driven bots in general. Some Redditors said jobs didn't match what they were looking for

We started to see it immediately after launch. We enhanced and like rebuild it from scratch like three times

Others are just skeptical of the tech. But tens of thousands currently use services like JobHire and Wobo

It's a bit of an arms race right now. Nicole Bradford is an executive in residence at SHRM

the Society for Human Resource Management. Her focus is human collaboration Now that AI tools have become so much more democratized and especially now that we about to move into the era of AI agents individuals are also using the AI tools to

apply to as many jobs as possible. Even before AI job agents became prevalent

finding and hiring the right candidates was getting more difficult and competitive

A workday ysis showed the rise in job applications far outpaced job openings in 2024

Job applications were 31 percent higher the first half of 2024 than during the same months of 2023

Meanwhile, job openings increased only 7 percent. Right now it's a little bit problematic. I think it's hard for both applicants and for hirers

Now that both sides are more readily using AI, human resources departments are searching for ways to sift through the swarm

I think in general, it's good for the tools to be democratized

I think what organizations have to do is they have to understand and describe what they're looking for in ways that sort of elevates the human part

That could mean things like requiring more videos to prove the candidate is human

though AI is finding its way into that step too. Sure. That's a great question. Let me think about it

Brad Bradford says employers are also putting in steps to catch AI in action like CAPTCHA tests that ask if you are really human or even this

You're seeing some organizations put words in their descriptions that are sort of make no sense words

And that if they see the make no sense word in the response or the cover letter

they know the person, they know it wasn't a person. and then you get tossed out for not using effort

It's very smart and I enjoy that recruiters are also evolving in this space

and finding an approach to this kind of problem or challenge that they have

But is he worried about it? Not really. All is fair in the AI arms race and developers on both sides will continue to adapt

I think in one year, the tools like Vobo, it will be more popular and people are going to start to use more often for their job search

Because the job search is something more time consuming and people, they don't have time for it

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