Business
Job seekers turn to AI tools to gain a competitive edge. It can also backfire
Dani Schlarmann, a recruiter, noticed something fishy about the job applicants.
Cover letters and resumes sounded identical. Candidates embellished their experience to match the job description. On top of that, engineers were caught using artificial intelligence tools to “cheat” on live coding tests.
The California resident, who works for blockchain technology company Ava Labs, vented about his frustrations with AI on social network LinkedIn. To address the issue, Ava Labs started asking some candidates to sign an agreement that they will not use AI assistance during their interviews, he said.
“We’ve had a few people fight us back on it and say ‘we should be able to use any tool at our disposal.’ Honestly, this is not the company for you, then,” said Schlarmann, who lives in Corona. “For engineers, we pride ourselves on coding prowess and there are going to be times when the AI can’t solve something for you.”
Job seekers use AI-powered tools to help them improve their resumes, find jobs, auto apply to hundreds of roles and even provide answers on the spot during video interviews. Fueled by the popularity of AI-powered tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, tech giants and startups are racing ahead to release more AI features that can spit out text, code and images within seconds.
But the AI frenzy has also sparked a debate about when technology goes too far, distorting a job candidate’s true skills and experience. Faced with more competition as companies slash thousands of workers, job seekers are weighing whether to pay for AI tools that might help them land a role more quickly. Employers and recruiters are also grappling with whether job candidates should be allowed to use AI even as they embrace the technology themselves.
Julie Schweber, senior HR knowledge advisor at the Society for Human Resource Management, said employers know that job candidates could be using AI to enhance their resume or cover letter — but they don’t want people misrepresenting themselves.
“It certainly makes sense because you want a candidate that is evolving with the technology and not afraid of technology,” she said.
Some companies don’t specify whether job candidates can use AI and others do. Anthropic, a San Francisco AI startup, asks job applicants to agree they won’t use AI assistance to answer certain questions because the company wants “to be able to assess people’s genuine interest and motivations for working at Anthropic.” Amazon said that when applicable, it will ask candidates to acknowledge that they won’t use generative AI during an interview or test.
Jeremy Pihl, who became unemployed last year for the first time at 51 years old, said he has used AI tools such as ChatGPT, Swooped and 6Figr during his job search.
“If you are not leveraging AI, I promise it’s being leveraged on you,” he said.
Recruiters use AI to generate job descriptions, review or screen candidate searches, automate candidate searches and other tasks, according to SHRM.
Pihl, who previously worked as a customer success manager at Coda and a solutions engineer at Apple, is still trying to land his next role despite already applying to roughly 1,500 jobs.
AI has helped him research a potential employer and improve cover letters, but using the tools to auto apply to jobs hasn’t yielded much success, he said. Pihl, who secured a contract role but is still job hunting, said the progress he has made has been through referrals or reaching out to a hiring manager who viewed his LinkedIn profile.
“I don’t know that I would lean on it to the extent that I leaned on it in the beginning,” he said. “There’s an aspect of it where it is really helpful.”
Meanwhile, the job search is only getting more fierce. Nearly 60% of people globally will be looking for a new job in 2025 and 37% are applying to more jobs than ever before but hearing back less, according to LinkedIn research.
In March, the unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.2 % with 7.1 million people out of work, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In February, the number of job openings reached 7.6 million, down from 8.4 million compared with the same month in 2024.
As California tech companies continue to slash payrolls, the state’s unemployment rate has been higher than the national average. In February, California’s unemployment rate was 5.4 % with more than 1 million people unemployed in the state.
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based LinkedIn has been testing AI-powered tools on its platform, including one to match candidates with jobs that are a better fit. Rohan Rajiv, head of careers products at LinkedIn, said there’s no doubt it’s taking more interviews for people to land jobs, but both recruiters and job candidates want to spend as little time as possible in the process.
“We are finally at a point where it has become realistic for us to not play the volume game, for us to actually play a really focused game,” he said.
Nearly 40% of LinkedIn Premium subscribers use AI features to improve their profile and stand out and nearly a third have used the platform’s AI-powered job search features. Most have found it helpful, according to LinkedIn.
But there are some controversial uses of AI as well. One such example: a teleprompter that provides AI-generated answers to job interview questions.
Final Round AI, which offers an AI-powered interview assistant and other tools for a subscription fee, makes the bold claim that candidates can land their next job in 30 days or less.
In some of the startup’s viral videos on social media, people are reading AI-generated answers verbatim displayed on a screen during remote mock job interviews.
Founded in 2023, the San Francisco firm said it had more than 1 million users from January to February.
Using an AI interview or coding assistant could rub some employers the wrong way, but the entrepreneurs who created the tools say they’re just trying to support job seekers who are navigating a terrible job market.
Michael Guan, chief executive and co-founder of Final Round AI, said people’s perception of AI is changing and whoever understands how to use the technology will get an edge. Inspired by the superhero Iron Man, who has an AI assistant known as J.A.R.V.I.S., Guan envisions a future where these tools will be even more intuitive.
“Imagine I have a teleprompter on my eyeglasses …,” he said. “Everybody can become Iron Man.”
Kaivan Dave, who heads marketing at Final Round AI, said that using an AI interview assistant can help candidates, some who might have language barriers, better articulate their thoughts. Even the president, he said, has used a teleprompter.
The venture capital-backed company created a billboard in San Francisco with an image of President Trump that read “Interview Confidently Like Our President. Helping America Get Back to Work 10x Faster with Final Round AI.”
“I don’t think that this is going against any type of unethical norms,” Dave said.
Using an AI interview assistant still doesn’t fly with some recruiters.
Lyndsi Okh, a San Diego resident who recruits for tech nonprofits, said she suspected a candidate interviewing for a relationship building role was reading AI-generated answers because of their speech patterns and pauses.
“Using AI to help prepare for interview questions is fine, but reading off a screen with interview responses is a total breach of trust and a big no-no for me,” she said.
Although she has nothing against the use of AI, Okh said the ones who are using it successfully are not relying on technology to replace critical thinking.
“We’re in the Wild West of AI, where it’s like no one knows what to do, and everyone’s just doing anything,” she said. “I think that it will eventually be refined.”
For now, nothing beats a response that feels personal.
Nike is cutting about 1,400 jobs in its operations division, mostly from its technology department, the company said Thursday.
In a note to employees, Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the chief operating officer of Nike, said that management was nearly done reorganizing the business for its turnaround plan, and that the goal was to operate with “more speed, simplicity and precision.”
“This is not a new direction,” Mr. Alagirisamy told employees. “It is the next phase of the work already underway.”
Nike, the world’s largest sportswear company, is trying to recover after missteps led to a prolonged sales slump, in which the brand leaned into lifestyle products and away from performance shoes and apparel. Elliott Hill, the chief executive, has worked to realign the company around sports and speed up product development to create more breakthrough innovations.
In March, Nike told investors that it expected sales to fall this year, with growth in North America offset by poor performance in Asia, where the brand is struggling to rejuvenate sales in China. Executives said at the time that more volatility brought on by the war in the Middle East and rising oil prices might continue to affect its business.
The reorganization has involved cuts across many parts of the organization, including at its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. Nike slashed some corporate staff last year and eliminated nearly 800 jobs at distribution centers in January.
“You never want to have to go through any sort of layoffs, but to re-center the company, we’re doing some of that,” Mr. Hill said in an interview earlier this year.
Mr. Alagirisamy told employees that Nike was reshaping its technology team and centering employees at its headquarters and a tech center in Bengaluru, India. The layoffs will affect workers across North America, Europe and Asia.
The cuts will also affect staffing in Nike’s factories for Air, the company’s proprietary cushioning system. Employees who work on the supply chain for raw materials will also experience changes as staff is integrated into footwear and apparel teams.
Nike’s Converse brand, which has struggled for years to revive sales, will move some of its engineering resources closer to the factories they support, the company said.
Mr. Alagirisamy said the moves were necessary to optimize Nike’s supply chain, deploy technology faster and bolster relationships with suppliers.
A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.
The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.
The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.
The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan. 1, 2028.
It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.
However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.
Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.
Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.
“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.
In voting against the bill Sen. Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: “Last I heard, in the United States, we don’t require any company to do anything. That’s the difference between capitalism and communism, frankly.”
The remarks against the measure prompted committee Chair Sen. Steve Padilla, (D-Chula Vista), to chastise committee members in opposition.
“I’m a little perturbed, and I’m a little disappointed, because you have someone who is trying to work with industry, who is trying to get facts and data,” he said.
Monday’s vote was the fourth time a bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to so-called “fire hardened” homes failed in the Legislature since 2020, according to an analysis by insurance committee staff.
Fire hardening includes measures such as cutting back brush, installing fire resistant roofs and closing eaves to resist fire embers.
Pérez’s legislation was thought to have a better chance of passage because it followed the most catastrophic wildfires in U.S. history, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.
The bill was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group founded in Altadena after the fires formerly called the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.
But it also had broad support from groups such as the California Apartment Association, the California Nurses Association and California Environmental Voters.
Leading up to the fires, many insurers, citing heightened fire risk, had dropped policyholders in fire-prone neighorhoods. That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers limited but costly policies.
A Times analysis found that that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the FAIR Plan’s rolls from 2020 to 2024 nearly doubled from 14,272 to 28,440. Mandating coverage has been seen as a way of reducing FAIR Plan enrollment.
“I’m disappointed this bill died in committee. Fire survivors deserved better,” Pérez said in a statement .
Also failing Monday in the committee was SB 982, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, (D-San Francisco). It would have authorized California’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters. It was opposed by the oil and gas industry.
Passing the committee were two other Pérez bills. SB 877 requires insurers to provide more transparency in the claims process. SB 878 imposes a penalty on insurers who don’t make claims payments on time.
Another bill, SB 1301, authored by insurance commissioner candidate Sen. Ben Allen, (D-Pacific Palisades), also passed. It protects policyholders from unexplained and abrupt policy non-renewals.
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Politicians in Washington and the reporters who cover them have an often adversarial relationship.
But on the last Saturday in April, they gather for an irreverent celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Hosted by the association, an organization that helps ensure access for media outlets covering the presidency, the dinner attracts Hollywood stars; politicians from both parties; and representatives of more than 100 networks, newspapers, magazines and wire services.
While The Times will have two reporters in the ballroom covering the event, the company no longer buys seats at the party, said Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief. The decision goes back almost two decades; the last dinner The Times attended as an organization was in 2007.
“We made a judgment back then that the event had become too celebrity-focused and was undercutting our need to demonstrate to readers that we always seek to maintain a proper distance from the people we cover, many of whom attend as guests,” he said.
It’s a decision, he added, that “we have stuck by through both Republican and Democratic administrations, although we support the work of the White House Correspondents’ Association.”
Susan Wessling, The Times’s Standards editor, said the policy is a product of the organization’s desire to maintain editorial independence.
“We don’t want to leave readers with any questions about our independence and credibility by seeming to be overly friendly with people whose words and actions we need to report on,” she said.
The celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman is headlining the evening, in lieu of the usual comedy set by the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, but all eyes will be on President Trump, who will make his first appearance at the dinner as president.
Mr. Trump has boycotted the event since 2011, when he was the butt of punchlines delivered by President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers mocking his hair, his reality TV show and his preoccupation with the “birther” movement.
Last month, though, Mr. Trump, who has a contentious relationship with the media, announced his intention to attend this year’s dinner, where he will speak to a room full of the same reporters he often derides as “enemies of the people.”
Times reporters will be there to document the highs, the lows and the reactions in the room. A reporter for the Styles desk has also been assigned to cover the robust roster of after-parties around Washington.
Some off-duty reporters from The Times will also be present at this late-night circuit, though everyone remains cognizant of their roles, said Patrick Healy, The Times’s assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust.
“If they’re reporting, there’s a notebook or recorder out as usual,” he said. “If they’re not, they’re pros who know they’re always identifiable as Times journalists.”
For most of The Times’s reporters and editors, though, the evening will be experienced from home.
“The rest of us will be able to follow the coverage,” Mr. Stevenson said, “without having to don our tuxes or gowns.”
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