Applying to Jobs Has Become an AI-Powered Wasteland

If you’re one of millions of job seekers struggling to find stable employment, just know it’s probably not you.

With the onslaught of so-called "generative AI" — Silicon Valley’s term for complex prediction algorithms that can be used to create new content based on vast amounts of material that they gathered without the permission of its creators — the job search has become a veritable gauntlet of fake job listings, automated application bots, and computer-generated interviews.

Though it’s only been a little over two years since consumers got their hands on ChatGPT — the first widely available generative AI model — the tech has already caused devastating harm to the digital job market.

Per the New York Times, the number of applications sent via LinkedIn has surged over 45 percent since 2024; the rate now stands at a dizzying 11,000 apps per minute on the site. One HR worker was gobsmacked when her fully-remote job posting received 400 applications in just 12 hours, surging to over 1,200 apps 36 hours later.

Access to AI makes it incredibly easy for legit applicants and scammers alike to spam employers with résumés, often uniquely tailored to the job's details. That makes standing out as a purely human applicant — which was already difficult before AI — a Sisyphean task.

"It’s an 'applicant tsunami' that’s just going to get bigger," one recruiter told the NYT, often devolving into an "AI versus AI type of situation."

But the problem didn’t start with job seekers. The trouble can be traced back to the mass adoption of AI HR bots, with 99 percent of Fortune 500 companies admitting to the use of AI to filter applicants, and 40 percent anticipating using AI to conduct interviews.

And as job seekers turn to AI to level the playing field, companies — which hold almost all of the power in the labor market — are cranking the lever to dump more AI on the problem. Employers are now unleashing AI to verify applicant identities, administer computer-generated skilled assessments, and auto-generate messages to applicants — all deployed with essentially zero recourse for anyone wrongfully rejected or subject to bias by the faceless bot.

Case in point, LinkedIn is unleashed a so-called "AI agent" to help HR managers keep up with the flood of AI-assisted job applications — essentially fighting fire with gasoline.

It’s a labor arms race to the bottom, and until regulations like the EU’s Regulation on Artificial Intelligence become universal, applicants lacking the funding, resources, and techno-savvy of organized companies are bound to lose.

More on labor: AI Is Replacing Women's Jobs Specifically

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