Now more than ever, the human-to-human connection in recruitment is so important.
Many people are justly worried about AI taking their jobs. In recruitment, many of us are experiencing something vastly different. Identical applications under different identities and fabricated or impersonated LinkedIn profiles are filling up our systems.
This creates a big wall between the right candidate and the recruiter. Here are some hot takes until things start to smooth out:
1. Don’t rely on LinkedIn messages alone
Cold-messaging recruiters via LinkedIn is not a reliable tactic to get in touch. Right now, we’re getting spammed by fake candidates, etc. and may never see your message, no matter how “on top of” recruitment we are.
Email a recruiter directly. Write about your background, your approach to [insert job title here], and why you applied to this role. Write from the heart, not from an LLM. You can even have a templated message that you send out to multiple recruiters (no reason to write everything from scratch), adding a few customized lines for that particular employer. Also, talk to us in person! Attend conferences or local meetups and speak with recruiters. We want to hear from you. We want to talk to you.
2. Stop over-optimizing your job application with AI
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini—at first, these seemed like incredibly useful tools for folks to clean up their job applications, but it has started to backfire. Folks are using LLMs to write the entirety of their application answers and taking the soul and thoughtfulness out of their responses.
There’s nothing wrong with using LLMs to double-check grammar and spelling, but keep your language, keep your tone. When recruiters read your applications, we can feel a real answer from a fake one. Be aware that using an LLM to create an application answer is a good way to ensure that your answers are exactly the same as the many other applicants who are doing the same thing.
3. Don’t get discouraged by high applicant numbers
DO NOT get discouraged when you see many applicants applying to a role via LinkedIn. High applicant numbers do not equate to qualified, legitimate candidates.
We need your application.
4. Reach out—even when there’s no open role
Email recruiters even when the company you want to work for isn’t hiring.
Don’t write a novel, but tell us (in this case Test Double):
- what your philosophy is towards software craftsmanship
- your approach towards implementing AI
- why Test Double might be a fit
This is valuable because it gives us insight into you. Even if we cannot hire right now, many recruiters (including Test Double) will read your messages and respond.
Anya Iverova is the Director of Recruitment at Test Double, and has experience in scalable recruiting systems, hiring strategy, recruiting process design, and hiring team enablement.
