At several panel discussions during Forbes' Future of Work Summit last week, one word kept cropping up to summarize how job candidates are feeling about the current job market: frustrated. It's a sentiment many recruiters and talent acquisition professionals share. And—apart from the low-fire, low-hire market we're in—much of the frustration is due to AI, speakers concurred.

"The robots are talking to each other," said Erin McGoff, creator of AdviceWithErin and founder of StupidFish.

Candidates are using AI to polish and customize their resumes and applications and then mass applying—leaving TA professionals flooded with candidates who look and sound the same, without any indication of realistic job fit.

"As much as I hear from job seekers how frustrating it is right now to get a job, I also hear from recruiters that they can't find qualified talent," McGoff said. "Everybody is so frustrated right now."

Daniel Chait, co-founder and CEO of Greenhouse, said companies are being "inundated" with look-a-like candidates—AI slop, he called them.

"AI has taken over the job market," he said. "Candidates are applying automatically to hundreds or thousands of jobs and using AI to tailor their application to the job descriptions. Then companies are using AI to hammer the list down—candidates respond with more applications, and around and around we go."

AI is being used on both sides, he noted, in a way that has made the overall hiring process "worse, not better."

"People are smart, and they're using AI to counter [organizations' use of] AI and get into the system," added Arnnon Geshuri, chief people officer of Snowflake. "So, we have to be more clever."

Thinking differently about AI in hiring

In McGoff's view, that entails stepping away from hiring strategies like relying on traditional resumes.

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