In the age of AI, it’s never been easier to apply for thousands of roles at once. But as the Oscar-winning actress revealed while hiring for a recent role, it’s never been easier to get caught, either.

“I was in the process of hiring someone, they were all very nice candidates, and they all sent me thank you notes,” the Devil Wears Prada star recalled in an interview with Hits Radio, before adding that every single one was written by AI. 

How could she tell? “They were all the exact same thank-you note,” Hathaway said.

When the first one came in, she thought “how nice, how professional,” but when the ones landed in her inbox, word-for-word identical to the first, the penny dropped fast. 

“I was like, oh no… I see something I’m not supposed to see,” Hathaway added. “So I just want to warn you: If you’re out there thinking that you’re getting away with something, there’s a chance that you might be revealing yourself.”

And while she was able to see the funny side, her co-star Meryl Streep, who also sat in on the interview, voiced exactly what bosses in that scenario may be thinking.

“So many Anne Hathaways that you’re going to apply to—you just can’t write it yourself,” Streep rolled her eyes. Indeed, a few minutes of effort really could be the difference between getting the job and getting ghosted. And when it’s a rare once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as Streep pointed out, the lack of effort doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Oh my god, that would be an absolute killer,” she added. “Nobody on that list gets that job.”

The thank you note is supposed to be your secret weapon—not your downfall

As young people stare down an uncertain economy, a wave of AI-driven redundancies, and the worst job market we’ve seen in 37 years, the pressure to automate writing thank-you notes is understandable.

For many candidates applying to hundreds of roles simultaneously, AI-written thank you notes aren’t laziness—it’s the only way to navigate what’s being described by experts, a “hiring nightmare.”

Plus, the thank you note was already contentious, with many arguing it’s expecting candidates to do free work on top of an already gruelling process, including multiple-stage interviews, aptitude tests and even secret personality assessments.

The problem is that when everyone uses the same tools, with the same prompt, to regurgitate the same sounding note, they don’t just fail to stand out—they actively look uninvested in the company and the role.

And in a job market where one young man with a master’s degree applied to thousands of positions for over six months without a single callback, there are so few ways to stand out among the millions of unemployed young people fighting for a job. The extra bit of effort it takes to hand-write a note could be an easy win, especially as one Gen Z hiring manager pointed out that they’re few and far between these days. 

“It really takes two seconds, and clearly … people aren’t sending them, so you will stand out if you send a thank-you to your interviewer after you get off the call,” Sophie Rocha, who works in marketing for the Gen Z careers platform Home From College, insisted.