AI may be helping candidates crack ATS filters, but recruiters say the surge in polished, template-driven resumes is weakening the value of CVs as a hiring signal, pushing companies to rely more on interviews, referrals, and skill-based assessments.

Industry experts observed that AI helps capable candidates struggling with resume writing or ATS formatting. Based on observations from NexxaScreen’s interview workflows, co-founder Vinay Jain shared that candidates with better ATS-optimized resumes often receive 5x to 10x higher shortlist visibility compared to earlier, despite the same underlying experience.

Meanwhile, data from Hunar.AI indicates that over 70 per cent of white-collar candidates now use AI to draft their CVs. For Gen Z, this number exceeds 85 per cent.

“AI resumes are cleaner, keyword-optimized, structurally tight. They get past ATS filters and look professional. On paper, everything is right. But when everyone’s resume is polished to the same standard, recruiters are scanning identical templates,” Krishna Khandelwal, Founder & CEO of Hunar.AI, shared.

The NexxaScreen co-founder added that recruiters are becoming better at spotting overly polished or templated resumes. “Since candidates upload resumes before entering interview rounds, we often notice a gap between how strong a profile appears on paper and how a candidate performs in conversation or assessment. The real value of AI should be helping candidates communicate their strengths better, not help them exaggerate experience,” Jain said.

AI-assisted applications are contributing to a surge in application volumes across industries, creating additional pressure on recruiters to identify genuine, qualified talent.

According to LinkedIn research, 74 per cent of recruiters struggle to find qualified candidates, even as hiring activity runs 40 per cent above pre-pandemic levels. Among recruiters who say hiring has become more difficult, over half (53 per cent) point to a surge in AI-generated applications, while many cite continued shortages of in-demand skills (47 per cent).

Because of this, resumes alone are becoming a weaker signal. Now, hiring teams often rely more on referrals, previous company brands, portfolios, or interview-based evaluations to differentiate candidates. Experts noted that recruiters are shifting toward a more holistic evaluation of candidates, prioritising measurable outcomes, domain expertise, project ownership, quantifiable achievements, career progression, and problem-solving ability over keyword-heavy resumes.

Data also shows that the percentage of candidates flagged for suspicious behavior during assessments has steadily increased.

“In 2021, approximately 32.4 per cent of assessed candidates were flagged for suspicious activity, which rose to nearly 45 per cent in 2025. The real challenge today is separating signal from noise, identifying candidates who possess genuine capability, adaptability, and long-term potential in an increasingly automated hiring environment,” observed Pasupathi S, Chief Operating Officer, HirePro.

Many companies are moving away from relying only on resumes and traditional screening methods toward more interview-led evaluation processes, including AI-powered interview rounds and situational assessments early in hiring. Organisations are increasingly using AI interviews not to save recruiter bandwidth, but to evaluate communication, problem-solving, and thought process at scale.

Interview formats themselves are changing, with more recruiters using open-ended and situational questions that test how candidates think in real time. The hiring process is gradually moving toward evaluating actual thinking and interaction instead of just profile presentation.

“When we run interviews, a significant chunk of candidates who look strong on paper score in the bottom twenty-five percentile. Recruiters who have used NexxaScreen send the AI interview to 70 or 80 candidates who cleared their paper shortlist. Several strong candidates are sitting in that rejected pool because their resume did not survive the first filter,” Jain said.

Khandelwal echoed this sentiment, “Across 20 million+ candidate conversations at Hunar.AI, we’ve seen that the resume tells you almost nothing about whether someone is eligible. A 15-minute voice conversation in a candidate’s own language reveals contextual understanding, situational judgment, and real-world readiness that no resume ever could.”

AI hits two groups hardest. International candidates who have worked at unicorns or large companies in their home markets are getting auto-rejected because the system does not recognise the employer names.

For career switchers, even with aggressive AI resume optimisation, there is a ceiling. If their background is in a different industry, the job description keywords are not in their history. These are not hypothetical risks. However, AI did not create bias, it made existing biases faster and more invisible.

The experts agree that AI is helping companies handle scale more efficiently. More organisations are using AI-led interview and assessment layers earlier in the process to move beyond resumes and evaluate communication, problem-solving, and role fit in a more structured way. Ultimately, the companies benefiting most are those using AI to enable better human decision-making, not replace it entirely.

Published on May 24, 2026