AI in Recruitment – Our lessons from the field

January 27, 2026
Market Reports
3 min read
A small robot with large round eyes stands on a table, with a blurred background featuring a laptop and a door.

AI in Recruitment – Lessons from the Field

I’ve been using AI tools like ChatGPT actively in my recruitment work for well over a year. Not to replace me/a human recruiter, but to save time on the elements that don’t require deep human judgment.

For example, after I’ve done a proper client briefing – a real call, with real notes – I will then feed those notes alongside the official job description into AI. From there, I ask it to format the content using our Dataworks structure and tone. All the substance comes from me and from the client, AI saves me time to format and organise it.

That alone saves hours per month and gives me some time back to focus on what actually matters: speaking to candidates, advising our clients, evaluating fit, and negotiating offers.

Where AI Adds Value

There are good use cases for AI when used with discipline:

  • Formatting job descriptions using a template after a proper recruiter briefing
  • Drafting first iterations of outreach messages, LinkedIn posts or summaries, which we always edit and personalise afterward
  • Verifying basic information or sense-checking market trends
  • Generating inspiration when brainstorming ideas or content
  • Automating admin tasks (summaries of calls, first-pass formatting of search reports, extracting bullet points from notes, etc)

In short, AI can speed things up, but only where human judgment has already been applied.

The Limitations : Why AI Is Not a Recruiter

I absolutely do not treat AI as the Bible. It is imperfect and often confidently wrong. I’ve caught it giving false information many times, so everything must be double-checked across other sources. Occasionially, I ask ChatGPT to provide their sources.. they were unable to and changed their stance on the topic.

For recruitment tasks, the common flags for me are:

  • AI does not understand context
  • It cannot evaluate character or potential
  • It cannot read between the lines in a conversation
  • And it certainly cannot build trust, which is still the foundation of recruitment

Recruitment is still human-led. The technology is only useful when you already know what you’re doing.

 
The Harm It Has Caused in the Industry

This is a wake up call for the recruitment community and AI is starting to be too visible day-to-day.

AI has brought far more noise into recruitment than clarity:

  • Applicants providing an AI-formatted CV… leading to generic, templated, and even AI-generated CVs. I reviewed a CV recently with 68 bullet points under their current role
  • Some candidates are submitting fake or heavily embellished profiles, sometimes with tools to attempt bypassing ATS filters
  • We’ve seen deepfakes used in interviews, or people reading from AI prompts / answers live in interviews, pretending to be experts
  • Some candidates don’t even have the right to work in the country they’re applying for. Yet they apply, pass AI filters, and waste everyone’s time
  • Volume has exploded : for a recent US fully remote Data Engineer role, we received nearly 500 applicants within 24 hours. That volume felt like ~80 percent noise — fake, irrelevant, or too junior

This means more time spent filtering through distractions, rather than being able to focus on real talent that deserves attention

Illustration of a robot analyzing resumes on a laptop, with AI and user icons, representing artificial intelligence in recruitment or hiring processes.


Final Thoughts – The Real Cost of Misusing AI

The side-effect we don’t often mention: the more AI amplifies volume, the more valuable human discernment becomes. Recruiters now spend more time identifying what is real, relevant, and genuine because templates and tools have made it easy to appear capable without truly being capable.

AI should be used to remove friction, not to manufacture false signals. The future isn’t AI versus humans. It’s AI plus humans who know what they’re doing.

And what can we do to combat all the problems with AI in recruitment? We are currently tackling that fight with a few of our clients, ensuring we filter through the noise to match the right profiles with the right roles!

Want to know more about how we can help? Get in touch. 

Contact Us