AI has served as a vehicle to streamline workflows and automate routine labor—but it’s also bogging down the job search process for both applicants and recruiters in a competitive labor market.
Candidates are looking to cut through the noise by tricking AI filters, while recruiters are drowning in a flood of applications, and companies are posting ghost jobs. The result is an authenticity crisis, according to Daniel Chait, CEO of hiring platform Greenhouse.
“This is the first time I can remember where both sides were unhappy,” he told Fortune. “Employers are basically saying, ‘It’s really hard to make a hire because we get overwhelmed with tons of applicants and we can’t really tell which ones we should pay attention to.’ And job seekers are saying, ‘It’s easier than ever to apply for jobs, but it’s harder and harder to get a job.’”
The 2025 Greenhouse AI in Hiring Report shared with Fortune and published Tuesday found that only 8% of job seekers believe AI algorithms that screen initial applications make hiring fairer.
Across all 1,200 U.S. job seekers polled, almost half said their trust in hiring has decreased over the past year, with the share rising to 62% among U.S. Gen Z entry-level workers.
Among the respondents who have lost trust in hiring, 42% blame AI directly. Plus, more than a third of job seekers think AI has shifted bias from humans to algorithms.
At the same time, Greenhouse’s report found that nearly half of job seekers are submitting more applications this year, an AI-assisted trend that Chait called an “AI doom loop.”
“Trust is at an all-time low for both job seekers and recruiters,” he said.
Where AI hurts
Over the past year, the number of applications submitted through LinkedIn has spiked more than 45%, due in part to AI tools, according to The New York Times. In June, the platform recorded an average of 11,000 applications per minute.
Three in four of U.S. job seekers use AI to polish their applications, and 87% say it’s important for employers to be transparent about their own AI use, which is largely missing, according to the report.
But as more job seekers utilize AI to tailor their applications, it actually has an opposite effect, Chait said: Instead of making candidates stand out by using the job description as a roadmap for application materials, AI tools end up spitting out similar-sounding cover letters and resumes.
“You end up basically not being able to tell anyone apart,” Chait said.
Job seekers are disillusioned, but AI isn’t helping them
Rapid adoption of AI tools for job applicants is “a result of the fact that for years candidates have felt short-changed by the way recruitment has been done,” said Paddy Lambros, CEO of Dex, an AI career agent technology company.
Applicant fatigue is evidenced by social media posts advising job seekers on how to trick and bypass AI filters that are often used by applicant-tracking systems, he told Fortune..
“If you feel like every application you send is kind of a meaningless thing that no one’s going to read anyway, then sure, why wouldn’t you use AI to kind of spam it out?” Lambros said.
But AI tools rarely help applicants past the initial screening, he warned.
At his last job as a talent director at London-based venture capital firm Atomico, Lambros said his team was approached earlier this year by companies suddenly inundated with four to five times more job applications than they had just a month prior.
But among the influx of applications, most CVs were simple and nearly identical, as AI tools built them off the job descriptions rather than genuinely representing individual candidates. This made it hard to discern if the candidate was really qualified for the role.
In addition, Lambros said many applicants would show up to job interviews not even sure what the company did as they used AI to “spray and pray,” sending out thousands of applications each day.
Greenhouse’s report details the scope of this issue, finding that 65% of U.S. hiring managers have caught applicants using AI deceptively through practices like reading from AI-generated scripts, hiding prompts in resumes to bypass initial screening, or showing up as deepfakes.
The report says U.S. job seekers may consider the use of AI as “leveling the playing field” as companies and recruiters increasingly lean on AI to filter applicants. But 74% of hiring managers say they are more fearful of fraud than a year ago.
“I can understand the desire for candidates” to use AI tools, Lambros said. “I just don’t think it’s very effective.”
Who’s using AI to apply?
Among U.S. job seekers, 41% admit to using prompt injections, or hidden text designed to bypass AI filters, Greenhouse’s report found. Of those who don’t, over half say they are considering it.
The report also found that among candidates using prompt injections, the tactic is most common in IT at 65% and banking or finance at 54%.
But as the tactics become more widespread, so does AI in the hiring process. Over half of candidates have encountered AI-led interviews, further making the process impersonal.
“AI usage in first-round interviews is downright insulting and inhumane,” Lambros said. “To be told it’s not worth sending a human to speak to you is a pretty poor signal.”
AI’s power for good
But Lambros said AI in the hiring process isn’t all bad—when it’s utilized correctly.
Harnessing AI to help seek out the right jobs instead of sifting through every job posting on the internet is one good use of AI for job seekers, he said. His company’s AI tools help connect candidates with job postings that reflect their personal and career goals and act more as a career coach.
“I think that that’s really the future of hiring. It’s less about pipelines, and it’s more about highly accurate matchmaking,” Lambros said.
Still, Greenhouse’s Chait said something has to change and thinks humanity must be brought back into the process.
“The solution has to come from better ways to bring out the real interest and the real meaning behind job applications and job postings,” he added.