Many talent acquisition teams are dealing with surging application volumes right now, and AI is a major factor. Candidates are using it to apply faster, at a greater scale, and with more targeted information than ever before. The instinct has been to treat candidate AI use as noise, something to filter out or push back on. That response misses the long-term implications entirely.
AI isn’t just a tool for corporate hiring teams anymore. Candidates have access to the same technology, and platforms are emerging specifically to help them use it strategically. The innovation this unlocks could drive more change in recruiting than anything employers are currently investing in.
So what is candidate-side AI actually capable of, and are talent acquisition teams thinking seriously enough about where this leads?
My guest this week is Sam Wright, Head Of Career Strategy at Huntr, a data-backed job search platform. In our conversation, he shares what candidates are really doing with AI and what the data reveals about where this is heading.
In the interview, we discuss:
• The job market from a candidate’s perspective
• How the job search is changing
• Declaring a truce in the AI arms race
• Candidate-driven disruption and innovation in hiring
• Ethics and responsibility
• The importance of human judgement
• What does the future look like?
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00:00
Matt Alder
Candidate use of AI in hiring gets dismissed as a trend to manage or a problem to solve. But are we actually seeing the bigger picture here? The data suggests that candidate side AI could fundamentally reshape how recruiting works. Keep listening to find out how support for this podcast comes from smart recruiters. Are you looking to supercharge your hiring? Meet Winston Smart Recruiter’s AI Powered companion. I’ve had a demo of Winston. The capabilities are extremely powerful and it’s been crafted to elevate hiring to a whole new level. This AI sidekick goes beyond the usual assistant handling all the time consuming admin work so you can focus on connecting with top talent and making better hiring decisions. From screening candidates to scheduling interviews, Winston manages it all with AI precision, keeping the hiring process fast, smart and effective.
01:00
Matt Alder
Head over to smartrecruiters.com and see how Winston can deliver superhuman results.
01:25
Matt Alder
Hi there, welcome to episode 774 of Recruiting Future with me, Matt Alder. Many tele acquisition teams are dealing with surging application volumes right now and AI is a major factor. Candidates are using it to apply faster, at greater scale and with more targeted information than ever before. The instinct has been to treat candidate AI use as noise, something to filter out or push back on. That response misses the long term implications entirely. AI isn’t just a tool for TA teams. Candidates have access to the same technology and platforms are emerging specifically to help them use it strategically. The innovation this unlocks could drive more change in recruiting than anything employers are currently investing in. So what is candidate side AI actually capable of? And are talent acquisition teams thinking seriously enough about where this all leads?
02:29
Matt Alder
My guest this week is Sam Wright, head of Career Strategy at Huntr, a data backed job search platform. In our conversation he shares what candidates are really doing with AI and what the data reveals about where this is all heading. Hi Sam and welcome to the podcast.
02:48
Sam Wright
Hey Matt, it’s good to be on with you.
02:50
Matt Alder
An absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Please could you introduce yourself and tell everyone what you do.
02:56
Sam Wright
My name is Sam Wright and my focus is on helping people get jobs. We have a site called Huntr.co and Huntr is an AI resume builder and tool to tailor your resume to match the job description. But even more than that, we’re really a data backed job search platform and the reason we are able to offer folks data backed job search advice is because we have a job search tracker in addition to our resume builder. So we learn kind of what is working and what’s not, what is helping people get interviews, what are the best job sites and what are the best things that you can do on your resume to increase your application to interview conversion rates and a really crazy right time right now to be a job seeker.
03:42
Matt Alder
Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, let’s start with that. What is the data telling you about how the job market is working right now from a candidate perspective?
03:51
Sam Wright
Well, what we’ve seen since we really started tracking is progressively quarter after quarter, the job search is getting harder and longer and longer for a lot of folks. You know, when we started really tracking this Last year in Q1 job search time or the average time to search was about two months roughly so about 57 days. As, as of the last sort of, the last time we tracked this or the last report that we launched our 2025 annual job search trends report in Q4, we saw an average search time that creeped up to about three months, so about 90 days. So when we looked at that we saw there’s a lot to be scared of.
04:35
Sam Wright
I mean we saw, we did a survey of over thousand job seekers and we found that about 13% have already said that AI has disrupted or actually caused them to lose their job. But then we do see some silver linings. We see that if you are tailoring your resume to match a job description when you’re applying to job sites that have higher application interview conversion rates. So for our users, that’s not LinkedIn which has about a 3% application interview conversion rate or 33 applications send converting to one interview when you’re applying to other job boards that we can talk about and applying with a tailored resume that matches the job description, you increase your application interview conversion rate by about 50% to 100%.
05:22
Sam Wright
So basically our goal is in this crazy time in this crazy job market to offer folks those data backed solutions because we are seeing that it’s getting harder and, and there’s a lot of disruptions that are taking place.
05:34
Matt Alder
The application conversion rate is really interesting.
05:37
Matt Alder
I mean, tell us more about the.
05:39
Matt Alder
People using your platform. Is it a cross section of skills and levels of experience or is it focused in a particular area? I’m just asking that because I’m kind of interested in terms of sort of how typical those rates are across the board.
05:52
Sam Wright
Yeah, so at Hunter we mainly focus on tech job seekers. So within our sort of data composition it’s skews towards early level or younger in their careers. So about 40% are early career folks and skews predominantly tech. So we really think that we’re kind of a bellwether for what you’re hearing a lot of in the news lately, which is these tech disruptions, what AI is doing to tech companies, changing how they work, changing, and really ultimately potentially causing a lot of these layoffs that we’re seeing right now. So that’s sort of our main user base that’s using the platform, and therefore that’s where our data is coming from.
06:36
Matt Alder
That makes perfect sense. And what are some of the surprising things that you found in the data?
06:40
Sam Wright
I think the most surprising thing is we’re seeing a lot of these AI tools on the hiring side, on the job seeker side. So people are joking. It’s like an AI application that’s being created using AI, and then you’ve got a hiring manager using AI to decipher the application. It’s like, what are we really doing here? Right. It seems like it’s just adding a lot more noise and a lot more work. And what we’re actually seeing in the data is the common sense really still reigns supreme. And the most important thing, tailoring your resume to match the job description. You can use a tool like Hunter Co, but being really focused, not lying as well.
07:23
Sam Wright
I mean, we saw in our job search trends report a little bit of an alarming survey result where about 50% of folks were willing to lie on their resume. I think that’s a sign of desperation and folks really having a difficult time actually trusting the job market. So we don’t recommend lying. We recommend that you tailor your resume, put your best foot forward, lead with the impact that you’ve had, and really apply to the jobs that you are the absolute best fit for. In an economy like today, we really see that it’s difficult to change jobs or transition jobs. So when you can, if you can, really try to focus on applying to jobs that you’re the best fit for. And that’s what the data says. And that’s kind of what common sense has always said as well.
08:10
Matt Alder
Yeah, absolutely.
08:11
Matt Alder
And I want to dig into that.
08:12
Matt Alder
Candidates using AI, employers using AI. I mean, some people are describing this as a war or an arms race. Is that accurate? And if it is, who’s winning?
08:25
Sam Wright
That’s a good question. I mean, I don’t know. I think that sounds a little bit dramatic, a little bit extreme, but at the same time, like, you know, jobs are livelihoods. Right. Like our tool is called Hunter. Right. It Harkens back to the hunter gatherer. Right. And so I think that, you know, obviously there’s. It’s a, it’s a difficult market for job seekers, which is a very different story than, you know, four or five years ago, maybe five, six years ago, when just about anybody, for instance, with a. Who is getting a certificate in software engineering was getting a job and getting a good job at that. And that’s just not the case anymore. I’m actually getting on calls with folks is like Ivy League educated computer science grads that are struggling to. To land a job.
09:11
Sam Wright
And so the script has been flipped very quickly on a lot of folks that have never had an issue finding a job before. And so we really need to be aware of what’s going on there. Recruiters, though, and hiring managers I talk to on a weekly basis as well, and they’re stressed and struggling too. Right. There’s an inundation of applications. They’re trying to find that signal in the noise. They’re feeling like they need to use other tools to just kind of make sense and get through that first pass on resumes. So I guess what I’m calling for is a truce.
09:49
Sam Wright
I don’t know whether who’s winning or who’s not, but I think the best thing on both sides is for us to get back to common sense where you’re applying to jobs that you feel like you’re a good fit for, you put your best foot forward. And then hiring managers and recruiters are doing right on their side as well, and they are reviewing those applications and they’re spending the time to find the right person for the right fit. And when and where possible, they’re offering feedback and trying not to ghost as much as possible, which is really a frustrating experience for a lot of job seekers.
10:20
Matt Alder
A truce is a million percent what we need around this. Because I think one of the things for me is I get the impression that a lot of the commentary around candidate use of AI coming from the employers and all the kind of people adjacent to them is seeing it as, first of all a symptom of the way the market is at the moment, which is obviously what you’ve described, but also, you know, a fad or a passing trend or something that’s not quite right and will be rectified. But this is the world of hiring changing before our eyes, isn’t it? It’s like we can’t put AI back in the box.
11:00
Matt Alder
And I really feel that the employers are going to have to adapt and think about you know, rethinking the way that some of their processes work to get to that common sense point that you kind of outlined there. What’s your take on that?
11:15
Sam Wright
Yeah, I mean, I think every time we see a major technological disruption, we see these sort of booms and busts and waves of enthusiasm and then concern. And I really think we need to, and I mean, trust our institutions. And so what I mean by that is there’s a few alarming factors here. So one is like Workday is facing a lawsuit for discrimination using AI in their hiring process. Workday is a very popular applicant tracking system, and that’s in the US District Court right now. And that could very well end up being, over the course of months, maybe years of adjudication, a case that ends up in the Supreme Court of the United States. And so whether you’re using AI or not, you’re still held the same standards and the same laws that we have to protect, folks.
12:10
Sam Wright
And so I do think, I mean, there is a University of Washington study that came out that said that there was, you know, I was discriminating when reviewing resumes based off of the names, whether somebody’s name was westernized or not had an impact on whether they got a job. So, yeah, I think what I would say is, again, common sense. Let’s not lean so heavily on technologies that we don’t fully really understand how to control, and we may not ever. And so I think that these things can be used as a tool, but ultimately they’re tools for the human world. Humans are responsible on both sides for making sure that they’re sharing accurate, true information and they’re doing right and doing good business.
13:01
Matt Alder
And I think that a lot of the innovation is seen to be the domain of the employers. So constantly looking at ways to balance that human judgment with some of the capabilities and things that AI makes possible. To me, though, I just feel that the innovation that’s going to really change the way that recruiting works is actually potentially coming from the candidate side as, you know, tools like the tool that you have develop. And AI is something that everyone has access to. It’s not a technology that’s just in the corporate domain, as some past technologies have been when they launched how to use these things, developing what kind of tools and approaches a candidate is likely to have access to as we move forward.
13:54
Sam Wright
Yeah, it’s funny. I mean, the other week I was a guest speaker at a Resume Writers association webinar. And, you know, our tool is an AI resume builder. So you think of those two as sort of counterintuitive or maybe competitors, but it really wasn’t the case. I mean, at least we don’t see it as such. Here at Hunter, we exist in a space full of snake oil salesmen and a lot of folks that are not doing right as job seekers or to the job seekers or for the job seekers. So we fully realize that and understand that and what we want to do in response to that is offer a brand and offer a platform and tools that help job seekers and also keep in mind the entire ecosystem. We don’t think that AI is going to replace career coaches.
14:42
Sam Wright
For instance, there’s something about that human to human interaction of somebody asking you about your career, making you think about what you want, what you’ve done, what you’re good at, you know those things. I think it’s really nice to have a human. What AI can do and what Hunter can do is really speed up the things once you already really have a lot of that information collected about who you are, what you’re good at, all your skills, all your interests, and then make sense of that in terms of matching you to potential job opportunities, but also putting your best foot forward by showcasing and sharing information on your resume and application material that stand out to hiring managers. And I don’t see a world where the resume goes away. There’s this idea that all resumes are perfect. Now.
15:32
Sam Wright
I’ve personally reviewed over 100 resumes this past month. They’re not all perfect. About 90% of them can be improved based off our the data backed solutions that we have from our analysis of over 200,000 resumes this past year. So yeah, I think that job seekers should be aware that you shouldn’t be lying on your resume, you shouldn’t be using application or systems and tools that are promising to apply for you in this sort of spam spray and pray that’s going to be bad for your personal brand. It’s not going to be good. The technology is just not good enough to be doing that. And that’s why we come back to application to interview conversion rates. Being the North Star.
16:15
Sam Wright
If you’re hiring a career coach, resume writer, if you are using a tool like Hunter, always be asking, always be looking for that application interview conversion rate because how well somebody can help you get an interview is how good their service is. So that’s one of the most important things I hope folks listening to this can take away.
16:38
Matt Alder
And I think it’s interesting, you know, looking at how recruiting works at the moment with resumes, how AI can make that process better, you know, regardless of how it kind of builds or develops in the future. Because I think from the employer’s perspective, at least in that kind of initial screen or initial information gathering process, at least an AI tool can read every single bit of every single resume. It’s not skimming through them, it’s kind of taking in all the information. And from a candidate perspective, it’s the opportunity to really tease out the things that people might not think to put in their resume, but that are actually really important to the job they’re applying to and could help them get that interview. So there’s a real positive aspect here, isn’t there?
17:21
Sam Wright
Yeah, I mean, I think so. You know, obviously I’m maybe a little bit biased with the tools that we’re building, but yeah, no, I think that these are tools. Right. And these are things that are supposed to help us in our work to become more efficient, more productive, more effective. I think we’re very early days here and I’m excited to see how things evolve at Hunter. We’re cooking up some stuff that we’re very excited about around just learning more about who someone is and everything that they’ve done in their career to really help match them to the right opportunities. And so AI is really context dependent as you’re mentioning. It’s not really a black box with that. Right. Like what’s on the resume is on the resume.
18:07
Sam Wright
I think AI application or use of AI for things like job applications and resumes are, you know, fairly good use of the technology because it’s really about sorting and synthesizing words and making it easier to consume those and digesting those. So I think we’re early days here and I’m excited for the future and excited for what we’re building here at Hunter.
18:32
Matt Alder
Give us a kind of a vision of the future. You’ve talked a little bit about this, but where do you hope that we’re going to be in three or four years time, taking into account the speed at which the technology is developing?
18:43
Sam Wright
Yeah, I mean, I think that with regard to the hiring process that we get a lot better understanding who someone is and what a good job is for them. Right. Like, I just don’t buy the fact that or this idea that like AI is going to eat jobs and there’s no jobs that are going to come in response. Because what is a job? Right. It’s how you’re providing value to your community and to the world. I mean, that’s what we’ve created with the Internet is A way to provide value to people in a globalized system. Jobs used to be the blacksmith of the town, right? Or 90% of us were small scale farmers about 200 years ago. And so jobs change, they morph. We are going to continue to provide value in different ways to other humans.
19:34
Sam Wright
Jobs are bundles of tasks and those tasks are being changed right now because some of them are being automated. So we’re going to rebundle Jobs and I think AI is going to help us get really good at providing. And I mean, I’m an optimist on this stuff, right. I think, I feel like I have to because I just believe that humans are going to become more human when we let the machines do things that machines should do. I’m reminded of this guy I met while I was traveling about a year ago, and he worked in a factory for basically his entire life, 20, 30 years in this factory, automobile factory, doing the same repetition with his arm for 20, 30 years, the same movement to assemble a certain piece of the car. And now that can be done by a robot.
20:34
Sam Wright
And he’s out there building houses now and bioconstruction. He’s doing all this cool, interesting stuff and he’s like, I’m so glad I’m not a robot anymore. And I think we’re going to realize that. I recognize 100% somebody listening to this who’s without a job and just needs a job. I’m right there with you. And that’s why I do the work that I do. But I do think broad picture, higher level, we’re going to get to continuing to provide value and doing it hopefully in a way where we’re not feeling like we are machines and robots. We’re feeling like we’re human.
21:08
Matt Alder
Stam, thank you very much for talking to me.
21:11
Sam Wright
Yeah, great to be on with you, Matt.
21:13
Matt Alder
My thanks to Sam. You can follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can search all the past episodes at recruitingfuture.com on that site. You could also subscribe to our weekly newsletter and get the inside track on everything that’s coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
