An AI specialist has identified four giveaways that reveal a candidate has used artificial intelligence to write a job application. Andreas Voniatis, Founder and CEO of Artios, tells Digital Journal that employers across the UK are becoming more aware of what an AI generated job application looks like as job hunters increasingly turn to AI to help them apply for jobs.
Voniatis has highlighted four of the most common telltale signs:
Generic, formal language lacking personality:
Machine-written applications rarely stray from stiff, formal language patterns when describing career history. This manufactured feel immediately stands out to recruiters who spend their days reading thousands of real applications.
“AI tends to lean on a formal vocabulary that feels like it came from a college essay or business manual,” Voniatis explains. “Words like additionally, crucial, underscores, endeavour, leveraged, synergy, facilitate, or driven by a passion for innovation all raise suspicions.”
Missing specific examples:
Voniatis points to the absence of believable personal stories as another major warning sign:
“Human candidates include specific details about challenges they’ve faced that AI simply can’t invent. You’ll spot vague accomplishments instead of concrete examples with those little details only someone who actually did the work would know.”
“When someone claims they ‘boosted team performance’ without explaining exactly how they measured it or what specific actions they took, that’s when alarm bells should ring”.
Unusual formatting patterns:
Document formatting problems provide another clear sign of AI assistance. According to Voniatis :
“AI writing tools make subtle but noticeable formatting mistakes that human applicants avoid. Watch for odd spacing between paragraphs, weird alignment issues, or random font changes that wouldn’t appear in carefully prepared human documents.”
These issues often reveal multiple tools were used across different application sections. Even minor inconsistencies expose the artificial origin of supposedly personal documents.
Perfect answers to every question:
Voniatis identifies suspiciously flawless and fluid responses as another warning sign, as:
“Human applicants naturally change the length of their sentences regularly and can create some clunky sentences. AI completely lacks this instinct and produces perfect sentences with little variation in length and structure and with no mistakes or clunkiness.”
Voniatis emphasises that recruiters shouldn’t automatically discard applications showing these signs but should use them as starting points for deeper investigation during interviews.
“Job hunters shouldn’t be punished for using AI tools, but recruiters should make sure that what has been written accurately reflects the person they might eventually hire,” he said. “Asking very specific follow-up questions during interviews that probe the experiences mentioned can verify whether the candidate actually understands what they’ve claimed on paper.”
