My city's new AI hiring tool flagged my resume for a job I was perfect for

I applied for a data analyst role in Austin last month and got an automated rejection in under an hour. A friend inside told me their new AI system had filtered me out because my resume lacked specific keywords from the job ad, even though my experience matched. It made me question who's really making these big life decisions. Has anyone else been passed over by an algorithm for a role they were qualified for?

4 comments

4 Comments

nathan10014d ago

People forget these systems handle thousands of apps a day. A human recruiter would never have time to read them all. The keywords are just a basic filter to find people who can speak the company's language. If your experience truly matched, maybe your resume just needed better formatting to get past that first scan.

hollywhite14d ago

My old boss in Phoenix told me they had to program their system to ignore the word "synergy" because every candidate started stuffing it in after a keyword seminar. The real problem is these tools create a feedback loop where people write for bots, not humans, and the bots get trained on that fake data. It's a broken system learning from its own mistakes.

foster.tessa14d ago

Did you see that article about how these systems now flag resumes for being too perfect?

jana_black14d ago

Oh man, that's so true... my friend had to add "proactive" and "innovative" like ten times to even get a look. Now the bots must think everyone talks like a weird robot.