Shoutout to that AI resume optimizer I paid $50 for, it was completely useless

I was job hunting last month and saw an ad for an AI tool that promised to rewrite your resume to beat the bots. It cost me $50 for a one time use and I figured it was worth a shot. The thing basically just swapped out a few words with fancy synonyms that sounded wrong. I sent the new version to a friend who hires people and she said my resume read like a robot wrote it, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid. Total waste of money and I had to redo everything myself. Anyone else get burned by one of these AI job help services?

3 comments

3 Comments

evan_cooper731mo ago

Those AI services ALWAYS miss the mark because they don't understand the subtleties of how a real hiring manager reads a resume. The real trick is writing naturally for the person and then just making sure keywords from the job description are sprinkled throughout. You got burned, but at least now you know to just do it yourself and maybe pay a real person for proofreading instead.

pat7811mo ago

Yeah my cousin's AI rewrote her resume to say she loves Excel but she can't even spell it.

valc911mo ago

Yeah I mean actually the keyword sprinkling thing isn't totally foolproof either. I've seen some hiring managers say they can spot that a mile away if you just jam keywords in without context. It kind of defeats the purpose if your resume doesn't flow naturally. The real issue with those AI tools is they don't understand your actual experience or what you did day to day. They just grab random phrases from job boards and stick them in weird places. So even if you try to fix it yourself the tool probably just made a mess you have to untangle. Honestly it might be better to just write your own resume from scratch and ask a friend to look it over for typos.