Our AI hiring bot rejected my resume because I typed "ok" in the cover letter

Applied to a tech support job last Tuesday and their automated screening tool flagged my application for "casual language" after I used "ok" instead of "okay." The rejection email literally said my communication style didn't match their company standards. Has anyone else gotten dinged by these AI filters for something this dumb?

3 comments

3 Comments

grant4784d ago

Yeah I've seen this happen to a few people now, it's pretty common with those automated keyword checkers. My advice would be to rewrite your cover letter with more formal language and run it through a free grammar checker before you submit. Just swap out casual words like "ok" or "yeah" for the full versions and you should be fine.

karenb974d agoMost Upvoted

Haven't you had that happen too? It's super frustrating when you know you wrote something fine but the system flags it anyway. I had the exact same issue with my last job application and had to go back and change all my "gonna" to "going to" and "wanna" to "want to". Also make sure you avoid using contractions like "don't" or "can't" because those can trip up the checkers too. It's annoying but once you learn what they look for it gets easier to fix.

barbara_grant44d ago

Read somewhere that some companies are now training their bots to look for "emotional language" too, like overusing exclamation points or certain happy words. Guess we're all supposed to write cover letters like we're filing taxes now.