Job hunting with AI: CVs, cover letters and interviews

A CV tailored to every job ad

The most common mistake is sending the same CV everywhere. Recruiters (people or software) look for the ad’s words and skills in your CV. AI helps you do this in minutes, without making anything up.

Here are my CV and a job ad.

1. List the 8 most important skills and requirements in the ad.
2. For each, tell me whether my CV already shows it, shows it but hides it, or lacks it.
3. Rewrite my opening profile (max 4 lines) and the bullet points of my last two roles to highlight what the ad is looking for. Rule: do not add experience, titles or figures that are not in my CV. If something is missing, say so instead of inventing it.

CV: [paste] Job ad: [paste]

Then read it all aloud: if you would not say a sentence in an interview, cut it.

Numbers and results

Experience described as tasks (“social media management”) convinces less than experience described as results (“from 0 to 3,000 followers in 8 months”). Ask AI to turn tasks into results, but you must supply the numbers: if you don’t know them, a true qualitative sentence beats an invented figure.

A cover letter that doesn’t sound machine-made

People who read dozens of letters spot AI’s generic tone at once: “I am thrilled to apply”, “your industry-leading company”. The method that works:

1. Write, even badly, three things yourself: why that company, a concrete story where you did something similar to what they need, what you would bring in the first three months.
2. Ask AI to polish the text, not to write it.
3. Remove every sentence that could appear in any other letter.

Here is my draft letter for [role] at [company]. Improve it as follows:

• max 200 words, professional but natural tone, first person;
• keep my concrete story and make it clearer;
• remove clichés like “I am thrilled” or “industry leader”;
• at the end, list the sentences you changed and why. Draft: [paste]

Preparing for the interview

Here AI is a patient coach, available at any hour. By voice too: with assistants’ voice mode you can rehearse the interview out loud, which is far more realistic than typing.

Act as the recruiter for the role of [role] at [type of company]. Ask me one question at a time, wait for my answer, then:

• score it from 1 to 10 and explain why;
• suggest how to improve it in at most three lines;
• move to the next question, gradually raising the difficulty. Include at least one technical question, one about my weakness and one behavioural question (tell me about a time when…).

Prepare your own questions too: ask AI to analyse the company’s website and recent news (with a web search) and suggest three smart questions for the end of the interview.

LinkedIn and finding openings

• Profile: paste your profile and ask for a more specific headline and a 5-6 line first-person summary.
• Search: with Deep Research you can ask for a list of companies in your area hiring in your field, with links to openings. Always check the ads are still open.
• Messages: to reach people working at a company, AI helps you write a short message. Always personalise it with a true detail about the person.

The other side: how companies use AI to screen

More and more companies use software that reads CVs, ranks them or analyses recorded interviews. The EU AI Act treats these systems as high-risk (Annex III): users must ensure human oversight, inform candidates and check they do not discriminate. In practice:

• a clear CV, with standard headings (“Experience”, “Education”, “Skills”) and no complex graphics, is read better by software;
• you have the right to know whether a decision about you was taken by an automated system and to ask for a human to step in (GDPR, Art. 22).

In one line

Use AI to tailor, polish and practise, never to invent: you get hired for what you can really do.

Sources

• Europass — European CV editor (European Commission)
• AI Act, Annex III — high-risk systems (employment and recruitment)
• LinkedIn — profile help

Informational content, current as of the date shown. Prices, models and rules change often: always check official sources. Written with the support of AI tools and reviewed by the author.