Will Recruiters Care If You Used AI to Write Your Cover Letter? Here’s the Answer

You’ve spent days, maybe even weeks and months perfecting your resume, and once you think you’re finally ready to send out that application, you’re prompted to attach a cover letter. At this point, you might just want to send your resume without a cover letter, but you’re worried that might hurt your chances of getting the job. So you turn to ChatGPT to write a cover letter for your application.

But you’re here today because you’re probably still wondering:

“Will recruiters actually care if job seekers use AI to write a cover letter? Do they even read these letters?”

We know that writing a cover letter can be a dreadful task. And we also know that AI tools can be very helpful in many ways, especially in writing. In fact, a survey showed that 72% of job seekers used ChatGPT to write their cover letter. ChatGPT is not the only tool out there that helps you write your job application. Nowadays, more and more companies are developing and launching powerful AI-powered recruitment tools, such as Cake’s AI Cover Letter Generator.

However, if you are among the demographic who wants to start utilizing AI in your job hunting journey, it is important to also consider its various impacts in recruitment. While AI can help job seekers save time on writing and improve the quality of the cover letters, at the same time recruiters are receiving more and more cover letters that are not actually written by the candidates.

A cover letter is usually requested by recruiters as it provides additional information besides what is written in your resume. Recruiters can also infer your soft skills, such as how attentive to detail you are, how good you are at communicating through written language, and more through how you write your cover letter. 

So yes, recruiters would actually care if you used AI to write your cover letter.

With that said, nobody’s saying that you should not leverage AI’s help in crafting your application. After all, technology is here to make our lives easier, not harder. There are things to remember when using AI to craft your application so that you can take full advantage of its powers without misusing it to cheat your way into getting a job offer.

In this article, we will learn more about how recruiters tell if an application is AI-generated and how you, as an applicant, can use AI in the best way to help make your job search process easier.

Let’s dive into it!

The Purpose of a Cover Letter

As mentioned above, recruiters can infer many things from a candidate’s cover letter, including their communication skills, soft skills, and level of attention to detail.

While recruiters might not read every single cover letter they receive, having one will only help your application unless you were specifically requested not to include one.

Aside from that, a cover letter also allows you to include extra information that you cannot fit into your resume. This could be:

• Stories or motivations that make you a suitable candidate for the job,
• Your enthusiasm for the industry and the role, shown through written words or
• Your personality and communication skills
  

That’s why although it’s cumbersome to craft, 98% of the time you should include one with your resume. 

How AI Is Used to Write Cover Letters

AI tools like ChatGPT or Cake’s AI Cover Letter Generator usually help you create a cover letter that is tailored based on the contents of your resume and the job description of the role you’re applying for, just like how you would probably write one if you’re writing it yourself.

But instead of it taking hours, using an AI tool will take just a few minutes (maybe even seconds). You won’t need to worry about writer’s block, and you’ll also be able to skip the whole proofreading and editing process, as the AI’s got you covered in terms of grammar corrections, tone adjustment and keyword optimization.

Let’s look at how you can use Cake’s AI cover letter generator when applying for a job:

Step 1: When you are submitting a job application on the Cake platform, you will find a field to enter your cover letter after uploading your resume. Above the field, click on the “AI Generate” button. 

Step 2: A window will pop up where you can customize your cover letter preferences. Choose the language and tone of voice you want to use, and finally, the length of the cover letter. Choosing “Short” will generate a cover letter for around 250 words, while “Long” will generate around 350 words. Once you’re done, click “Generate”.

Step 3: A notification saying “AI is writing” will pop out. Wait for a few seconds while the AI generates your cover letter.

Step 4: Once done, you will be presented with 3 different results which you can view by clicking on the arrows beside the word “Results”. Choose the result you like the best and click “Insert Result” to insert it to your application and continue editing it. If you want to restart with a different preference setting, click “Reset Preference” and repeat steps 2 and 3.

Step 5: Now, you’ll see the selected cover letter inserted in the field. Continue to edit and personalize the content of the cover letter before submitting your application.

How Recruiters Will Know If a Cover Letter Is AI-Generated

Since you’re considering (or maybe already using) AI to create a cover letter for your application, you might wonder if recruiters can know if a cover letter is AI-generated.

Some AI tools can create highly customized letters, but many lack the authentic human touch, which recruiters might notice. Recruiters might know if a cover letter is AI-generated, either at a glance or if they take extra steps to check. There are a few hints that indicate an AI-generated cover letter that recruiters notice:

1) Generic language, lack of personalization and human touch.

If you have spent some time using AI as a writing assistant, you might notice that AI-generated writings tend to use a generic language. As AI rely on the information you give through your prompts to generate the content you need, there is always room for error and they might fail to insert the right information that makes your cover letter personal.

Recruiters who read a lot of cover letters might be able to notice this sign when reading a cover letter.

Therefore, it’s crucial that when you use AI to create a cover letter, you should always double check and further personalize the content before sending in your application.

2) Validation from AI-Content detector.

With the rise of AI content writing helper tools, comes the rise of AI content detector tools to help identify content that is not written by humans.

If your application happens to fall on the hands of recruiters who care about AI-generated applications, they might utilize these tools to check whether your cover letter is AI-generated or not.

There are a few tips to avoid AI detection in writing, such as:

• Paraphrasing AI-generated sentences and changing formats.
• Changing keywords and phrases so they’re not repetitive.
• Using highly descriptive prompts when generating your writing.
• Including personal perspectives and anecdotes to add a human touch.

Another important thing to note is there’s no one correct way to decide whether you should use AI to write a cover letter or not. Some recruiters may not mind AI-generated cover letters as long as its well-written and tailored to the job. Meanwhile, other recruiters might see it as a lack of effort, especially if the letter feels impersonal or generic.

Make sure your content is authentic. A cover letter can only help if it brings extra value to making your application more relevant to the role. Here are some general dos & don’ts to follow if you decide to utilize AI to write your cover letter:

Is It Cheating to Use AI?

Now, let’s discuss the ethical aspects of using AI when crafting job applications.

Some might argue that using AI to write a cover letter is a dishonest act. That is a valid argument, considering an AI robot basically wrote your content for you.

When considering whether you should use AI to create our application, it’s important only to use AI for assistance and not to rely too heavily on it.

For example, you can create specific prompts and ask AI to craft a cover letter, which you will edit and personalize further instead of reusing the same AI-generated cover letter template repeatedly.

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that AI can be a huge help for job seekers who are actively crafting applications and applying for jobs, but the convenience it provides also poses a high risk of over-dependency. Therefore, it’s important for us to remember to use AI only as a helper and not be too dependent on it or misuse it.

While not all recruiters will mind if you’ve used AI to write your cover letter, there is a chance that some might, and you should take precautions to avoid having your cover letter detected as ingenious. You can do this by always taking the time to personalize the AI-generated content and avoid copying the AI content directly.

Remember that technology is here to help make our lives easier, so use AI adequately as an assisting tool when crafting your job application.

— Originally written by Rachel Tristan —