AI is making the job hunt more unfair

Levelling the playing field may actually make things more unfair, not less, when it comes to how artificial intelligence affects the job application process. That’s the conclusion of a World Economic Forum analysis of the way that AI technology is being implemented and what it means for inequality.

By now, we all know how efficient generative AI can be when it comes to writing a cover letter. You put in a few prompts and come away with a polished CV and cover letter that will be sure to impress. The only issue is that if everyone has the same technology, no one is going to stand out. That makes it harder for the hiring manager staring at a pile of perfect applications, none of which seem any different from the others and none of which tell you much more than what technical skills the candidates possess.

As a way to differentiate candidates, some hiring managers are apparently going old school and relying on referrals from people who know the candidates. This could come from the manager reaching out to their own network and asking if they know of someone who might fit an open role, something you frequently see these days on sites such as Linkedin. It might also come from job seekers looking for leads among the people they know and perhaps asking them to make a discrete call or to send an email to someone who might have an opening.

None of this will come as news to anyone who is looking for a job, be they a new graduate or 50-something worker trying to find work after a layoff. Working your network, if you have one, is frequently cited as the best or sometimes the only, way to get a job. It’s hard to blame hiring managers for taking this route to hiring. With AI making it so much easier to apply, every opening could mean multiple times more applicants than in the pre-AI days.

The WEF worries that hiring this way will lead to a widening of inequalities, and there is something to be said for that viewpoint. A new graduate coming from a higher income background and who has well-connected parents, for example, probably has an army of professionals who would be willing to contact an old friend on their behalf. In contrast, someone from a less affluent background may have no one to call, which means their resume languishes on a pile. This may not be a new phenomenon, but it is ironic that we may be seeing more of it at a time when AI was supposedly being used to give everyone a leg up.

That said, there is a lot to be said for using the referral process when it comes to picking the best workers. A 2024 study by German researchers that appeared in the journal Labour Economics found that candidates who came with referrals took less screening time and cost less in screening costs and were more stable workers with less turnover and better productivity than others.

It stands to reason: if you are going to recommend someone for a job to one of your contacts, you will be careful to recommend someone who is likely to be a good worker so as to not blemish your own reputation.

In a world where soft skills are becoming more important, the referral process can help as well. Any CV, no matter how well crafted, really tells you a limited amount about anything other than a worker’s technical skills. Being successful at a job, particularly if the organization wants to keep the worker long term and perhaps promote them, requires a host of other abilities as well, none of which can really be seen from a CV. These can come out at an interview, but it would also be an advantage if a hiring manager knew about them through a referral before they ever bothered to interview someone in the first place.

Canadian hiring managers apparently understand the value of referrals. According to a 2026 Express Employment Professionals-Harris Poll survey, 81 per cent of Canadian hiring managers said employee referrals make hiring more efficient and 83 per cent said they trust a candidate’s stated skills more when someone recommends them. Not all job seekers recognize that, however, with only 38 per cent telling the same survey they believe a referral helps them to stand out.

It’s an imperfect system at best, the battle to get the best people into jobs. Using AI in the recruitment process is clearly a powerful tool, but one that has increasingly been shown to come with its own glitches and biases. The next step might be to craft CVs differently and perhaps improve the AI screening process. For now, however, adding referrals to the process comes with its own problems but may increasingly be a tool used to try to differentiate between candidates.