Future colleagues

Jason Koebler reports on a program that automates applying to jobs on LinkedIn, using a few prompts and the now-obligatory LLM. As with most so-called AI, it’s capabilities seem to be more oriented toward volume than quality: the applications it spits out are either generic or inaccurate or both. This is a predictable, dystopian, and also in many ways very funny turn of events. (Look, the days are dark and turning darker, we have to find humor where we can.) But really what it demonstrates is that the hiring process has become entirely too much and far too inhumane. Treat people like machines, and they will behave like them.

It’s hard to be the first person to put down your weapons in an arms race, and the incentives on both sides of this divide are terrible. But the reality is that the people doing the hiring have more power to fix this mess, and better step up to do it soon. Because at the end of the day, you’re not trying to fill a job quota; you’re trying to find future colleagues. A dehumanized and dehumanizing hiring process is not going to generate a productive collaboration at the other end.