Authenticity in an AI World

As candidates increasingly use AI to enhance resumes and interviews, HR teams face growing challenges around authenticity and trust. The solution lies in balancing AI-driven efficiency with stronger human judgment, proactive sourcing and meaningful candidate connection.

Just as HR departments increasingly use AI in all aspects of recruiting, candidates are doing the same in their job search. They recognize the opportunities AI may offer them in positioning themselves as a candidate of choice throughout the application and interviewing process.

Candidate use of AI presents new challenges for HR teams, especially when it comes to verifying candidate authenticity, explained Tiffanie Ross, senior director of AIRS, powered by ADP. "Candidates are using AI to update their resumes and professional profiles, enhance market research and provide sample interview question and answer ideation. Candidates have more tools available to them to help their application stand out from the competition."

For talent acquisition professionals, it's important to have a solid understanding of the AI resources candidates may be using and the associated challenges of determining the authenticity of a candidate. HR teams may struggle to determine whether a candidate is who they claim to be, and they might make hiring decisions without an authentic understanding of how they will add to the organization. Ross said that while the potential loss of authenticity can be daunting, organizations have a great opportunity to lean into the expertise and skills of their teams and pair the human touch with their recruiting technology and processes. Empowering talent acquisition teams to use human skills, such as emotional intelligence, to detect inauthenticity and build genuine connections supports the candidate experience, the employer brand and effective hiring practices.

From resume boosters to fake profiles: The rising use of AI in job searching

It's understandable that candidates want to ensure their applications stand out. They know that tailoring applications and resumes to specific jobs and using keywords is critical to being noticed. But that tailoring can be tedious and time-consuming without the use of AI tools. A 2024 Gartner survey found that 39% of candidates use AI during the application process for varying tasks, including:

54% used it to generate text for a resume
50% used AI to generate text for a cover letter
36% created writing samples using AI
29% used AI to create text to answer questions on an assessment

"It used to just be candidate-generated information," Ross said. "Now, it's candidate+."

When candidates use AI not just to streamline the application process but to augment their skills, it becomes difficult for HR teams to accurately assess their true abilities. Imagine during an online interview, a candidate comes up with the perfect answer to every question. But those answers aren't based on the candidate's experience and insights. Instead, the candidate receives those suggested responses from a chatbot in real time. That misrepresentation of skills and experience is concerning, but some candidates go even further by not just pumping up their history but totally fabricating it.

Online interviewing, which has grown in popularity, makes this type of candidate fraud easier. In another Gartner survey, 6% of respondents said they've participated in interview fraud — pretending to be someone else or having someone pretend to be them. That initial percentage may be small, but Gartner predicts that by 2028, 25% of candidate profiles worldwide will be fake. Fraudsters can gain access to company information, employees and equipment, resulting in financial or reputational losses. It's even more frustrating that, in addition to the damage the fake candidate has caused, the job they were hired for is still unfilled.

Candidate assessment tools can exacerbate loss of authenticity and connection

HR teams use AI to speed up their processes, but that lack of personal contact also makes it harder to build trust and discern authenticity. Chatbots make it quick and convenient for candidates to get answers to standard questions. But candidates may also feel more distrust toward companies that use technology to screen applications. These are valid concerns. Biases can be embedded in data used to train AI, leading to unfair outcomes. In fact, 74% of job candidates said they doubt AI will evaluate them fairly, and 25% said they trusted companies less if the companies used AI to evaluate their applications.

Even if a candidate is hired, AI tools can form a barrier that prevents them from feeling connected. ADP research found that although employees who use AI may feel in sync with their jobs, they are less likely to feel connected to their companies or colleagues.

Going beyond post-and-pray recruiting

If the recruitment technology designed to streamline and speed up the hiring process can also lead to a lack of authenticity and a disconnect between candidates and companies, what can hiring teams do? Plenty, explained Ross. "We are seeing a lot of recruiters who are using the more tried and true recruiting methodology of reaching out to candidates and not relying on just the candidates who are coming into the funnel from postings, career sites, and social and professional media."

Ross suggested several effective recruiting strategies:

Search to find potential candidates

Effective sourcing for potential candidates focuses on identifying non-traditional resumes, Ross said. "These are profiles of people who would be a good addition to an organization, even if they haven't applied." Recruiters can look at articles potential prospects have written, their professional and social media profiles or the jobs they've held. Since the prospects aren't currently looking for a job, their job information may be more reliable. "It's cold calling and contacting," Ross said. "I'm going to reach out to you in a proactive manner on a platform that I think I can find you and get you to respond to me." Prospects may be interested or refer someone with potential interest and the needed skills."

Look for skill adjacency

Ross said that when recruiters can't find talent for a specific role, they should consider searching for candidates with experience in closely related abilities or skills. Many candidates with transferable skills are excited about expanding their knowledge, possible upward mobility and their increased value as a candidate that holds multiple abilities in a skills cluster. Focusing on skill adjacency requires research, more personal outreach and relationship building, which may be a shift for recruiters accustomed to primarily finding candidates through the applicant tracking system.

Determine authenticity by using probing interview questions

In-person interviews help foster authentic communication and make it easier for the recruiter and candidate to interact, while also ensuring the candidate isn't getting a script from an AI tool during the interview. But in-person interviews aren't always possible. Ross said determining a candidate's true experience requires asking effective interview questions. "It's important to go beyond the resume, probe into past experiences and ask situational questions that also focus on results," she said.

Enhance interviewing skills

As talent acquisition teams amplify their sourcing and interviewing practices, their skills need to evolve as well, Ross said. "We're seeing a lot of activity in our interviewing and hiring training for recruiters and hiring managers. Organizations have identified the need to focus on training for effective soft skills to ensure their hiring teams can support a positive candidate experience, effectively sell the opportunity, interview effectively and successfully negotiate and close the candidate.

The importance of connection

It's often obvious when a person is hired with overly embellished credentials. They can lack the necessary skills, and their performance and productivity often suffer. Others may ghost the position entirely. When a company recognizes these trends, it's important to review hiring processes, including the role AI plays in informing candidates and driving hiring decisions.

It may be difficult to detect when a candidate doesn't feel connected to the company, or to identify how the recruiting process or technology may contribute to the lack of connection. After all, a candidate may drop out of the process or ghost a recruiter for various reasons, and some may be unrelated to the candidate experience or technology.

Ross suggested looking at recruiting metrics to help identify opportunities to improve candidate connection. Regardless of how the candidates were sourced, consider the following questions to identify gaps:

Do you have enough people in the pipeline?
What is the time to fill?
Is there a fall off, and if so, in what stage (i.e., application, hiring manager interview)?
Is the process too long?
How transparent is the process?
How does your process compare to that of your competitors?
What is your employment brand?
What is your employee value proposition and how does it compare in the market?

"Candidates have been very clear about what they want and what they expect, and it's very different from what it was 10 years ago," Ross explained. "They don't just want the job and are willing to do whatever it takes to get there. They want to be appreciated and valued along the way from the very first interaction."

Balancing AI and human skills

Although technology may not be able to identify a lack of authenticity, that doesn't lessen its value, Ross emphasized. Successful recruiters are effectively balancing technology and the human touch.

For many parts of the recruiting process (screening, assessments, matching and more), AI-enabled tools and features can increase efficiency and speed. In fact, SHRM reported that AI adoption in HR jumped from 26% in 2024 to 43% in 2025, reflecting how quickly organizations are embracing these capabilities. This new efficiency has created the freedom for recruiters to focus on high-value, connection-building work. Organizations are becoming more intentional about where human-centric judgement is needed in the technology-driven process.

Using AI-enabled resources for ideation can help recruiters quickly identify organization, schools, certifying entities, speaker lists and more as they proactively identify potential candidates for their talent pipeline. This leaves more time for personal connection, relationship development and other crucial candidate pipeline activities. Recruiters can leverage their expertise to uncover the motivators of candidates to ensure they are effectively positioning candidates for roles and able to negotiate the offer to close.

The human ability to negotiate and close the candidate requires that recruiters connect with candidates from the beginning. "From the very first contact, recruiters should be selling, probing and closing," Ross added.

As the recruiting and talent landscape continues to evolve, talent acquisition teams must also continually develop, accelerating their soft skills and abilities. Human connection, authenticity and trust are directly linked to recruiting outcomes. To reach, attract, hire and ultimately retain authentic candidates, a new power duo has been created: recruiters and AI-enabled technology working together to drive speed, efficiency, transparency and an authentic human connection.

To learn more about how organizations are navigating AI as it becomes embedded in everyday work, watch this webinar.