Resume Guidance in the Age of AI
Seeing the same debates and questions surfacing repeatedly on LinkedIn and some other forums lately around resumes, ATS systems, AI-generated applications, keyword optimization, and why so many candidates feel like their resume disappears into a black hole after submission.
Part of the reason I ended up writing this is that I seem to be getting connected to more and more recruiters lately, and you start seeing the same patterns, frustrations, and filtering problems appearing from both sides of the hiring process.
A lot of the discussion tends to become very polarized between “everyone should use AI” and “AI is ruining hiring,” but the reality is more nuanced than that. There are legitimate advantages, but also real risks once every resume starts sounding structurally identical and differentiation begins to disappear.
I took some time to write up a longer breakdown from more of a systems/process perspective that might help some people understand what is actually happening inside modern hiring flows and where AI can genuinely help versus where it can start working against candidates.
Fair warning: it is long and fairly dense. It is not meant to be a quick “10 resume hacks” article. The goal was more to help anchor people who are actively looking, struggling, frustrated, or trying to understand why the current market and application process feels so broken.
It felt appropriate for this channel, and hopefully useful to a few people here navigating the current market.
https://rmacmillan.substack.com/p/resume-guidance-in-the-age-of-ai