Natasha is a leading HR expert, entrepreneur, author and sought-after media commentator for outlets such as Sunrise (Channel 7), ABC Radio and The Australian Financial Review. Natasha co-founded Employee Matters in 2011 to help Australian businesses achieve success through their people.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing how businesses recruit, from writing job advertisements and reviewing CVs to screening candidates and identifying potential hires. But what happens when both employers and job seekers use AI, and the technology starts favouring applications created by similar systems?
This question was recently explored on Weekend Sunrise, where Employee Matters Managing Director Natasha Hawker discussed the growing role of AI in recruitment and why human judgement remains essential.
When AI Screens AI-Generated CVs
As more candidates use AI to improve their resumes, recruiters are increasingly assessing applications that have also been shaped by AI tools. Recent reporting in the Australian Financial Review highlighted research suggesting candidates using the same AI model as a recruiter could be more likely to be shortlisted.
This raises an important question for employers: are recruitment systems identifying the best candidates, or favouring applications that match the technology's expectations?
AI can help streamline recruitment, but it is not immune to bias. The data used to train these systems can reflect existing biases, while automated screening may overlook suitable candidates who have different experience, backgrounds or ways of presenting their skills.
Why Human Oversight Matters in Recruitment
AI can be a valuable recruitment assistant, helping businesses save time and manage applications more efficiently. However, it should support decision-making rather than replace it.
Employers should regularly test their recruitment tools, review rejected applications and compare AI-generated shortlists with human assessments. Clear selection criteria and consistent assessment processes can also help businesses identify potential bias and avoid overlooking strong candidates.
The goal is not to eliminate AI from recruitment. It is to use the technology responsibly while keeping people at the centre of hiring decisions.
How Job Seekers Can Stand Out in the Age of AI
Candidates can also use AI to their advantage without relying on it to do everything.
Tailor every application: Align your CV and cover letter with the specific role and its requirements.
Show your achievements: Explain what you accomplished, not just the tasks you performed.
Make your experience clear: Include relevant context about previous employers and the work they do.
Use AI as an editing tool: Ask it to review your CV against a job advertisement and suggest improvements, while ensuring the final application accurately reflects your experience and voice.
A short introductory video or a conversation with the recruiter may also help candidates communicate their personality and suitability for a role.
Finding the Right Balance Between AI and People
AI has real potential to improve recruitment, but successful hiring still depends on understanding people, assessing capability and making informed decisions.
For businesses, the challenge is to combine the efficiency of AI with the experience and judgement of skilled recruiters.
Employee Matters provides flexible recruitment services to help businesses attract, assess and hire the right people, with a focus on effective recruitment processes and better hiring outcomes.
David Woiwod: Well, we know Australians are using more AI than ever before, both at home and at work, and a big side effect is that the technology is turning the job search upside down.
Monique Wright: AI is being used by companies to sort through resumes, many of which are also being written with AI. It turns out candidates using the same AI as the recruiter can be up to 60% more likely to be shortlisted than people who wrote their CVs on their own. For more, we're joined now by Natasha Hawker, who is an HR specialist and managing director of Employee Matters. Good morning to you. Okay, Natasha, so AI, more likely to hire people that are using the same AI. How do you know which one to use?
Natasha Hawker: Well, you don't. That's the thing. I think what we need to remember here is that humans are also predisposed to unconscious and conscious bias, as well as AI. So what you need to do is to make sure that you are checking your system, put the checks and balances in there so that you're not being biased against some agents that are looking to review your CV.
David Woiwod: What do you mean by that?
Natasha Hawker: Yeah, so what you're doing is everyone's putting their CV into AI and so we're getting vanilla out. What you want to do is actually make sure that you're standing out in the crowd, your CV looks different. You need to have a human in the loop. You need to think about AI as a fabulous assistant, it enables you to do more with less, but you need to test it. So for example, in this case, what I would have done was an extra prompt in there to say, review 10 of the CVs that you actually rejected to the AI agent, tell me why you rejected them, so that you've got those tests and measures in place and you don't make mistakes and potentially risk bias.
David Woiwod: So if you are looking to be hired then, and again you want to have that human in the loop, what should you be adding into your resume then to make it stand out from for AI?
Natasha Hawker: Yeah, there's a couple of things. One is that you need to tailor your CV and your covering letter for every job that you go for. You don't just want to put the same one in. Make sure that you actually put a line in your CV to say what your company is doing because not everyone knows what Sunrise is or what ABC is. So on top of that, you need to do a short video. It's a great idea to introduce yourself. It makes you stand out.
David Woiwod: People are doing that now, are they?
Natasha Hawker: They are doing that now. That gives them an opportunity to say, this is who I am and this is why I think I'm a great person for the role. And it also gets a human face to the CV. The other thing you might do is go outside the process and actually ring the recruiter and have a chat.
David Woiwod: But that would get annoying though, wouldn't it, for the recruiter? Do they want to take that phone call?
Natasha Hawker: They really want to get a good candidate. At the end of the day, the recruiter's job is to say, is that person who they say they are, and can they do what they say they can do? And that's their job, and that's what humans are really good at, and AI isn't.
Monique Wright: And interesting that you're saying, do get AI to write your CV, like put it through and see what it comes out with?
Natasha Hawker: Yes, so if I was going for a role, what I would do is I'd write my own CV first, and then I'd put it through AI. And then even better, I would actually get AI to put the, I would put the job ad in that I'm going for, and get it to compare and contrast and tell me how I can improve my application based on what the job ad is. What most people do is just send the same CV to every single job, and that doesn't work because you need to tailor it. It needs to be specific to the role that you're actually going for.
Monique Wright: Some good tips for us.
David Woiwod: Yeah, definitely we need them. Well we're going to need a resume sooner the way this rate this is going. Is it going to change the way HR is actually done as well in the workplace? Because I can see that a lot of this, it could easily be taken over by AI, couldn't it?
Natasha Hawker: It could, and it shouldn't. It should be used as an assistant. So as an example, when we recruit for our roles, we put it into AI and we've compared and contrasted. But we've actually tested that. Is the 10 candidates that we would have selected as the human in the loop the same as AI? And then you've got to keep training it. You've got to keep training it and say, this is what we're looking for, this is what we're looking for. And then you get a great result. If you just let AI take over, you're in trouble, you're not going to get what you want.
David Woiwod: Beyond just favoring AI systems that have also written those same resumes, is there any other inherent bias in the system there when it is selecting candidates?
Natasha Hawker: Well the trouble is that humans trained AI. So we've inherently put our own bias in. So as an example, many of the people who are training AI are men. So their unconscious bias may turn up in that AI. So that's why you need to test it. You need to make sure because we've got anti-discrimination laws in this country and you can get yourself into some big trouble.
Monique Wright: Ah, good chat. Thanks very much Natasha.
David Woiwod: Thank you.
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