LinkedIn is doubling down on AI features, but do they help job seekers?

Searching for a new job has never been easy, but right now it can seem especially brutal. Competition is fiercer than ever before; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, your chance of receiving an offer after applying to as many as 80 roles stands at just 31%. Each one of those applications takes time, so it’s understandable to do whatever you can to streamline the process, including by employing Big Tech’s favorite obsession: Artificial intelligence.

LinkedIn has obliged, rolling out several AI tools over the past year that help with the application process, helping you compose (or rewrite) everything from your resume and cover letters to original posts and even personalized messages for hiring managers. LinkedIn’s AI tools are built on, and powered by, OpenAI’s ChatGPT. (Microsoft, who owns LinkedIn, has invested nearly $14 billion in OpenAI.)

LinkedIn’s AI-powered job-assessment tool—available now to premium subscribers and in early 2025 to everyone else—identifies listings for which you’d be a top applicant and marks them with a gold square. The tool works by analyzing keywords in your profile against the job description—so the more detailed your profile, the better the results. In an internal LinkedIn survey, more than 90% of premium subscribers found the tool useful. No data is available as to whether the feature leads to a quicker job hunt, unfortunately.

Before you tap ChatGPT to cowrite your resume and cover letters, take heed. Errors induced by AI generated text often include fabricated statistics and vague phrases like ‘operational efficiency.’ The pros are getting better about spotting such text. “When I see someone’s resume and every single metric ends in a zero or a five, I know they’ve used AI,” says Sam Struan, a Glasgow-based recruiter and resume writer for hire.

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