I’ve been banging on a lot about AI recently. Once a sceptic, I am now firmly convinced that AI will change our (and every other) industry more than anything else has in the past 30 years. Hell, this could be as big as the industrial revolution. I kid you not. The power to automate processes and decisions at a level north of what is possible from the average shmuck is a game changer. As the power of AI grows at breakneck speed, it is difficult to fathom where it ends. In the opinion of my colleague’s dad, it’ll be at the hands of a muscular, male human exterior made up of living tissue, covering a metal endoskeleton, crushing the skull of the last human under its metal foot. Personally, I don’t think it’ll be quite that bad, but I’m convinced that most of our jobs will either go or change beyond recognition.
Given this view, I find it hard to criticise the use of AI – even when I want to. After all, these folks are just early adopters of sh*t we’re all going to be doing. However, contrary to what some believe, I am still human. And as a human, I think we’re all justified to complain about stuff. Today’s complaint is about AI and comes to you written by a very human hand. On that I promise.
so…can us recruiters please stop posting ChatGPT created content?
To be clear, I am not talking about using AI to draft emails. I’m not talking about AI being used to contact candidates. I’m not even talking about using AI to prospect clients. This is (sadly or not) the future of recruitment. Contacting a candidate about a job via AI allows us recruiters to “speak” to (and then assess) more candidates. The end result? A better candidate for our client. This is what we’re paid to do. No sensible candidate I know cares if they got a great job via a message I wrote, or one penned by ChatGPT. If you do care, stop being so precious. Likewise, if you’re using ChatGPT to do the heavylifting of writing a job ad, then…whatever. I wouldn’t do it, but I appreciate I’m in the minority. Once again, it’s a means to an end.
What I’m talking about is using AI to write “engaging content” to make us all look like thought-leaders with the gymnastic prose of Oscar f*cking Wilde. You’re probably reading this on LinkedIn. After you’ve finished (and posted how amazing I am), scroll down your feed and see how far you can get without someone stating the bleeding obvious about some inoffensive topic on a post penned by ChatGPT. All of a sudden, professionals (and recruiters especially) who usually communicate via grunting and pointing are now filling our feed with nonsense. What’s the difference you may ask? For me, it’s clear. Using AI to source a candidate results in a happy client and a happy candidate, and that’s what we are paid to do. Using it to show off how clever we are, when we’re probably not, is disingenuous. You, my friend, have a ghost-writer. Not just that, it’s also just a bit cringe.
I get that not everyone has the confidence to write, but may have some fantastic ideas that are worth sharing. ChatGPT can certainly polish this message. I get it. However, judging by these posts, people aren’t writing what they want to convey and asking ChatGPT to polish it up. They’re saying “write a LinkedIn post for my new company I’m launching explaining the trials and tribulations which bought me here, and making me sound like a f*cking superhero in the process”. Or “write a humourous yet professional post about life as a recruiter that will make me look like I have more than 3 years recruitment experience with a rubbish agency”.
The worst examples of this are from those who don’t have the intelligence to remove that cursed “double-dash” or all the other tell-tale signs that ChatGPT sits in a place where originality and creativity resides in others. I commented on one such post this week — clearly written by ChatGPT, only for the poster to message me to deny it was written by machine, and then (tellingly) delete my comment. Some of you may know what I’m referring to, but that’s not important. This person went on to bang on about “authenticity”, even going so far as to add the double-dash into the message they sent me, like it was just a little quirk in their writing style. In the words of the legendary Steven Seagal, “I was not born on a pumpkin patch”. Similarly I saw a post from a manager at Robert Walters waxing lyrical about what their leadership awards meant to them – with text cut and paste straight from ChatGPT. Touching stuff. You know who you are, and no, we’re not imbeciles.
This has spawned two new hobbies for me. Firstly, calling out LinkedIn content obviously written by machine. This is the obvious reaction from someone like me. The second one I’m enjoying is slipping ChatGPT-isms into the incredibly bizarre stuff I actually write. At least that way I can blame a machine the next time a drunk recruiter complains to be about this blog.
Until next week or the machines take over.
^SW
