CVs in a Machine Age: “AI should enhance our unique voices, not replace them”
Musing on AI: A long-time hiring manager wants to convince you that the best CVs are really powerful acts of self-expression and has a vision for how AI can help everyone push past CV-bots.
If we have a waking nightmare, it’s a future where all writing is mindlessly mediated by robots. Robots write. Robots read. Human minds atrophy.
In the world of job applications, a consensus has emerged that this dreaded future is already here and hiring. Job seekers are told to use AI to reverse engineer what a recruiter’s AI wants to hear, with the horrible feeling that good talent is going ignored and all sense of self and individuality is pointless.
Catherine Chin isn’t having it. She is not only bullish on the role of AI in career growth, she sees the CV as an act of self-discovery and self-expression that AI can make much better and much easier. A long-time hiring manager and now a co-founder of AI-driven career platform Odyseek, she recommends aiming CVs squarely at the hearts and minds of human recruiters.
Catherine’s advice on CV writing, the vision for her startup, and the philosophy of using AI to boost your career seems the perfect counter to AI-pessimism.
For those of us who struggle to write CVs, she is also full of inspiring tips that will make you see the CV in a whole new light, and highlight where AI can help self-expression and where it can hurt it. What Marie Kondo is to an unconquerable pile of socks, Catherine is to that update to the CV you keep on putting off. She not only knows how to improve the CV, she knows how to make you love the process, with or without AI. We had a chat with her via email and Google Docs.
Robin: How did you end up doing this? What’s driving your passion?
Catherine: For me, the driving force goes beyond helping professionals land a job. It’s about helping people uncover their unique value, own their achievements, and open doors they didn’t think were possible. Everyone has a story worth telling, and our mission is to help them tell it boldly in their own authentic voice.
After 20+ years of hiring and managing teams at companies like Pinterest, TrueCar, and Vanta, I noticed a recurring challenge: people struggle to tell the story of their career and the value they created along the way. We used insights from hiring managers and recruiters to build a truly responsible AI career platform. Our philosophy is: we don't use AI to fabricate, we use it to elevate.
Lynette: Obviously you don't want totally made up things on your CV (whether written by a person or AI), what counts as fabrication?
Catherine: Aside from hallucinations (where the AI invents things that didn’t happen) many users are relying on blind prompts to optimize resumes like “Write a resume using these facts that get me a job.” or “Revise my resume to fit this job description.” A common byproduct of AI is hyperrealism. In the context of resumes, this hyperrealism comes in the form of overly polished, highly articulate, or exaggerated content that sounds impressive but doesn’t reflect the user’s true experience.
We instead take the user down a path of picking on their own terms the right level of information or context to craft their career highlights authentically.
Robin: AI seems to have upended both ends of the recruiting industry almost instantly. How is it on the hiring managers’ side of the fence? What’s going on?
AI is unintentionally building even wider gaps between job seekers and recruiters & hiring managers. For recruiters, it has improved efficiency by helping prioritize candidates, but it’s also led to applicant pools growing exponentially so that 75% of resumes submitted never get read with human eyes.
On the other side, AI tools can help to optimize resumes, but over-reliance often produces robotic content. Hiring teams pass on resumes that seem fabricated. Finally, job seekers aren’t confident with how they position themselves.
Lynette: Is CV screening the primary thing you see recruiters using AI for? Could an AI conduct 1st stage interviews, which are really time consuming? Often I can tell within the first 10-15 minutes if a person is not going to be a good fit, but then out of politeness I feel obligated to go through the rest of the 45 min interview. Because of this I also have to be more ruthless in screening at the CV stage, which might mean I'm missing some people who might have been great. I'd still always want to have F2F interviews with a candidate; it's more just to be able to better focus them on prospects who are in with a real shot.
Catherine: I love that you brought this up. I've never loved the idea that a resume is a proxy for value. We're basing someone's skillset on a one-dimensional piece of paper and, based on my work with countless professionals, no one does this well. My tagline is "even smart people have dumb resumes" :)
I know there are companies that are trying to use AI for initial screens, but to be honest, I don't feel any platform has nailed this. Most traditional Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are primarily using keyword matching; a recruiter only sees on average 25% of resumes being submitted.
We ultimately want to blow up the resume and are actively working on ways to build more of a skills portfolio. We're also building a candidate-screening tool in BETA around some ideas on how to do this.
Robin: And yet even if the CV’s one-dimensional, I’ve never quite heard anyone describe the CV as a positive form of expression with the same passion you have.
I’ve always wondered why so many people dread writing their resumes. It’s your opportunity to showcase what makes you unique. Rather than seeing it as a task, think of your resume as a powerful narrative that reflects your authentic self.
In today’s world of AI-generated, cookie-cutter resumes, standing out with your individuality can make all the difference. A personal, expressive CV not only catches the eye of hiring teams but also boosts your confidence.
The goal is simple: minimize your disqualifiers and maximize your value proposition. You have just 6 seconds to grab attention and inspire the reader to dive deeper into your story—and ultimately, land that interview.
Lynette: Does this go beyond just tailoring the details of what you cover, to also include the format/styling varying by target company?
Catherine: I would say there are slight variations in how information is shown (e.g. a recent college grad should lead with education prior to work experience). How you show impact is basically the same in any industry: measurable results are measurable results!
Government resumes are usually a lot longer and use specific types of wording. I've helped a government & civil service employee convert her resume for the private sector, which landed her 4 interviews, because it was more concise and allowed to showcase her impact more succinctly than the traditional government style.
Lynette: That reminds me of when I interviewed for a job in the civil service. I didn't get the job but afterwards the manager confided they had really wanted to give it to me but I had used the words 'we' not 'I' too much in describing achievements. They couldn't put enough ticks in the right boxes versus another candidate. In hindsight that was an obvious mistake on my part; I'd just been too indoctrinated in talking about work achievements from the perspective of being part of a team and speech writing 'At Google we believe …” and hadn't realised it was so proscribed.
Catherine: One of our mottos is we want to empower people to BRAG BOLDLY.
We all struggle with this. I struggle with this. Even the exercise of optimizing our resume is a challenge because we don't want to come across as arrogant or self promoting. We want to empower people to celebrate their strengths and their unique skillset that no one else has.
Robin: Just to give our readers the sense of how this works in practice, you are a powerful advocate for the idea that a few bullet points under a job can be crafted in a way that tells a powerful story .
Catherine: Strong bullet points are your chance to showcase the impact you've made, by using action verbs and measurable outcomes. A well-crafted bullet point follows a simple formula: start with the why, describe what you did, and finish with how you achieved it—backed by measurable results. I call it “validated proof” and it should feel fluid & natural.
To gauge if your bullet point resonates, ask yourself: "So what?" Why does this matter to your future employer? What problem did you solve or value did you create? If your bullet points don’t answer that question, it's time to rework them.
Robin: Another aspect of your designed-for-humans, storytelling approach is that it should have SUSPENSE. This is such a wild idea in the age of robo-resumes, that you’re actively recommending to get recruiters to pick up the phone, simply to answer intriguing questions you’re raising.
A strong impact summary allows you to connect the dots for the reader right away. But don’t use generic statements like “Product marketing executive with 15 years of experience…” Instead, make it engaging and memorable, like: “Marketing storyteller who brings products to life, creating meaningful user experiences…” Your resume should then back up this statement with concrete examples of the impact you’ve made. This approach leaves recruiters curious and eager to learn more about you.
Robin: Just for fun: give us a version of the Catherine CV that is clearly written by an AI and turn off a recruiter, and how would you change it?
Catherine: One that stands out is the overuse of bolded keywords as bullet point headers. This approach disrupts the storytelling process.
Robin: It’s frankly wild to me that you are describing this as if you were a director describing a movie. I love it.
Catherine: The goal isn’t to spoon-feed the reader. We want them to come to their own conclusions about why you're a good fit. For example, here's a typical bullet point:
Drove Growth: Led Odyseek’s strategic direction, growing the user base by 150% in one year by leveraging AI to optimize career matching and enhancing user engagement through personalized value storytelling, positioning the platform as a go-to resource for job seekers and recruiters.
While this sounds fine, the keyword "Drove Growth" oversimplifies the achievement. It doesn't tell the full story. Here's a better version:
Increased Odyseek's user base by 150% in one year through AI-driven career matching and personalized storytelling, positioning the platform as a top resource for job seekers and recruiters.
By removing the keyword and focusing on the outcome, it makes the impact clearer without over-explaining.
Robin: I sometimes picture a nightmare future of content that’s like a Cold War: an infinite amount of writing that can’t be processed by people, so machines are reading material written by machines for machines, and no one gets wiser. How close are we to that in the world of job applications? What would be the dream version of AI helping here?
Catherine: It’s a real concern and scary to think about. With efficiency comes a degradation in human connection.
Human assessment is still crucial, but I do foresee a future where resumes may become obsolete.
At Odyseek, we’re always thinking if we could blow up the resume, what would the next resource be to showcase one’s career DNA.
For me, the dream version of AI is that it helps candidates reflect their potential and also helps reduce recruiter bias. The key is blending technology with human insight: Odyseek’s slogan is that we’re the “Career AI with a Human Eye.”
Lynette: Something I found after having not written a CV for a very long time is that I struggle to remember details of past projects. I wish I could interview my former self every few months to extract the stories and examples that might be handy for peppering a future CV. l always knew I SHOULD have been jotting things down but I never made it a priority to do so because it felt like a chore. If I'd had an AI tool that just asked me questions I could talk back to, it would have captured them in a more informal/less painful way.
Catherine: I LOVE THIS! We are actively building this feature and we are really excited about this one. We want to allow users to log their wins either by a quick text, voice memo, file upload etc. and we'll cascade the info to all the relevant areas:
-1:1 template with your manager
-Creating a bullet point for your resume bank of highlights (for you to choose in the future)
-Performance Review, etc.
We can then use AI to narrate the win. You have a history of all the great things you've done. We want people to focus on action and allow our tool to craft the narrative.
We all dread writing performance reviews. We wait until the last minute; we forget all we've done; it's challenging to articulate the impact.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We should celebrate all the great things we've done. When we ask for a promotion, it should be anchored on actual results.
I also struggled with the fact that when we write performance reviews, it lives with the company, but it should live with us! The only way we could archive all of the details is if we actively copied the details.
Odyseek can help someone build that ever-evolving value story. It doesn't end when you get the job. You should be able to keep the story going with each great achievement.
And it comes first circle with our resume. With a dynamic brag book, you can export to a resume at any time, so it’s no longer a chore. The end result is that we always have a strong connection to our own value story and can articulate our value with confidence.
Robin: What’s the one lesson of writing-with-AI that you’ve found most valuable over the past year that we can all use as a resolution for 2025?
Catherine: The most valuable lesson I’ve learned about writing with AI is that technology shouldn’t replace authenticity—it should amplify it. In 2025, let’s resolve to use AI as a tool that supports us, rather than relying on it to do the work for us. Whether it’s crafting a resume, an email, or a pitch, AI can help us express our value more clearly. But the key is feeding it the right inputs and refining it until it feels authentic to you. The true power of AI lies in its ability to enhance our unique voices, not replace them.