From a game theory perspective, it used to be that if I email a company with my resume and a custom-written cover letter, that's an "honest signal" that I'm genuinely excited about working for that particular company. Since I spent a few minutes out of my day to seek them out and write a cover letter just for them.

ChatGPT degraded that honest signal. Nowadays if a company gets my email with a custom cover letter, they have little idea if I'm actually the slightest bit excited about working there.

We're now seeing degradation in the opposite direction. It used to be that if a company was willing to screen me, that was an "honest signal" that they were truly interested in hiring me. They're telling an engineer who commands a high equivalent-hourly rate to take some time out of their day to talk to me. With an AI screen, I have no idea if I've got a genuine shot.

It's easy to blame the company in this situation, but in a certain sense it was an inevitable result of being flooded with AI-assisted applicants. The company needs a new way to filter for those who truly want the job.

It is interesting how pared down job applications have become. Its like no wonder applicants are so high in numbers now. They put them on 1 click apply sites like linkedin or indeed. You can't even submit a cover letter if you wanted, much less references. I am in a round of job hunting and out of ~110 applications only 1 single company asked for references in the application stage. Very few had a spot to insert a cover letter, maybe 25%.