The AI-generated illusion: Employers struggle to identify real candidates

India's job sector is undergoing a major transformation, with excessive dependencies on Artificial Intelligence by freshers becoming a complex challenge for recruiters in the country. The AI era has become a double-edged sword for companies--while productivity has improved, over-reliance on AI technology has impacted employees' critical thinking, originality, and problem-solving traits.

Last month, US-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) revealed shocking details about people who use OpenAI's ChatGPT tool significantly in their routine. The study concluded that ChatGPT users have lower brain engagement and consistently "underperformed" at the neural, linguistic, and behavioural level. Notably, Mary Meeker's research on AI usage trends discovered that India tops the chart with the highest ChatGPT mobile app users globally, at 14 percent.

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Mita Brahma, HR Head at NIIT, said that employees' over-dependency on AI is a massive threat for recruiters that is looming in the job sector currently. "Employees' foundational cognitive and collaborative skills are not developed due to AI dependencies," she added, "This can lead to tech-dependent superficial capabilities that don’t translate into real-world performance".

'Rise of flashy resumes'

Arindam Mukherjee, co-founder of the skilling platform NextLeap, said he has observed a surge in fake resumes that are ATS-compliant and do not give a true picture of the candidate's real skills.

"AI agents can now apply for jobs on your behalf. AI resume builders can make your resume look like you are the best candidate, AI tools can complete the take-home assignment in minutes, and AI interview co-pilots can run in the background, assisting you in your virtual interview".

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Anil Ethanur, Co-founder, Xpheno - a specialist staffing firm, underscored that enterprises are not just facing a challenge of 'wrong hires', but also 'wrong drops' in the AI-era. Ethanur said that there are a lot of ‘false positives’ candidates in the AI ecosystem, who are disguised as 'ideal fit' employees. "The noise of and from AI-enhanced resumes is a significant dilution of the quality of recruitment processes and also causes cost-time-&-resource wastage for employers," according to Ethanur. Besides, AI tools have also been noted to cause 'false negatives' where candidates with a good fit get wrongly knocked out as low fits.  "The chances enterprises incurring higher costs of 'wrong hires' are much higher in the current stage of the AI era," he added.

Pranay Kale, Chief Revenue & Growth Officer, foundit, said that AI tools like ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, and AI-enhanced resume builders have become second nature to younger job seekers. Therefore, Kale said that, "The Line between AI-assisted performance and actual capability is becoming increasingly blurred".

'Affected sectors'

While AI has crossed industries and functions, experts told Storyboard18 that sectors where creativity and judgment are central should be cautious when they onboard a new employee, particularly with 0-5 years of experience, into their organization. For instance, fields where content creation is a key task – research and development, publishing, media, advertisement, and journalism- should select the candidates carefully, Brahma said.

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"In these fields, an overdependence on generative AI tools like ChatGPT without domain depth can lead to poor judgment, flawed insights, or even compliance risks. Hence, hiring in these sectors must include rigorous domain-specific assessments, ethical reasoning tests, and real-world simulations," she said.

According to TeamLease EdTech's founder and CEO, Shantanu Rooj, industries that rely heavily on analytical thinking, ethical reasoning, and real-time problem-solving must be more deliberate and rigorous during hiring. Sectors such as consulting, financial services, legal advisory, and research demand professionals who can interpret nuance, deal with ambiguity, and make judgment calls based on context - all areas where AI currently falls short. Rooj added that education sector can also take a hit if the recruitment of teachers is not done correctly. "Teachers and professors who are overly dependent on AI tools risk diluting the learning experience rather than enriching it".

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Experts unanimously agreed that the hiring process should measure independent cognition, contextual reasoning, and original problem-solving skills that AI alone cannot supply when hiring a professional.

Dr Sangeeta Chhabra, Co-Founder & Executive Director, AceCloud, added, "leaders must go beyond assessing technical expertise and focus on attributes such as problem solving, adaptability, and the ability to collaborate effectively with intelligent systems to filter the right talent".

Ankit Aggarwal, founder & CEO of Unstop, suggested that founders look beyond the resumes and give students real-time problems from solving different brands to help them showcase their ideas and problem-solving abilities.

Aggarwal said that "hackathons, coding challenges, case study competitions, quizzes," can help in testing the real skills of the employees.

'Dangers of over-reliance on AI'

According to Kale, the automation bias could contribute to structural unemployment and skill atrophy in certain sectors. Kale says that AI may erode critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity, especially among early-career professionals. "If individuals lean too heavily on AI to automate outputs or make decisions without understanding the 'why' behind them, we risk developing a workforce that is skilled in using tools but lacks foundational cognitive depth," Kale argued.

In contrast, Ethanur said that AI addiction will not lead to higher unemployment rates. He projected that a significant change in the job market will be driven by the mainstream arrival of AI in low to mid-cognitive functions. "The phase when this redefinition happens on a large scale will have to coincide with the arrival of sufficient AI-enabled and AI-dependent talent pools into mainstream employment".

Rooj upheld that the next decade will not be defined by AI replacing people but by people who can meaningfully work with AI. For instance, roles like "prompt engineering, AI oversight, ethical data governance, and human-AI interface management" will gain traction.

"AI should empower, not diminish, the human edge, and it’s up to all of us to ensure we strike that balance," Chhabra noted.