USA TODAY personal-finance reporter Medora Lee examines what a job application becomes when both sides of it are automated — featuring Cadient research and Cadient CEO Bill Mastin.
The piece, in USA TODAY's Career Advice section, takes up a problem Cadient's research has been tracking all year: applicants now use AI to write résumés and employers use AI to read them, so screening stops testing the candidate and starts testing one model against another. Up to 71% of the résumés in Cadient's latest analysis showed characteristics of AI-written content.
Mastin's reminder for that market is four words long: “Authenticity always wins.” When every application arrives polished to the same finish, what still carries signal is the detail no model could have supplied on the candidate's behalf — which is the point Lee's headline makes in framing the job hunt as bot versus bot.
The findings extend work Cadient published earlier this year. Mastin described the same dynamic to HR Dive as “a battle between AI and AI”, and the Authenticity Report found logical inconsistencies — overlapping dates, impossible promotions — in nine of every ten flagged résumés.
