Using AI to write a CV is now broadly accepted by large employers. Using it live during a video interview is not. The interesting part is how much ground lies between those two points, and how fast it is moving.
The survey
The Institute of Student Employers surveyed 155 of the UK's biggest graduate employers this summer. They are becoming "more accepting" of candidates using AI at some stages — most commonly for writing cover letters and CVs, then for completing online application questions.
At the same time, 92 per cent said they had encountered or suspected AI "misconduct" in selection, up from 85 per cent last year. The most common forms: using AI as a real-time assistant during online video interviews, and to complete online assessments.
The candidate's argument
Tom, 22, from Maidstone, graduated with a geography degree and applied for more than 200 jobs before being hired as a restaurant manager last month. He calls the process "exhausting" and "demoralising" — employers often never replied.
"Employers want you to put your absolute best into the application, but if I'm applying for 10 to 20 jobs in a day, the reality is you can't do that."
He used AI for cover letters, CVs and finding the "buzz words" early-stage screening looks for, but not in assessments or interviews. He also calls it "hypocritical" for companies to forbid AI while using it to screen candidates:
"That's where it feels like a weird tightrope. You can't use AI too much because otherwise you're not human. But if you don't write like an AI, you may get skipped by the AI screening."
"Spray and pray"
The industry term for sending many applications at once with AI assistance is "spray and pray". Stephen Isherwood, joint chief executive of the ISE, says it is "driving up the competition and pressure on students" in an already crowded market.
That is the mechanism worth understanding. If AI lets each candidate apply to five times as many roles, the number of applications per vacancy rises fivefold without a single extra person entering the job market. Every applicant then faces longer odds and responds by applying to more roles still. Nobody gains and everybody works harder, which is what an arms race looks like from inside.
What it means in Bangladesh
Bangladeshi graduates applying to international employers meet this system at its least forgiving, because they are usually filtered before a human reads anything.
The practical reading is narrow and worth being precise about. AI that helps you write clearer English in your own words is on the accepted side of this line, and for a non-native writer it closes a gap that has nothing to do with competence. AI that writes the application for you puts you on the 92 per cent side, and large employers are now looking for exactly that.
The test is simple: could you defend every sentence in an interview? A cover letter you could not have written but could have said is help. One you cannot explain is a liability, because the interview is where it gets found.
There is also a domestic version of this that nobody is measuring. Local employers here are not running AI screening at scale, so a Bangladeshi applicant to a Bangladeshi company is read by a person — which makes a generic AI-written letter more conspicuous here than in London, not less.
On what the work itself pays once you are through, see the piece on games industry salaries.
Source: BBC News, with survey data from the Institute of Student Employers.
