Our Philosophy

• Use your authentic voice. 

  • ​When interviewed, you should be able to speak to all of the items on your resume. Cover letters and personal statements are great opportunities to share your individual story and goals. Ultimately, recruiters will not enjoy reading generic, AI-written content. Instead, you might use AI to plan, outline, brainstorm, or summarize notes.

• Approach AI as a tool. 

  • ​Brainstorm and get feedback. For example, to get the most out of interview preparation, practice constructing prompts and follow-up questions. Other tools provide live feedback when you practice answering interview questions or delivering presentations. 

  • “The whole idea is to use tools that enhance … what you already have” (Marcia Robinson, researcher and consultant, founder The HBCU Career Center, NACE Summer Learning Showcase: AI In Career Center and Recruitment 2023).
  • “Automation is the wrong way to think of AI … (a) generic resume (is) not going to cut it” (Jeremy Schifeling, marketing director, Khan Academy, NACE Summer Learning Showcase: AI In Career Center and Recruitment 2023) ​

• Verify.

  • Check the accuracy of information and sources provided in answers by AI. As just one example of a popular tool, ChatGPT warns users about its potential to display bad information in the Help section. Networking is one method to learn first-hand information on careers.   

• Use resources like the Career Center.

  • Your goals and experiences are unique. In the spirit of cura personalis, our office can work with you holistically. You can also attend career events on campus to hear from employers themselves. 

    Meeting with a Career Counselor can help you form educated decisions about your major choice and identify career possibilities through the process of getting to know yourself and the world of work. Career Counselors can assist with resume and cover letter development, strategies for obtaining an internship or job, interviewing, salary negotiation, graduate and professional school, gap years, networking, and more.

    Schedule your next appointment online and keep up to date about career events on campus via Handshake

Some Employers Use AI During the Hiring Process

• How might employers use technology when you search for jobs and apply?

• In 2025, Canva released a global survey of 4,200 employers that found "90% of hiring managers use AI to assist with the hiring process ... 37% use it to summarize a key points of a resume or cover letter ... 35% use it to assist with or write job descriptions ... 34% use it to assist with or write new interview questions."

For more on some uses:

• • Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) 
  • Automated phone screenings and virtual interviews
  • Writing job descriptions 

• What do MU's employer partners say? 

Urban Ecology Center

"We do utilize an ATS ... We do find that applicants who apply through ATS-connected sites such as Indeed or Ziprecruiter can struggle with their documents not being formatted correctly, particularly when their resume is Indeed generated. Thus, we ask that all applicants apply directly from the links to our website to ensure that the information gets to us correctly. We do not utilize any sort of pre-screening (software scoring/ranking of candidates) in the ATS. We do however utilize blind resume tools to help remove basic biases from hiring mangers. This is done manually." 

"We will on occasion utilize AI to help summarize a position description for marketing." 

Snap-on Incorporated 

"Our ATS does not facilitate (scanning documents) for us. We do also source candidates via LinkedIn, which does key word search candidates’ profiles. Regardless, resumes are then all read by our recruiters firsthand."

"We do not use a computer program that measures candidate’s video responses or scores candidates at all. We do have some teams who use Spark Hire where candidates can record video answers to a defined set of screening questions. However, a live recruiter is always reviewing the video responses and screening candidates from there ... We find screening candidates in a live format to be the most efficient."

Clearly, then, some of our campus partners who recruit MU students use a more personal touch. The Career Center will periodically update this section with information from MU's employer partners to provide transparency for students.