Half of Personal Statements Suspected AI-Generated

In last year's hiring market, artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly emerged as a 'shadow helper' for writing personal statements, leading to an unprecedented spread of AI utilization among applicants. The results of an analysis by Muhayu, a natural language AI technology company, conducted through its AI document evaluation solution 'PRISM', clearly illustrate this shift. Out of approximately 890,000 personal statements reviewed throughout 2024, a staggering 48.5% are suspected of having been influenced by generative AI. Notably, in the latter half of the hiring period, the submission rate of AI-written personal statements surged by more than three times compared to the first half, demonstrating an extraordinary pace of proliferation. The utilization of AI for personal statements showed some variations by job function and industry. By job function, IT/development roles (27.3%) were the most active in AI utilization, followed by research roles (21.7%) and non-development roles (17.4%). By industry, applicants in the financial sector showed the highest AI utilization rate, suggesting prominent AI use in unexpected areas. In response to this trend, companies are accelerating the introduction of AI-written content detection technology to maintain a fair hiring environment. According to Muhayu, over 68% of clients who have adopted 'PRISM' are actively utilizing the 'GPT Killer' feature, with particularly high utilization in public institutions, financial sectors, and large corporations where ensuring fairness is crucial. Companies' perception of AI-written personal statements is highly negative. According to a survey by the Korea Employment Information Service, 64.1% of responding companies stated it was 'negative due to lack of originality', and 65.4% confirmed that if AI authorship is detected, they impose clear disadvantages such as disqualification or demerits. Ultimately, the use of AI for writing personal statements has transcended a mere trend and emerged as a new contentious issue in the hiring market. For job seekers, the wisdom of integrating their unique personality and originality, even with AI assistance, will become more crucial, as will the task for companies of building fair and efficient evaluation systems.