Companies increasingly using AI to screen job applicants, students say

Oliver, a finance and economics student at West Chester University, had spent an hour-and-a-half completing a 90-question assessment as part of applying for an internship to a multinational consumer goods corporation.

Just 45 minutes after uploading his assessment at about 12:30 a.m., he received a rejection notice online, despite having been told that someone with the company would review and check his application.

“They didn’t even look at my resume or consider anything. They just saw the scores of my assessment and they just rejected me outright,” said Oliver, who cited the experience as an example of the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the hiring process by employers.

Oliver is not alone. As of 2025, 82 percent of companies were using AI to screen and review resumes, while 40 percent were employing AI chatbots to communicate with candidates, according to Resume Builder.

Mohammad Rahman, Ph.D., professor of marketing and MBA Director at Shippensburg University, sees the growing level of frustration this is causing among his students who are applying for jobs and internships.

“They don’t get any kind of human interaction or feedback at all,” Rahman said. “They don’t know why they did not get to the second or third round. They don’t know what they are doing right or wrong or what is missing.”

To Rahman, employers using AI to screen candidates is an anticipated consequence of the digital revolution, which has made posted positions instantly available to everyone.

He cites one recent example of a local employer seeking applicants for an internship who sent Rahman a link, which he passed on to his students.

Within a few hours the company received so many applications for the internship that it had to shut down the link.

“(Employers) are getting this extraordinary number of applicants that makes it overwhelming,” Rahman said. “They need some automated systems to kind of bypass that, otherwise their human resources is not able to handle that volume.”

Yet AI can be a double-edged sword for employers. Employers tell Rahman a lot of resumes that get through the first or second round AI screening process look the same, but when it comes time for an actual interview the applicant doesn’t measure up.

“Employers are seeking also these human connections, so they don’t waste their time going through multiple rounds to interview and find a candidate who is just not qualified or have the skills they are looking for.”

Hannah, a Shippensburg University MBA candidate seeking a position with a certified public accounting firm, said that while she has not yet had much direct experience with AI in the hiring process, she has concerns over the growth of its use by employers. Like Oliver, she asked that only her first name be used.

“If they did start using AI, then I’d feel like I would have to go through and really take out certain keywords from the description of the job for me to actually have a good shot of my resume being selected,” she said. “There is a lot of room for error in my opinion using AI, and it’s just overall better to use humans.”

Oliver contends employers “are not even being smart” about their use of AI in hiring. “These are really high-tech firms and they don’t even care. It’s like we are just values or numbers.”

Yet students are using AI more to draft their own resume and cover letter from scratch, which companies are becoming wise to by using their own applicant-tracking software, according to an April 2025 Harvard Business Impact piece by Marlo Lyons.

Lyons advises students to limit their use of AI tools in applying for internships and jobs to aligning their already drafted resume with keywords for specific careers.

The advice Rahman gives his students who are frustrated over AI sounds like the tried-and-true approach that has been around long before people started applying for jobs online.

He urges students to build relationships with local employers by going to job fairs and attending networking events, such as those set up through the career center at many local colleges and universities.

These encounters provide opportunities for students and prospective employers to meet face to face. Employers volunteer their time to come to classes at the university. Besides providing feedback to the students, these personal connections can lead to employers inviting students to apply for internships or jobs.

The career center also holds mock interview sessions to increase students’ confidence and prepare them for the real deal.

Employers have a vested interest in wanting to hire locally, Rahman said.

“They want to invest in employees who are going to stay here for a long period of time. They want those employees to go through the ranks and invest in the company and invest in the local community as well.”

One large area employer that says it does not use AI in its hiring process is Members 1st Federal Credit Union. The Enola-based company, with many branches in the Greater Lehigh Valley area, has 1,290 employees – known as associates – throughout the state, said Christy Pavlakovich, chief operating officer.

At Members 1st, human interaction is key to the hiring process because human interaction is what most Members 1st associates will spend their workday doing, whether in person at one of the company’s 59 branches, or on the phone.

Not using AI to review or screen applicants is “intentional” at Members 1st, Pavlakovich said.

“The human piece of our culture is critical,” she said. “Screening and interviewing for a cultural fit requires human interaction, it requires talking to people, and we have aligned our processes to make sure that is how that works for us.”

 Asked if she sees Members 1st eventually incorporating AI into is hiring process, Pavlakovich said that depends upon how AI evolves.

 “If there is a model we can test and trust to have the integrity that exists in our current practices, we would lean into that,” she said. “But we will not sacrifice that cultural piece that we look for, we will not sacrifice that in our interview process just for the sake of going through resumes quicker.”

 Members 1st has hired 101 new associates through March 31 of this year. The number of associates working for Members 1st has grown by nearly 7 percent since 2023, Pavlakovich said.

 Dan Miller is a freelance writer