How do I hire great candidates when resumes are all the same?

Last week, one of my colleagues sent me a TikTok with giant red text that said, “When you realize your ChatGPT resume isn’t working because it looks EXACTLY like all of the other ChatGPT resumes for the same job.” I laughed, because I know exactly what that pile looks like. I’m usually the one sitting in front of it.

AI has definitely made the sameness problem louder, but I’ve felt this way about resumes for a long time, (I haven’t exactly been quiet about my view on resumes in 2025).

I’ve reviewed hundreds of thousands of resumes in my career, and the pattern has always been the same, yes, even before generative AI. I’ve met candidates who were exceptional in interviews but struggled to show it on paper, and I’ve met candidates with beautiful resumes who couldn’t talk through a real problem.

AI has leveled the playing field for people who struggled to communicate their experience, but it’s also made early decisions feel even less grounded in real ability.

I’ve written about how I believe skills-based hiring isn’t failing. Hiring is. We built years of process around proxies that never told us very much. Degrees, job titles, buzzwords, and now polished resumes make early screening look structured, but they don’t give recruiters real proof of skill. That’s why the first stage of hiring often feels uncertain. We’re asking tools to carry weight they were never designed for.

In the early screen, hiring teams shouldn’t rely on resumes. You need to consider a more skills-based approach; a couple of short, role-specific questions in the application can show how someone approaches real situations. Clear definitions of the few skills that matter make it easier to compare candidates in a fair way. For some roles, a small work sample or a link to past work gives insight you can’t get from written summaries. These early signals often reveal far more than a resume ever will, and they help you build a shortlist with confidence.

I think the resume can stay in the process, but in 2025 and beyond, it can’t lead it.

It’s not just my opinion, the research all points in the same direction.

In fact, a recent report revealed 94% of employers said skills-based hiring is more predictive of on-the-job success than resumes, which matches what I’ve seen in practice. These methods help teams hire people who ramp faster and stay longer because the decisions are rooted in how someone actually works. They also open the door to candidates who might not stand out on paper but can clearly show their thinking when you give them the chance.

When early screening leans on real skills instead of bullet points, you end up with a much clearer view of who’s genuinely qualified.

📚 Additional resources worth your time

• Skills predict success better: McKinsey shows skills-based hiring is five times more predictive of job performance than education and more than twice as predictive as work experience.
• Skills screening boosts retention: SHRM reports that employers using assessments of knowledge, skills, and abilities see stronger retention and a better match between people and roles.
• Skills-first widens talent pools: [Harvard Business School](https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/Documents/research/Skills-Based Hiring.pdf?) found that evaluating skills expands the candidate pool, reduces early-stage bias, and improves hiring accuracy.

Resumes still come in, but they’re not the only thing I rely on. When I’m building a shortlist, I’m looking for signals that line up with the work, not just the wording.

Here are a few things I use:

• Role-specific questions: In the application, we ask one or two short questions about how someone would approach a real situation in the role. These answers give me much clearer insight than anything written in a resume.
• Portfolio or sample work: For roles where it makes sense, I’ll ask for a portfolio or a small piece of past work. We sometimes add a short task or presentation later on, and we always pay for it. It gives a direct view of how someone works, not how they write.
• Clear skills for the role: Before evaluating anything, I work with the hiring manager to narrow down the three to five skills the role actually depends on. These skills guide every early decision.
• Structured scoring: We use a simple scoring guide for those skills so everyone reviewing candidates is aligned. It keeps the decision grounded in the same definitions of “qualified,” no matter who’s reviewing.

You can take a look at our careers page to learn how we structure the application form. →

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