You can’t “catch” AI-assisted applications - and you don’t need to. The smarter approach is replacing personal statements with structured, skills-based assessments that are fair, fast and auto-score to surface your top talent.
Generative AI is no longer a side trend, it's mainstream. A Career Group survey found 65% of job seekers use AI tools like ChatGPT in their applications. That means many of the polished answers you read aren’t truly candidate-authored, and recruiters face the same problem: applications that all look and sound alike.
Traditional personal statements were already tough to benchmark consistently. With AI in the mix, they’re close to useless. Employers end up wasting hours on copy-and-pasted paragraphs that reveal little about genuine skills.
Instead of trying to block or detect AI (a losing battle), the real solution is simple: change the way you assess applications.
With an ATS like Jobtrain you can:
Replace personal statements with scored, structured forms.
Design multiple-choice, ranking, and rating questions that show authentic judgement, not just polished wording.
Use AI positively for questions to build forms in minutes from your job description.
Randomise and time questions so generic AI answers don’t help.
Auto-score and rank applications to highlight the top 20% immediately.
How to modernise assessments
Tactics that limit generic AI answers
Why candidates actually prefer it
The advantages for recruiters
Talent acquisition leaders under pressure to reduce time-to-hire.
HR directors looking for fairness, compliance and efficiency.
Recruiters and hiring managers frustrated by endless paragraphs of similar answers.
High-volume hiring teams who need instant shortlists.
When recruiters switch from narrative personal statements to scored, skills-based forms, the benefits are immediate:
Auto-scoring and ranking means hiring teams can quickly (and importantly!) identify the top 20% of applicants to focus on.
No more endless sifting through copy and pasted ChatGPT statements.
Recruiters can spend their time where it counts - only engaging with the strongest candidates.
“Instead of trying to prevent candidates from using AI…it’s like King Canute trying to stop the tide. Employers must adapt and adopt a different approach.”
“Structured prompts, timed questions, and randomisation reward authentic thinking while limiting generic AI answers.”
We don’t see AI as a threat. We see it as a catalyst to design smarter, fairer hiring processes. Our ATS equips you with everything you need to adapt today - without making recruitment harder for candidates or hiring teams.