AI resume tools are everywhere. Most of them produce the same beige, corporate paragraph — which is now easy for recruiters (and other AIs) to spot. Used well, Claude or ChatGPT can save you two hours and make your resume measurably sharper. Used lazily, they strip out exactly the thing that makes you hireable: your voice.
What AI is good for on a resume
- Compressing a 40-word bullet into 18. The tightening pass is the single highest-ROI use.
- Finding stronger verbs. "Helped with" → "Owned", "Shipped", "Negotiated".
- Reverse-engineering keywords from a job description. Paste the posting + your current resume and ask: "Which three skills from this JD are missing or underweighted on this resume?"
- Rewriting a weak summary 10 ways in 30 seconds so you can pick the one that sounds like you.
What AI is terrible at
- Inventing achievements. It will. Catch it every time.
- Keeping your voice. Default outputs are over-formal and use the same seven adjectives.
- Choosing what to leave out. Only you know which 2015 side project matters.
Three prompts that actually work
Prompt 1 — Tighten without stripping voice
"Rewrite this resume bullet in under 20 words. Keep the specific numbers. Keep the first-person phrasing. Don't add any claim that isn't in the original. Give me 3 variations."
Prompt 2 — Match the posting
"Here is a job description: [paste]. Here are my current resume bullets for my most recent role: [paste]. Which of my bullets should I rewrite to mirror the language in the JD? Return a before/after for each."
Prompt 3 — Write five summaries
"Write 5 three-line resume summaries for someone with this background: [paste 3-4 bullets of your career]. Target role: [X]. Each summary should sound like a different human: one punchy, one conversational, one quantitative, one mission-led, one humble-but-confident."
The 10-second human check
Read every AI-polished line out loud. If a sentence sounds like a LinkedIn "thought leader" post you'd scroll past — rewrite it in your own words. Keep the structure the AI suggested; swap the vocabulary back to yours.
Want a human sanity check? Simonara members get an AI Resume Review that flags over-polished sections and recommends specific rewrites in your voice. Try it free.