Inquiry Post 3: Beyond the Resume

As part of our inquiry into AI-created resumes, portfolios, and job searching in today’s world, one of our options to further our inquiry was to meet with industry professionals. Our pod had the chance to speak with an industry professional who shared a lot of practical insight into hiring, interviewing, and how the tech landscape is shifting. Going into the conversation, I was mostly thinking about how AI can improve resumes; making them cleaner, more structured, and more aligned with job descriptions. However, the discussion pushed me to look past the resume itself and think more about what actually matters in the hiring process.

The Interview

This conversation took place in a semi-structured format, where after a brief introduction, my pod and I were able to guide the discussion toward our inquiry on AI and hiring. Given the interviewee’s background in hiring and operations, we focused our questions on how AI is shaping the hiring process and what actually stands out on a resume. At the same time, we asked more reflective questions relevant to our own position as students entering the workforce, such as what new graduates often overlook, what misconceptions exist around AI in the industry, and how important it is to not just list experience, but clearly explain and communicate it.

Key Insights

The biggest takeaway for me was the idea of “fit.” A resume can show skills and experience, but it rarely shows how someone actually works, communicates, or contributes to a team. A strong emphasis was placed on how hiring decisions often come down to whether someone fits the role and the company, not just whether they meet the technical requirements. This also connects to something we’ve been exploring with AI tools. While tools like ChatGPT or Copilot can help rewrite and optimize content, they don’t really capture authenticity or intent. If anything, they can sometimes push content too far, making it sound polished, but less personal. What stood out to me is that AI should be used more as a way to organize and surface your experiences, not redefine them. The value is in the data you already have, your projects, your work, your decisions, and how you choose to present it.

Another point that stuck with me was the importance of bringing value beyond the expected scope, especially early in your career. It’s easy to focus only on what’s required in school such as coursework, assigned tasks, technical skills, but standing out comes from going a step further. Whether that’s staying current with industry trends, building projects outside of class, or even just being aware of what companies are dealing with right now, it shows initiative. That idea of staying current also ties back into AI, where the landscape is constantly evolving. Being able to connect what’s happening in the industry to your own work becomes a key differentiator.

We also talked about researching companies and understanding their context before applying. This seems obvious, but it goes deeper than just reading a website. It’s about understanding how a company operates, what problems they’re solving, and how you can position your experience in a way that actually relates. This is where tools like AI can be useful, not to fabricate experience, but to help tailor and align what you’ve already done to a specific role or company, especially keeping up to date with current news and further trends in whichever industry one may be applying for.

Another interesting point was around relationships and communication. Technical skills can often be learned or improved over time, but how you communicate, collaborate, and engage with others is much harder to teach. This reinforced the idea that portfolios and resumes shouldn’t just be technical summaries, they should reflect how you interact with people and environments as well. Even small things, like how you describe team projects or past experiences, can signal this.

How this Impacts our Inquiry

Touching back on our inquiry project, this conversation added another layer to how I think about our project. It reinforced that AI can be a powerful tool for structuring, refining, and translating experiences, but its effectiveness depends on how well the underlying story is understood. This shifts the focus from simply optimizing resumes to more intentionally communicating meaningful experience through these tools. It also made me think about how hiring itself is evolving. With more data, tools, and automation, the process is becoming more scalable and cost-effective for companies. At the same time, that raises the bar for candidates, and much of how you can portray yourself comes from how clearly you understand your own experience and how intentionally you communicate it towards an application.

Overall, this conversation shifted my perspective from simply “improving a resume” to thinking more about how AI can support a stronger, more intentional presentation of value, fit, and direction. Rather than replacing the process, AI becomes a tool that helps make those elements more visible and aligned with what companies are actually looking for.