Every recruiter who has opened their ATS in the past year has felt it: something has shifted. The applications look different. They read smoother, hit more keywords, and sound eerily similar to one another. That uniformity is not a coincidence. According to a 2025 report from Career Group Companies, roughly 65 percent of job candidates now use AI at some point during the application process. Resume Now’s survey of over 900 HR professionals found that 90 percent have noticed an increase in low-effort or formulaic applications, largely driven by AI tools. The result is a genuine operational problem. Recruiters are managing