[K-Women Talk]A Self-Introduction Letter Written Too Well... You Are Eliminated

HR Managers Can Tell If You Used AI
You Need to Use Your Own Living Words

I was reading my son's self-introduction letter for an internship at a private company and was startled by how well it was written. Unlike his usual writing, there were almost no typos, the sentences flowed relatively smoothly, and above all, impressive words like "rigor" and "innovativeness" were lined up one after another. "Is this really the son I know?" I was briefly confused, but as I suspected, the actual author of the letter was a generative AI. To be exact, my son provided the material and wrote the first draft, while the AI handled the copyediting and polishing.

In reality, the writing, polishing, and proofreading abilities of generative AI are considerable. The sentences are clean, it is strong at generating keywords, and above all, it makes things look convincing. The problem is that every job seeker is submitting glossy self-introduction letters. Put yourself in the shoes of a hiring manager. After reading one similar letter after another, wouldn't you be tempted to channel Chef Ahn Sungjae's firm tone and say, "You are eliminated"? It is no wonder HR managers are shouting that self-introduction letters are pointless, saying, "They all feel the same," and "There is no human touch."

Regardless of this situation, however, the ability to use AI is becoming increasingly important in the job market. Meta has announced that it will allow AI collaboration in some developer recruitment processes, and it has been reported that consulting firm McKinsey, in a pilot interview process for some graduate students, had candidates use an AI chatbot to analyze cases and then refine or revise the conclusions they derived. Korean companies that introduced "AI competency tests" during the COVID-19 period are now emphasizing "AI natives" and are increasingly seeking to assess AI utilization skills in practical evaluations or interviews.

Then how can you write a self-introduction letter that uses AI yet still reveals "your own color"? Experts offer roughly three tips. First, use AI to solve the parts of writing a self-introduction letter that you find most frustrating. Job seekers often have no idea how their experiences will be evaluated in terms of competencies, so they should make full use of AI's ability to conceptualize. If you ask, "Explain how my part-time job at a supermarket connects to the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) of a marketing position," it will organize your experience using terms companies actually use, such as "the relationship between display and sales" and "customer service and collaboration skills." Knowing how your experience will be evaluated in a corporate context can be an important hint when writing your self-introduction letter.

The second tip is that if the sentences AI helped you with are overly polished and the sentence length or tone is excessively uniform, you must rewrite them in your own voice. To replace the "textbook language" that AI often uses with "my living language," it can even be helpful to allow for some imperfect or slightly awkward sentences. One HR manager once said, "I can see traces of generative AI in many self-introduction letters, but my attention is actually drawn to modest and honest letters that read like they were written by middle or high school students." Experts especially warn against formulaic sentences that pop up without regard to context. They say you should avoid phrases such as "Through this, I was able to develop XX competency" or "I believe I can quickly contribute to your company."

The third tip is to reverse the approach most job seekers take. Instead of feeding your personal information and the application questions into AI and having it write the first draft, you should write the first draft yourself and then ask AI to polish it or reduce the word count. Even then, you need to set strict conditions so that the "abstract, generic words" AI favors do not creep in. The important thing is to capture "my living words" in the self-introduction letter.

In any case, this is what I should say to my son: "It's okay if it's not well written; try writing it again in your own words."

Lee Suk-eun, Publisher of Backbone of Employment