Did AI kill 1099 job applications?

I read this interesting article in the WSJ about how both job seekers AND employers are using AI to respectively apply for jobs and screen job candidates.

Basically, it's robot vs. robot.

"Job seekers, frustrated with corporate hiring software, are using artificial intelligence to craft cover letters and résumés in seconds, and deploying new automated bots to robo-apply for hundreds of jobs in just a few clicks. In response, companies are deploying more bots of their own to sort through the oceans of applications.

The result: a bot versus bot war that’s leaving both applicants and employers irritated and has made the chances of landing an interview, much less a job, even slimmer than before."

AI Bots Are Taking Over the Job Application Process. Everyone Is Losing.

In my book I have a chapter about the "job application" method to getting a 1099 role. I wrote it before ChatGPT came out, but even then I said it was mostly a numbers game that should NOT be a primary method to getting a 1099 role.

Now that AI tools are here, I'm even less bullish about that method.

What does still work is the old fashioned networking method.

People like dealing with people, so if you get good at developing professional relationships, opportunities for 1099 gigs will pop up.

What's interesting though is if you augment AI in your old fashioned search.

I just hired a kid a year out of college. Here's how it went down

• A recruiter at another company referred him to me (result of networking).
• I met with him, decided he'd be a good guy to hire, and got him a clearance.
• I then used AI to polish his resume for an opening I had on a sub-contract, and then submitted that to a prime.
• The prime interviewed him and wanted to bring him on, so I hired him

The bulk of this was process was built around relationships that I took pains to develop.

But it worked. AI just removed the tedious resume rewrite effort. The fact that I had a relationship with the prime and they trusted me was the more important part.

Job seekers have discovered the same thing:

"She kept applying online, aided by AI, because “it made me feel like I was doing something.” But ultimately, Salinas found a job the old-fashioned way: by reaching out to people she had worked with previously to spread the word about her search.

As Elliana Bogost, 25, looks for nonprofit jobs in Washington, D.C., ChatGPT has helped her brainstorm as she drafts applications and practices interview questions before networking calls. But when she applies online it feels like she is sending her résumé into an “abyss,” and that even a third-degree networking connection can be more promising."

The resume's job is to just demonstrate you are potentially capable of doing the job. If you have other ways of doing that (via reputation, public portfolio's of work, etc.), the resume becomes less important.

What's funny is that the article mentioned a Duke computer science grad who got so frustrated with the job application process that he invented an AI job hunting tool to solve his own problem. He now built a business around this software.

But, the demonstrated capability to build new software is what makes him a great potential employee. If he has a way of showing off that he built that outside of the normal job application process, he could have had a job in a heartbeat.

Fortunately, as an aspiring 1099, there are basically zero good 1099 gigs listed online, so you are forced to rely on networking anyway. Use AI to do tedious stuff around the networking. That is how you'll get a good gig and not spend your time on admin nonsense, like applying for jobs that go nowhere.

Want the full playbook? Check out Going 1099.