AI-written resumes and cover letters are becoming increasingly common. Nonprofits need to understand what that means for hiring and how to evaluate candidates effectively.
More applicants are using AI to craft resumes and cover letters. This means more polished applications, but potentially less clarity about who’s actually right for the role. For mission-driven organizations that can’t afford a bad hire, that distinction matters more than ever.
Should AI-Written Resumes Be Ruled Out?
A polished resume that closely matched the job posting, paired with a thoughtful cover letter, used to be a stronger signal that a candidate had taken time to understand the role and might be a good fit.
AI has made that signal less reliable.
Candidates can now quickly tailor resumes to job descriptions, strengthen bullet points, incorporate relevant keywords, and generate compelling cover letters. When more applications look equally strong on the surface, it becomes harder to distinguish between a strong application and a strong candidate, creating an even heavier lift for already-stretched nonprofit hiring teams.
So, should you rule out a candidate who used AI?
Not necessarily.
Using AI to help write a resume isn’t all that different from asking a friend to proofread it, working with a career coach, using a resume template, or hiring a professional resume writer. Outside assistance may shape the final document, but that alone doesn’t tell you whether someone can do the job.
Automatically penalizing candidates for using AI could cause organizations to overlook strong applicants.
The more useful question isn’t, “Did this person use AI?”
It’s “What does this application actually tell us about this person’s ability to succeed in the role?”
Consider AI Use in the Context of the Role
How much AI use matters should depend, in part, on what you’re hiring someone to do.
For a position where polished writing isn’t a core job responsibility (e.g., facilities, operations, data entry, or direct-service roles) how the resume was produced may be largely beside the point. What matters is whether the candidate has the skills and experience to do the work.
For roles where writing is a core responsibility, however, the candidate’s actual writing ability matters much more. An AI-written resume or cover letter may not give you enough information to evaluate that skill on its own.
Using AI Effectively Is Becoming a Workplace Skill
AI is here to stay, and knowing how to use it thoughtfully is increasingly valuable in many roles.
The question isn’t simply whether someone used AI. It’s whether they can use tools like AI with good judgment.
Can they give the tool appropriate direction? Evaluate what it produces? Recognize when the output is generic, inaccurate, or inappropriate? Edit it thoughtfully? Know when AI is useful and when it isn’t?
Those are increasingly relevant workplace skills.
How to Evaluate Candidates when AI Is Involved
The organizations that will hire best in this environment are the ones that adjust how they evaluate candidates. They weigh AI use in the context of the role rather than applying a blanket rule.
Does AI use actually matter for this role? What skills do we need to verify independently? And does our hiring process give candidates a meaningful opportunity to demonstrate those skills?
→ Use our checklist for evaluating AI-assisted resumes and applications. ←
Strengthen Your Hiring Process Instead of Trying to Detect AI
As applications become more polished and standardized, the rest of the hiring process matters even more.
Strengthen the parts of your hiring process that reveal what a candidate actually knows, has actually done, and is capable of doing next.
Structured interviews can help nonprofit hiring teams move beyond conversational chemistry and evaluate candidates consistently against the competencies that matter most. Work samples and thoughtfully designed exercises can provide direct evidence of skills that are difficult to assess from a resume alone.
The goal was never to hire the person who writes the best resume.
The goal is to identify the person most likely to succeed in the role and contribute to your organization’s mission.