Has AI Killed the CV?

Has AI killed the CV?

I kept running into this question this year. As part of my Women in Tech research, I spoke with HR leaders and recruiters, and I was invited to a private dinner where the whole conversation was AI and hiring. Everyone had some version of the same frustration: AI was supposed to make hiring easier, and so far it doesn't seem like it's delivered on that just yet.

My answer is no. AI hasn't killed the CV; however, it killed what the CV was originally for.

To see why, you have to go back more than 500 years.

Before the Curriculum Vitae existed, you got hired because of who you knew or who your family was. That wasn't only favouritism. It was a trust system. If someone the employer already trusted could vouch for you, you were in. If no one could, then good luck to you.

Then in 1482, a 30-year-old Leonardo da Vinci wrote to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan. He was a stranger asking for work, so he did something new and made his case on paper. He wrote ten numbered points about what he could build for Milan's wars: portable bridges, cannons, armoured carts. His final point: in peacetime, he could also paint and sculpt.

Historians debate the details, but Leonardo went on to spend 17 years in Milan. This piece of history matters because the CV gave a stranger a way to earn trust without a connection. For the first time, what you could do had a real shot at competing with who you knew.

Fast forward to 2026. These are the themes that come up again and again.

Volume is out of control. One founder told me they received 1,400 applications in 48 hours. Auto-apply tools let candidates send applications by the hundreds, and a recruiter can see 100+ arrive within minutes of posting a role.

Every CV looks great. Candidates use AI to polish their CVs, which makes complete sense. But the recruiters I spoke with all said the same thing: everyone looks sharp now.

The tools aren't keeping up. Applicant tracking systems (the software that sorts applications) still struggle to read a CV, which is why you end up retyping your career into tiny boxes. Teams don't fully trust the shortlists they produce either, so a lot of screening still happens by hand.

Nobody is sure who's real. Employers told me they aren't always certain they're interviewing an actual person. Candidates, meanwhile, often meet a company through a bot first, which says very little about what it's like to work there.

Candidates hear nothing. They send out hundreds of CVs and then crickets. No rejections, no feedback, just silence.

So hiring managers do what people have always done when information stops being useful. They go with their network, they go with their gut.

Think about restaurant reviews. When every restaurant has 4.8 stars, the stars stop helping you choose. So you text a friend and ask where to eat.

That's what happened to the CV. A polished, well-written CV used to tell an employer something real: this person took the time, can communicate, and cares about this particular job. Today AI can produce that in seconds, for anyone, for any job. When something becomes free to produce, it stops meaning anything.

The CV is still here. It just doesn't carry trust anymore.

Everything I heard follows from that. Candidates apply to more jobs because each application means less. Employers add more filters because each CV tells them less. Both sides automate, and we end up with bots screening bots. It's an arms race where everyone is trying to beat the machine, and nobody is getting closer to the right fit.

So where does this go from here? As I see it, there are two ends of a spectrum.

At one end is the analog option. Slow down, go human, make applying take effort again. Picture a typed letter arriving by mail. In a pile of 1,400, it would stand out. I wonder if anyone has had success with this method. And with so many remote workers, where would you even mail it?

At the other end, every candidate has an AI agent that represents them. Your agent meets the employer's agent, they check for a fit, and the humans only meet once there's a real match. You get to skip the awkward first date.

In between, the experiments are already running. Proof of work, brag books, video applications, and skills-first micro-tasks where you do a small piece of the job instead of describing it. Platforms like Welcome to the Jungle now position themselves as a human-first alternative to LinkedIn.

These look like opposites, but they're all trying to solve the same problem. The typewriter brings back effort, because effort is hard to fake. Proof of work brings back evidence. The agent only works if it carries something verifiable, otherwise it's two bots being polite to each other. At the core, each approach is simply an attempt to rebuild trust.

The CV won't disappear anytime soon; however, it will be demoted.

I heard a founder say they believe personal brands are what will get you noticed in the future. Showcasing your opinions, your work, what you stand for and who will vouch for you.

If the CV stops working as a trust signal, the easiest fallback is the oldest one, which is who you know. That's the system the CV was invented to get around. It favoured people with the right family and the right network, and it left out newcomers, career changers and anyone without an insider. Some days I'm not sure much has changed since 1482. Without a better signal, we could slide all the way back.

That's why the founder's point about personal brands is interesting. For most of history, "who you know" was something you inherited. A personal brand turns it into something you can build. When you share your work, your ideas and what you stand for, strangers can get to know you before they ever meet you. That's exactly what Leonardo's letter did in 1482. And this is where AI can be your edge. It can help you turn a finished project into a short post, scattered notes into a clear point of view, or a quiet win into a story people remember. You don't need connections to get started, only something worth sharing.

So the real question isn't whether AI killed the CV. It's whether we use AI to build a better trust signal, or let it push us back to hiring the people we already know.

If you're applying: send fewer applications, and write each one for a single reader. Know your audience. That's what worked for Leonardo. He knew the Duke needed war machines, so he led with war machines. AI is very good at helping you do this, as long as you use it to go deeper instead of wider. Build proof you can show, and invest in the people who can speak for your work.

If you're hiring: the fastest way to rebuild trust is to give some back. Close the loop with candidates, even with a short reason. AI could make specific feedback possible at scale, and the first companies to do it well will stand out. Make the first impression of your company a human one.

Copy this, fill in the brackets and paste it into your AI assistant.

It's the Leonardo move: figure out what your reader needs, then lead with it.

I'm curious where you land. Is the CV on its way out, or just changing jobs? And if you hire, which part of this frustrates you most?

Hit reply and tell me.

Cinz.AI

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