180 applications for one engineering role. 40 of them were the same resume.

180 applications for one senior engineering role last month. About 40 read like the same resume.

Same action verbs. Same keyword density mapped to the JD. Same metrics with no context attached. Written for the parser, not for a person.

The standard fix is detection. Spot the AI resume, discount it. But detection only tells you the document is unreliable. It tells you nothing about who is actually good. You have filtered noise and gained zero signal.
So the first filter is now doing no work, and everyone is still running it.

I have started skipping the resume as the opening screen and looking at what someone has actually shipped instead. Better signal. Slower. Does not scale cleanly yet, and it disadvantages people whose best work is behind an NDA.

Disclosure, I build hiring software, so I am biased toward thinking the resume is the wrong input. Which is why I want the argument and not the agreement.

Two questions.
 → What phrase are you seeing on repeat? Mine is “spearheaded cross-functional initiatives.”
 → If you dropped the resume as filter one, what replaced it, and what broke?