"I really like the overall resume and vibe of it. It's very much me. My favorite thing is that it doesn't sound like AI."
That's what a recent client told me after receiving her first resume draft. She meant it as a compliment — and I took it as one — even though it's a slightly unusual thing to hear when you've spent the last year building an AI resume tool.
I'm Margaret Gerety, a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) who has worked with 300+ mid-to-senior professionals. I'm also the founder of Paige Careers, an AI-powered resume builder I launched earlier this year. I use AI in my 1:1 client work every single day — and I can also tell you with complete honesty that AI alone cannot produce the kind of resume I delivered to that client.
So when people ask me whether they should use AI to write their resume, my answer isn't a simple yes or no. It's: here's what AI is replacing, and here's what it isn't.
What AI Actually Does Well in Resume Writing
A typical 1:1 engagement starts with a curated questionnaire. I ask clients to pull together their 'primary source' material — old performance reviews, award write-ups, links to publications and speaking engagements. By the time we sit down for our 60-minute intake call, they've already done the hard work of remembering.
Then we talk. I ask about their career — projects, decisions, outcomes, the people they worked with, what they're proud of, what they want to do next. By the end, we've co-produced a long output of stories and context.
This is where AI becomes genuinely useful. My AI notetaker distills the conversation into summary points that help me identify themes and ultimately track that I've captured all of their golden nuggets in the final resume draft.
I can also feed AI a long, sprawling narrative and it will compress it into something active and punchy. Take this dialogue example:
"So we expanded int APAC thing, basically I ran all the legal for it. We opened up Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney offices, took us about 14 months total. I did the leases myself, all 3 of them, didn't use outside counsel. Tokyo had some regulatory issue that came up but we still hit go-live."
AI turns that into a clean, ATS-optimized bullet in seconds:
- Led legal workstream for 14-month APAC expansion across Singapore, Tokyo, and Sydney; negotiated 3 commercial leases and maintained go-live timeline through Tokyo regulatory delay.
As a fast, reliable editor for well-structured source material, AI is excellent. The problem is that most people don't have well-structured source material sitting around — and even when they do, there are three things AI simply cannot replicate. (For more on what makes resume bullets strong, see our resume writing tips.)
3 Things AI Can't Do in Resume Writing (That Actually Matter)
There are three things I do in every 1:1 that AI, on its own, can't entirely replicate. These are the parts of the job that took me years to learn how to do well, and they're what separate a resume that sounds like the candidate from a resume that sounds like a job description.
1. Read Your Energy
When a client tells me a career story, I'm not just listening to the content. I'm watching what happens to them while they tell it.
Some achievements light people up. They sit forward, get specific, their voice changes. Other achievements — sometimes ones they assumed would anchor their resume — visibly drain them. They trail off, get vague, start adding disclaimers.
Those signals matter. If your energy drops when you're talking about something, it doesn't belong on your resume. It might be technically impressive. It might represent months of work. But anything on your resume is fair game in an interview. If you can't talk about it with genuine enthusiasm, leave it out.
AI cannot read energy. It can only edit what's in front of it. Give it a flat story and it will polish that flat story. A human in the room helps you notice what's worth keeping.
2. Help You Learn to Talk About Yourself
The summary section at the top of a resume is the hardest part of the document to write — not because writing is hard, but because most professionals genuinely don't know how to describe themselves to a stranger.
In my 1:1 work, I listen for the adjectives clients naturally use about themselves. I ask how their boss or team would describe their strengths. I push them to articulate what sets them apart from other candidates applying for the same role.
The answers don't come out fluently the first time. But through our calls and the materials they've gathered, I start to hear their voice — the makings of a strong, specific elevator pitch. That's how an effective resume summary gets built: not from a generic prompt, but from the right questions, asked in the right order, with the right follow-up.
3. Unveiling the hidden "wows."
During interviews, clients often mention something almost in passing — "Well, I was brought in specifically by the CFO to run this project" — and I'll stop them. Wait. Say more about that.
These details almost never make it onto a first-draft resume. People assume they're too obvious, too contextual, too 'everyone knows that.' They're wrong. These are the details a recruiter remembers when deciding who to call.
A human interviewer catches these because we know a buried lead when we hear one. AI, prompted in the standard way, accepts what you give it and moves on.
How Paige Careers Tries to Replicate This Approach
When I built Paige Careers, I knew I couldn't entirely replicate the feeling of a 1:1 — that's not possible at scale. What I tried to replicate was the underlying methodology that makes a 1:1 work.
Paige starts somewhere different from most AI resume tools, which often require that you go through a series of questions to confirm things it should already know: your name, your contact information, your current employer and title. With Paige, you simply upload your existing materials and it will automatically put your information into a clean template that you see along the right-hand viewing pane. On the left is an easy chat interface so you can quickly get to editing — ask Paige to make some quick fixes, do fuller rewrites, or tailor your materials to a job description. There's less friction and more impact, right off the bat.
But where Paige really separates itself is the Get Questions feature. Paige asks you questions similar to the ones I'd ask in a 1:1 — about specific projects, decisions, outcomes, people involved, even how you got there. It presses you to articulate your pitch instead of accepting the generic version. It flags vague bullets and prompts you for the specific story underneath.
Paige can't watch your energy fall. But it can ask the question that surfaces a hidden 'wow.' Is it the same as sitting across from me? No. But it's much closer to my 1:1 process than most people would expect from an AI tool — because the underlying methodology is the same.
So, Should You Use AI to Write Your Resume?
Yes. Almost certainly. The mechanical work — consolidating notes, polishing bullets, optimizing for ATS, tailoring to a job description, putting it all in a modern, professional format — should not take you the days it used to. AI does it well, and you should let it.
The harder question is which version of "AI-assisted" you actually need.
If you have strong source material — performance reviews, project notes, a clear sense of where you're heading — you're ahead of most people. Most generic AI tools will get you a long way from there. Paige goes further by asking you the kinds of questions that turn good source material into distinctive, role-specific bullets — the same questions I'd ask in a 1:1.
If you don't have strong source material yet — which is most people — you need something that asks better questions before generating anything. Paige is built to do that. A 1:1 engagement does it even more thoroughly.
A Final Note on Hiring a Resume Writer
There's one more thing worth mentioning. People sometimes choose 1:1 work over a tool not because the tool is bad, but because they want someone else to hold the pen. Writing about yourself is genuinely hard. Most people need an accountability partner just to get the document done.
They also want the relationship — the theme-finding, the through-line, the confidence that comes from someone telling you, with conviction: this is the strongest version of your story. That has real value, especially heading into interviews where the same themes need to come out of your mouth in real time.
A great resume boosts your confidence regardless of whether a human or AI helped you get there. When you read a document about yourself and recognize the person on the page — when it sounds, as my client said, very much like you — something shifts. You walk into the interview already believing the case you're about to make.
That's the goal of every resume I work on. Not sure which option is right for you? Start with a free resume review to see where you stand — then decide whether working with Margaret directly or using Paige on your own is the better fit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it okay to use AI to write your resume?
Yes — with the right approach. AI is excellent at editing, formatting, and tailoring your resume to a specific job description. Where it falls short is the work that happens before writing: surfacing the right stories, understanding your energy around different achievements, and helping you articulate what makes you unique. The best results come from combining AI tools with honest self-reflection.
Can ChatGPT write a good resume?
ChatGPT can produce a well-organized resume if you give it strong input. The problem is that most people don't have strong input ready. General AI tools are not built to extract the right information from you the way a good resume writer would. You'll get a polished version of whatever you give it — not necessarily the strongest version of your story.
What can AI not do when writing a resume?
AI cannot read your energy, surface hidden details you've left out, or help you learn to talk about yourself — which is ultimately what a resume is preparing you to do in an interview.
What is the best AI resume builder?
It depends on what the tool actually does when you sit down to use it. Most AI resume builders started as templates and added AI features later — usually a bullet generator on a separate screen that spits out generic content from your job title. Paige Careers is the only AI-native builder I've found — built after the AI era began, around the same 1:1 questioning framework I described above. (For a full breakdown of how Paige compares against 8 other AI resume builders, see my recent LinkedIn article.)
Will a resume written by AI get rejected?
Not automatically — but a generic, AI-generated resume will stand out for the wrong reasons. Recruiters will notice hollow language, an overuse of jargon, and repetitive sentence structure. The goal is to use AI as a tool while making sure the final document is full of specific details and sounds genuinely like you.
How is Paige different from ChatGPT for resumes?
ChatGPT is a general-purpose tool — you have to manage the entire process yourself. Paige is purpose-built for resume writing, with a methodology based on 300+ professional resume engagements. It starts from your raw materials, asks targeted questions, and produces a structured ATS-optimized resume — without you having to figure out the prompting strategy yourself.
Margaret Gerety is a Certified Professional Resume Writer and founder of Paige Careers, an AI-powered resume builder, and Margaret Gerety Advisors, a 1:1 resume and LinkedIn coaching practice for mid-to-senior professionals.