You can write all the AI CVs you like, but it won't help you in the interview
18 June 2026
The government recently announced an “AI Work Assistant” at London Tech Week, with PM Starmer calling it “a job centre in your pocket.” You can try the CV writer here (though you are officially advised by the government to rewrite it to sound like you). And you can tell The Guardian your thoughts on it here.
What the government is conveniently forgetting is that if you have the means to get online to use AI, you are already more privileged than the majority of the long-term unemployed — an estimated 13–19 million people in the UK experience data poverty. Many people don’t have a device suitable for writing a CV on.
CV writing is often touted as a skill, but it just isn’t anymore. You can search almost anywhere to find how to write one. You can ask any chat AI and it will do it for you. If you are referred to an employment scheme, they will do it for you, and already have online CV builders that will actually save your progress — the .gov one doesn’t even give you that. You can speak to the National Careers Service. Most councils have employment support. You can even go to the library and a staff member will usually donate their time to helping you — librarians are incredibly underappreciated.
During my time at a government-funded employment scheme, I made many, many CVs. Clients had full access to the online builder and to computers, but this was just not enough provision. Aside from very real time and financial pressures, there were lots of very real reasons that people could not create their own CVs: poor literacy, poor IT skills, neurodiversity, disabilities, lack of written English, lack of experience, not knowing how to explain gaps or how to deal with issues like convictions, fear of returning to work, or just a crushing lack of self-confidence in their own abilities.
There are reasons why employment schemes have high success rates. The current largest two are Restart, achieving 30% of applicants into long term work, and SWAP, achieving 40%. We need other humans to guide us through, reassure and advocate for us when we have no idea which questions we need to ask. AI can write what you want, suggest support, even present an empathetic ear, but without the user telling it what they need, it can’t deliver. It certainly can’t offer the referral to food banks, buy workwear, fund travel until that first payday, negotiate with the council or help with crisis support.
Most importantly, AI can’t guide you through the job interview. This is where actual human skills are needed, because that’s all a job interview is. In my experience, most long-term unemployed people do not have good interview skills. If you do not have these skills, you need a real person with experience to provide you with feedback on the things that other humans are looking for when they employ. They are checking that all those interpersonal skills AI told you to put on your CV — like “I work well as an individual but also part of a team” are true.
There is a reason that job interviews are in-person, and that is because you could have the most perfect CV, but if you do not fit in with this particular human’s idea of what a human in this role should be like, you will not get the job.
So why has the government spent money on something that will, in my opinion, have so little impact? AI is new, it sounds progressive, and it’s cheaper than people.
Navigating the complex game of unemployment is like building a house. You should start with the foundations, but most people are having to construct in a random order. People need an address, a phone, ID, childcare, transport, to be in good health, clothes, etc., but these things are almost never delivered on a convenient timeline.
Interpersonal skills are foundations, and they are always so low down the list when barriers to employment are considered. I believe this is because it is an inconvenient reality, expensive to tackle and requiring skilled, in-person support to fix. But if we concentrated on that first, we could help people for life, not just into their next role.