Super easy to detect too: all the AI letters were nearly identical. They had clearly just dumped the posting into ChatGPT or similar and told it to write a cover letter. No specifics on qualifications, no addressing specific points in the posting, etc. just non-specific slop.

I think it was just this particular candidate. They were extremely focused on self-promotion, but hadn’t actually read the job posting, and didn’t have a clue what it entailed at our university.

But yeah, so much AI slop, which the committee dumped straight to the bottom of the pile.

My condolences. I was the chair of a hiring committee last semester, and we had so freaking many AI generated or non-spellchecked applications that I wanted to throw up.

The “best” included multiple photos of the candidate throughout their CV. Literally every page had a headshot.

Cloud lifter wasn’t in the frame. Definitely a wake-up call for some students, who have just been using a 58 on every project.