Yes, you can use AI on your CV: public employment services in Germany and France describe it as a useful aid. What makes a CV sound like AI is rarely the tool. It's what the tool adds: polished phrases that could describe anyone, skills copied from the posting and numbers nobody measured. Give the AI your own facts to rework, and read every line before it goes in.
This is for anyone using a chatbot or a CV builder on their CV, in any language. Employers use AI too: Germany's Bundesagentur für Arbeit notes that companies use it to sift applications, and France Travail that recruiters use it to preselect candidates. But the person who invites you to interview reads what you send, and the interview is where every line has to hold up.
Is it OK to use AI on your CV?
Yes, as help rather than as the author. The Bundesagentur für Arbeit's guide to applying with AI, written for school leavers, says it plainly: AI only makes suggestions, and you should always check the text and adapt it so it fits you and your skills. France Travail goes a step further: build your CV yourself first, from your own career, then let AI suggest improvements against the posting, and don't hand it the whole CV or cover letter to write.
The EU's job mobility portal, EURES, lists tailoring a CV and a cover letter to a posting among the ways AI can help, with one condition: review what it produces for accuracy and relevance. If a posting or an employer says how it wants AI used in applications, follow that.
What makes a CV sound like AI?
It isn't one word. It's text with nothing of you in it. The Bundesagentur lists the risks: an application can lose its personal touch, some phrases may sound "too perfect", and wrong information can slip in and be carried over. In practice, three habits give it away.
- Praise that could be anyone’s. "Results-driven professional", "proven track record", "spearheaded a transformative strategy". A model writes these from a job title alone. Replace each with what you did.
- A skill lifted from the posting. France Travail warns that AI may mention skills you don’t have simply because they were in the job description. If you can’t give an example of it, it comes out.
- A result nobody measured. "Improved efficiency by 30%" is the first thing an interviewer asks about. If the figure came from the model, not from you, leave it out.
If you couldn't explain a line in the interview, it isn't yours yet.
How do you use AI and keep the CV yours?
Give it your facts and the posting, ask for changes rather than a new CV, and decide on each change yourself. That is the order France Travail describes: your CV first, then the posting and the company's description, then the AI's suggestions, then your check that they stay true to your experience. The same steps as tailoring a CV to a posting, with a tool doing the first draft of each change.
Here is one bullet, for a support lead applying to a role that asks for self-service help content, three ways.
- What the CV says
Ran the support team’s weekly rota. Wrote the help articles for the new billing system.
- What a chatbot writes from the job title
Results-driven support leader who spearheaded a transformative self-service strategy, boosting customer satisfaction by 35%. Every word sounds right; the strategy and the 35% were never in the CV.
- A rework that stays yours
Wrote the self-service help articles for the new billing system and planned the support team’s weekly rota. Same facts, the posting’s words where they are true, the part that matches the role first.
If you know how many tickets those articles saved, add the figure. If you don't, the bullet is honest without it. A blank you fill in later beats a number you would have to defend. That's why Romy leaves blanks instead of guessing.
Two more habits help. Keep your contact details out of the chat: EURES advises being careful about the information you share with AI platforms, and a bullet doesn't need your address. And keep your own phrasing where it's already clear: a recruiter reading your CV and your cover letter should hear the same person in both.
How do you check an AI-edited CV before sending it?
Read it as the interviewer will, with the posting beside it. The Bundesagentur also suggests asking someone you trust to read it for how it sounds and for mistakes.
- Every employer, title and date is exactly as in your records.
- Every skill is one you could give an example of.
- Every number is one you can say where it came from.
- No line could be pasted, unchanged, into someone else’s CV.
- The words match your cover letter and what you would say out loud.
- Someone you trust has read it for tone and typos.
Romy reworks what your CV says, and asks for what it doesn't
Romy tailors your CV from your master CV and what you tell her. She rewrites, reorders and leaves out; she never adds an employer, a date, a skill or a number you didn't give her. Where a highlight needs a fact, she leaves a blank, and Accept stays off until you fill it in or leave it out. Example answers stay marked as examples until you make them your own, and every change waits for you to accept or reject it.
- Rewrote the help articles bullet in the posting’s wordsRephrase
- Moved the help articles to the top of the roleReorder
- How many tickets did the articles save? Add it only if you know.Question
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