By Juan Nolte

Four hundred applications arrive for one posting. Each one seems competent, and nothing in the pile tells you who to call. I know because I'm in it. I graduated from Georgia Tech in August, and for three years before that I ran a small marketing agency in Atlanta, so I've spent time on both sides of that pile. Here's what I've learned: the résumé stopped telling you anything; I think I can explain why, and there's a better question to ask…

College is where I first watched previously difficult skills become accessible to everyone. A university's job is to certify that its students can do the work a job requires. Nobody can grade learning directly, so professors graded the evidence: essays, case studies, problem sets. Then AI tools arrived that can search most of recorded knowledge in seconds, pull the context an assignment calls for, and turn it into finished, mostly correct work. Once anyone could produce the evidence, the evidence stopped being a distinguishing factor.

For a while, using the AI tools felt like cheating.