Man vs Machine: CV Writing Showdown

AI is touted as the new CV-writing solution, but can it beat human expertise? A career expert critiques a CV generated by ChatGPT.

Create my CV

By Mariusz Wawrzyniak, Senior Content WriterLast Updated : July 3, 2026

Average Ratings

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

4.9/5 stars with 198 reviews

Our customers have been hired by: *Foot Note

“AI can write your CV for you” is a common sentiment nowadays. But is it true? Are career experts obsolete? Will HR representatives gush over your AI-made CV?

Let’s find out! I challenged the most popular AI tool on the market – ChatGPT – to write a CV using some of my own work experience. Now, it’s time for me to give an honest critique.

Section-by-section critique of my AI-generated CV

To conduct a “Man vs Machine” test, I tasked ChatGPT, the most popular AI tool, with writing a complete CV based on my professional experience. I gave it information from my LinkedIn and various author profiles, as well as my job description.

I will review the resulting document section-by-section to determine if AI can truly automate the process and produce a job-winning document without human intervention.

This article is not anti-AI. I performed this test as I was genuinely curious about the output. And, since many people are certainly using AI to help build their CVs, I think it’s vital to know what to look out for.

AI hallucinated my contact details

ChatGPT-made work history

A well-made work history section is vital for creating a job-winning CV. It’s also the section most applicants fail to write properly. This results in their CVs being too generic and unimpressive for recruiters.

For this example, I asked ChatGPT to create my work history section using the previously provided resources (such as my LinkedIn profile). I also gave it a job description of a writer for a job search website so that it knew what position I was pursuing.

At a glance, this work history section looks amazing. It’s long, detailed and neatly organised. However, it has glaring issues. It is one of the “too generic and unimpressive” sections I’ve told you about earlier.

There are good things about it as well. Let’s start with those:

This is a great foundation. But, looking deeper, we encounter issues.

This is how I would improve this section to make it more appealing to recruiters and be friendlier to ATS scanning:

Building on the foundation that the AI established, I made critical changes. I immediately corrected the location to ‘remote’ and reduced the bullet count to a recruiter-friendly five for the first entry and four for the second.

Most importantly, where the AI only presented a list of responsibilities, my revised section transforms them into quantified, impactful accomplishments. It makes my CV significantly more appealing to Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and human recruiters alike.

AI recreates my education section

My education is well laid out on my LinkedIn, so ChatGPT shouldn’t have any trouble creating the education section in my CV. Let’s see how it looks.

And there is honestly nothing wrong with this education section. That’s exactly what I would’ve written myself. I have already accrued several years of experience as a writer and career expert. As such, there is no need for me to display any additional academic accomplishments.

Good work, ChatGPT. You passed this round with flying colours.

ChatGPT overindulged in my skills

Skills for a CV are generally treated as lists of keywords from the job description that recruiters and AI scans want to see. Extracting keywords is something I have used AI for quite often, so I have high expectations.

ChatGPT correctly decided to use 10 bullet points as the maximum. However…

See how it used 5 ampersands? That’s because it wanted to fit more of my skills, despite having no place left to fit them. So it chose the most similar, previously extracted skill and used an ampersand to add a partner skill.

On top of that, all of these skills are hard skills. That’s because the job description I provided the chatbot with emphasised them more. But soft skills are still necessary, even if less so. As such, I wouldn’t use the provided skill list. I’d change it to:

With that, I have a more balanced skillset on my CV. Now, let’s go to my favourite part of a CV, the bonus sections.

Extra CV sections made too extra by AI

Bonus sections are very close to my heart. I secured my writing jobs thanks to my certifications and my expertise in English. When people ask me for advice, I always recommend them to earn at least one valuable certificate or finish a course that’s known in the industry.

And yes, these people have thanked me for it later.

Let’s get back on track. Dear ChatGPT, show me what you have made:

That’s way too much! CVs should be brief and cover only what’s relevant to the specific job you’re applying for. ChatGPT decided to pad out my CV with as much additional information as it knew about me.

Time for a detailed critique:

Here’s how I’d fix it:

My version is much stronger because it focuses on relevance and measurable impact instead of trying to include every possible detail.

Instead of listing vague responsibilities, I replaced them with quantified accomplishments that demonstrate actual business value. Saying I “contributed to a 32% increase in organic traffic” sounds far more impressive than simply saying I “produced product descriptions.”

I also cleaned up the structure by removing vague or filler-heavy sections and replacing them with standard headings recruiters actually expect to see. Most importantly, every section now has a purpose.

My AI-generated CV summary feels bland

Now for the crème de la crème. The CV introduction. This is the part that recruiters look at first. If it’s bland, they’re not very likely to continue checking out the rest of your CV, or they’ll move you to the reserve pool of candidates.

With the stakes being so high, let’s see if ChatGPT delivers gold.

My CV would’ve been discarded in the first couple of seconds. There is nothing exciting in this personal profile statement, and buzzwords like “proven track record” and “known for” make recruiters want to scream.

Ok, let’s dissect it:

Knowing this, how would I change this personal profile? Here’s what I have:

This version is much stronger because I replaced vague buzzwords with actual business impact. Instead of saying I have a “proven track record”, I show measurable results, such as improving product entry rate by 53%.

I also corrected the experience issue by presenting my full 6 years of writing experience instead of limiting myself to 3.5 years in career-content writing alone.

Most importantly, my hand-written summary is personalised. Mentioning Company XYZ and tying my experience to SEO performance and revenue growth makes it feel tailored to the role rather than AI-generated filler.

My verdict on ChatGPT’s CV writing performance

After putting ChatGPT through a full “man vs machine” stress test, my conclusion is simple: AI is an excellent assistant but a poor replacement for strategic CV writing.

ChatGPT produced a solid foundation. The CV structure was mostly correct, the formatting was clean, and many sections looked impressive at first glance. For someone struggling with a blank page, that’s genuinely valuable.

But once I started reviewing the CV like a recruiter or career expert would, the problems became obvious. The document was packed with generic phrasing, lacked meaningful accomplishments, overexplained irrelevant details, and often failed to personalise the content properly. Most importantly, it rarely demonstrated actual business impact.

That’s the biggest lesson from this experiment: AI can generate content, but it doesn’t truly understand professional positioning. It predicts what a “good CV” probably looks like based on patterns. A human writer understands strategy, relevance, nuance, and how recruiters actually think.

Ironically, the strongest parts of the final CV weren’t written entirely by me or entirely by AI. The best results came from combining both:

So, can ChatGPT write your CV? Technically, yes.

Can it write a strong, tailored, interview-winning CV without human oversight? Not even close.

Build your CV with an AI that specialises in CV writing

If you want to really speed up your writing process and produce much better results, use MyPerfectCV’s CV builder. Our guided writing process, AI suggestions, and HR-approved CV templates make all the difference.

Build my CV