Everyone’s CV looks amazing now. Here’s how to find the actual human behind the prompt.
Thomas McGlynn nailed it a few years back when he said that a job interview has always been the meeting of two lies: The employer exaggerates how great the culture is. The candidate exaggerates how great they are. Ninety days later, everyone finds out.
Now multiply that problem by AI.
Today’s candidates are running their cover letters through ChatGPT. Their CVs have been polished by Gemini. Their LinkedIn summaries read like they were written by a professional copywriter – because, in a way, they were. And here’s the thing: you can’t really blame them. If you had a tool that could make you sound 30% more articulate, you’d use it too.
But it means the old hiring playbook could be a little broken.
Reading cover letters to “get a sense of the person” doesn’t work when the person didn’t actually write them. And dumping those AI-written applications into another AI to summarise them? Congratulations – you’ve just created a game of robot tennis where nobody’s keeping score and the human wandered off to make a coffee.
So what do you do instead?
Change the medium, change the signal
If every candidate can produce a flawless written application, then written applications stop being useful as a filter.
You need to test for things AI can’t fake – yet.
Build a smarter application form
Tools like Jotform or Tally let you go way beyond “upload your CV.” Instead, create situational questions that reveal how someone actually thinks:
- A tenant calls at 4:45 PM on a Friday with a burst pipe. Walk us through exactly what you do in the next 30 minutes.
- A vendor disagrees with your recommended sale price. How do you handle the conversation?
- You’ve got three inspections, a settlement, and a staff meeting all on the same morning. What gets moved?
There’s no ChatGPT template for your specific office scenarios. That’s the point.
Test their AQ, not just their IQ
Adaptability Quotient matters more than ever. Ask candidates to rate how much they enjoy various tasks on a scale of 1 to 10. If someone rates admin a 2 but the role is 80% systems and data entry, you’ve just saved yourself a 90-day disappointment – no matter how polished their application looked.
Think of it as a compatibility test for your office. Tinder for task preferences, minus the awkward ghosting. (Actually, no – realistically there’s probably still ghosting!)
Ask for video
A 60-second selfie video answering one specific question is worth more than a two-page cover letter right now. AI can write a script, but it can’t fake warmth, energy, or the way someone’s face lights up when they talk about something they actually care about.
Keep the question simple: Tell us why this role, at this agency, right now. You’ll know within 15 seconds. Either they light up or they sound like they’re reading a ransom note from a teleprompter.
Ask the questions that actually matter
Once you’ve filtered for real humans, the interview itself needs to evolve too.
The culture question nobody asks:
Most agencies advertise the same role. Same duties, same salary band, same “dynamic team environment.”
Your culture is the differentiator – so test for it.
Ask candidates what they found when they looked at your socials. If they didn’t look, that tells you something. If they did, what they noticed tells you more.
The future question:
If property management shifts from being mostly about maintenance to being mostly about asset advisory and client experience, how would they see their role changing?
This isn’t a trick question: It’s a genuine window into whether someone sees this as a job or a career.
The AI question:
Do you see AI as a collaborator or just useful for checking your emails? There’s no wrong answer here, but the answer tells you a lot about someone’s mindset toward growth, learning, and change. You want people who are curious, not threatened.
Profiling tools still work.
DISC, Kolbe Index, Wealth Dynamics – these aren’t new, but they’re more valuable than ever when the written application has become unreliable. Use them at the shortlist stage to understand whether you’re hiring a Starter when you actually need a Finisher.
Use AI on your side (smartly)
Here’s where it gets fun. AI isn’t just changing how people apply – it can transform how you hire.
Use AI to help you build your application form in the first place. Feed it your role description and ask it to generate situational questions tailored to your agency.
Use it to create scoring criteria so incoming applications get flagged immediately against your shortlist requirements. Connect it to a Calendly link so high-fit candidates can book a meeting straight after they’ve finished the application.
The workflow becomes: application lands → AI flags the best fits → you get a cheat sheet of their responses → you walk into the interview prepared and focused on the human in front of you. You know, the bit you as a leader went into real estate for: talking to people. Not reading 47 variations of ‘I’m a passionate self-starter.’
By the way: That’s not replacing the human decision. That’s giving the human decision-maker better information, faster.
The bit about staying legal
If you’re using AI to help shortlist candidates – even if it’s just a smart spreadsheet that scores responses – you need to know about the Privacy Act reforms landing in December 2026.
The short version: if AI “substantially assists” in deciding who gets an interview, that counts as automated decision-making under the new rules, and you have obligations around transparency.
Best practice right now is a simple three-layer approach:
A clear notice on your application form: “We use AI-assisted shortlisting to help our team process applications faster.”
A brief explanation that AI helps rank candidates on skills and experience, but all final hiring decisions are made by humans.
An updated privacy policy that covers how you use applicant data – including which AI tools are involved.
This isn’t something to panic about. It’s something to get ahead of. And frankly, being upfront about using AI in your hiring process is a good look – it signals that your agency is modern, efficient, and transparent.
We’ll be diving deeper into the compliance side in a follow-up piece. For now, the three-layer approach above will put you well ahead of most agencies.
Stop reading resumes. Start testing for talent
The job interview was always the meeting of two lies. AI has just given both sides a better script. Your job as a hiring manager hasn’t changed – find the right person for your team – but your methods need to catch up.
Change the medium. Test for thinking, not writing. Ask the questions that reveal character, not credentials. And use AI yourself to work smarter on the back end.
The agencies that figure this out first won’t just hire better people. They’ll keep them. And maybe, just maybe, both sides will stop lying by interview two.
Ready to find your next team member? Post your role on Elite Agent Jobs – it’s free to post and you can amplify to reach more real estate professionals who read The Brief.
For more on how to think AI first about other systems in your business, consider doing the AI Accelerator course where you will learn the AI first formula, how to win listings and more.