If AI can apply for it, you’ve designed the wrong role

Try this with any job ad

Open SEEK or LinkedIn today and search for finance analyst roles in Australia. Pick any three listings, from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, it doesn’t matter. Read them side by side.

You will find the same phrases, almost word for word, across every one of them. “Strong analytical skills.” “Partner with senior stakeholders.” “Drive commercial insights.” “Support financial planning and reporting.” “Fast-paced environment.” “Exciting opportunity.”

Now do something uncomfortable. Copy one of those job descriptions and paste it into an AI tool. Ask it to write a tailored application. Watch what comes back.

It will be good. Probably very good. Because the brief was generic enough that no original thinking was required to respond to it. The AI simply mirrored your language back at you, dressed it up, and produced a credible candidate response in under thirty seconds.

Here is the question that should keep HR and Talent leaders up at night: if AI can apply for the role, have you accidentally designed it for AI?

Why every job description sounds the same

This is not a criticism of the people writing these ads. It is a systemic problem. Most job descriptions are written by copying a previous version, adjusting the title, and adding the current team’s preferred tools.

Nobody stops to ask three questions that actually matter.

1. What challenges and opportunities is this role currently facing into?
2. What does the role require of a human being on a day to day basis that cannot be automated? And
3. What outcomes and decisions does the role holder actually own?

Those three questions are conspicuously absent from almost every job ad currently live on a job board. And their absence is costing organisations more than they realise.

You may be hiring for a role that is already being disrupted

The outputs described in most finance analyst ads, variance analysis, budget reporting, month-end commentary, PowerPoint decks for leadership, are precisely the tasks AI already performs competently and will perform better within the next 12 to 18 months. So, when an organisation advertises for a human to do those things, they are not just writing a bad job ad. They are hiring for a role that is already being disrupted, without knowing it.

Stop describing outputs and start defining judgement

The organisations that will get this right are the ones that stop describing outputs and start defining judgement.

• What decisions does this person need to make that cannot be made by an algorithm?
• Which relationships does this role hold that require trust, context, and discretion built over time?
• What does this person need to understand about our business, and the challenges it is currently navigating, that cannot be prompted into existence?

Those are human questions. And right now, almost no job ad on a job board is asking them.

Why this matters beyond the hire

This matters well beyond the hiring decision itself. If you cannot define what is genuinely human about a role, you cannot hire for it with precision, you cannot develop the person once they are in it, and you cannot build a pipeline of successors behind them. The job ad is not just a recruitment tool. It is a statement of what you believe the role is for. And most organisations are making that statement on autopilot.

Where to start

The good news is that this is a solvable problem. It starts with a simple discipline. Before you write a single line of a job description, ask what this role requires that AI cannot provide. If you cannot answer that question clearly, you are not ready to hire.

In the next post, I will introduce the GT Test, a practical framework for making that distinction deliberately, and show you exactly how to apply it before you write another job description.

Hiring soon?

If you have a role coming up and want to work out what it needs from a person before the ad goes live, we can help. Get in touch and we’ll talk it through.

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Justin Miles

Manager Partner, Melbourne at Generator Talent

Justin is the Managing Partner of our Melbourne office, an outcome focused leader with a track record of driving business performance through proven talent and organisation development practices. Justin’s methods and skills have been shaped by working with performance oriented leaders in great companies including PepsiCo, The Campbell Soup Company, Diageo, Rip Curl, Fonterra and Wesfarmers, in Australia, the USA and Latin America.