Teach First job applicants will get in-person interviews after more apply using AI
One of the UK’s biggest recruiters is accelerating a plan to switch towards more frequent face-to-face assessments as university graduates become increasingly reliant on using artificial intelligence to apply for jobs.Teach First, a charity which fast-tracks graduates into teaching jobs, said it planned to bring forward a move away from predominantly written assignments – where AI could give applicants hidden help – to setting more assessments where candidates carry out tasks such as giving “micro lessons” to assessors.The move comes as the number of people using AI for job applications has risen from 38% last year, to 50% this year, according to a study by the graduate employment specialist Bright Network.Patrick Dempsey, the executive director for programme talent at Teach First, said there had been a near-30% increase in applications so far this year on the same period last year, with AI playing a significant role.Dempsey said the surge in demand for jobs was partly due to a softening in the labour market, but the use of automation for applications was allowing graduates to more easily apply for multiple jobs simultaneously.
“The shift from written assessment to task-based assessment is something we feel the need to accelerate,” he said.Dempsey said much of the AI use went undetected but there could be tell-tale signs.“There are instances where people are leaving the tail end of a ChatGPT message in an application answer, and of course they get rejected,” he said.A leading organisation in graduate recruitment said the proportion of students and university leavers using AI to apply for jobs had risen to five out of 10 applicants.Bright Network, which connects graduates and young professionals to employers, found half of graduates and undergraduates now used AI for their applications.
More than a quarter of companies questioned in a survey of 15,000 people will be setting guidelines for AI usage in job applications, in time for the next recruitment season.Kirsten Barnes, head of the digital platform at Bright Network, said employers had noticed a “surge” in applications.“AI tools make it easier for candidates of any age – not just graduates – to apply to many, many different roles,” she said.“Employers have been saying to us that what they’re seeing is a huge surge in the volume of applications that they’re receiving.”Breakthroughs in AI have coincided with downward pressure on the graduate and junior jobs market.
Dartmouth Partners, a recruitment agency specialising in the financial services sector, said it was increasingly seeing applicants using keywords written in white on their CVs,The words are not visible to the human eye, but would instruct a system to push the candidate to the next phase of the recruitment process if a prospective employer was using AI to screen applications,Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionVacancies for graduate jobs, apprenticeships, internships and junior jobs with no degree requirement have dropped by 32% since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, according to research released last month by the job search site Adzuna,These entry-level jobs now account for 25% of the market in the UK, down from 28,9% in 2022, it found.
Last month, another job search site, Indeed, reported that university graduates were facing the toughest job market since 2018, finding the number of roles advertised for recent graduates had fallen 33% in mid-June compared with the same point last year,The Institute of Student Employers said the graduate and school-leaver market as a whole was not declining as rapidly as reported, however,Its survey of 69 employers showed job vacancies aimed at graduates were down by 7% but school-leaver vacancies were up by 23% – meaning there was an overall increase of 1% in a market earmarked for AI impact,Group GTI, a charity that helps students move into employment, said job postings on UK university careers job boards were up by 8% this year compared with last year,Interviews with graduate recruitment agencies and experts have found that AI has yet to cause severe disruption to the market for school and university leavers – but change is inevitable and new joiners to the white-collar economy must become skilled in AI to stand a chance of progressing.
James Reed, the chief executive of the Reed employment agency, said he “feels sorry” for young people who have racked up debt studying for degrees and are encountering a tough jobs market.“I think universities should be looking at this and thinking quite carefully about how they prepare young people,” he said.He added that AI would transform the entire job market.“This change is fundamental and five years from now it’s going to look very different – the whole job market,” he said.
Ofcom head says age checks are ‘really big moment’ for children’s online safety
The UK’s chief media regulator has promised age verification checks will prove a “really big moment” in the battle to keep children safe online, even as campaigners warn she needs to take tougher action against big technology companies.Melanie Dawes, the head of Ofcom, said on Sunday that the new checks, which have to be in place later this month, would prove a turning point in regulating the behaviour of the world’s biggest online platforms.But she is coming under pressure from campaigners – many of them bereaved parents who say social media played a role in their children’s deaths – who say the new rules will still allow young people to access harmful material.Dawes told the BBC on Sunday: “It is a really big moment, because finally, the laws are coming into force.“What happens at the end of this month is that we see the wider protections for children come online
Teach First job applicants will get in-person interviews after more apply using AI
One of the UK’s biggest recruiters is accelerating a plan to switch towards more frequent face-to-face assessments as university graduates become increasingly reliant on using artificial intelligence to apply for jobs.Teach First, a charity which fast-tracks graduates into teaching jobs, said it planned to bring forward a move away from predominantly written assignments – where AI could give applicants hidden help – to setting more assessments where candidates carry out tasks such as giving “micro lessons” to assessors.The move comes as the number of people using AI for job applications has risen from 38% last year, to 50% this year, according to a study by the graduate employment specialist Bright Network.Patrick Dempsey, the executive director for programme talent at Teach First, said there had been a near-30% increase in applications so far this year on the same period last year, with AI playing a significant role.Dempsey said the surge in demand for jobs was partly due to a softening in the labour market, but the use of automation for applications was allowing graduates to more easily apply for multiple jobs simultaneously
‘Workforce crisis’: key takeaways for graduates battling AI in the jobs market
ChatGPT can certainly write your university essay – but will it take your job soon after? Rapid advances in artificial intelligence have given rise to fears that the technology will make swathes of the workforce redundant.Graduates are seen as particularly vulnerable because entry-level jobs such as form-filling and basic data entry are strongly associated with the “drudge work” that AI systems – which perform tasks that typically have required human intelligence – could do instead.Over the past two and a half years the availability of such positions has dropped by a third, and last month it was reported that graduates are facing the toughest UK job market since 2018.The Guardian spoke to some of the UK’s biggest recruitment agencies and employment experts for their views on the impact of AI on current and future opportunities for those entering the jobs market. Here are six key takeaways from what they said:A shifting graduate labour market is not unusual, said Kirsten Barnes, head of digital platform at Bright Network, which connects graduates and young professionals to employers
Louis Vuitton says UK customer data stolen in cyber-attack
Louis Vuitton has said the data of some UK customers has been stolen, as it became the latest retailer targeted by cyber hackers.The retailer, the leading brand of the French luxury group LVMH, said an unauthorised third party had accessed its UK operation’s systems and obtained information such as names, contact details and purchase history.The brand, which last week said its Korean operation had suffered a similar cyber-attack, told customers that no financial data such as bank details had been compromised.“While we have no evidence that your data has been misused to date, phishing attempts, fraud attempts, or unauthorised use of your information may occur,” the email said.The company said it had notified the relevant authorities, including the Information Commissioner’s Office
The CEO who never was: how Linda Yaccarino was set up to fail at Elon Musk’s X
In May 2023, when Linda Yaccarino, an NBC advertising executive, joined what was then still known as Twitter, she was given a tall order: repair the company’s relationship with advertisers after a chaotic year of being owned by Elon Musk. But just weeks after she became CEO, Musk posted an antisemitic tweet that drove away major brands such as Disney, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Lionsgate and Warner Bros Discovery to pause their advertising on the platform. Musk delivered an apology for the tweet later at a conference – which he called the worst post he’s ever done – but it came with a message to advertisers, specifically the Disney CEO Bob Iger: “Go fuck yourselves.” Yaccarino was in the audience of the conference.“I don’t want them to advertise,” he said
AI-generated child sexual abuse videos surging online, watchdog says
The number of videos online of child sexual abuse generated by artificial intelligence has surged as paedophiles have pounced on developments in the technology.The Internet Watch Foundation said AI videos of abuse had “crossed the threshold” of being near-indistinguishable from “real imagery” and had sharply increased in prevalence online this year.In the first six months of 2025, the UK-based internet safety watchdog verified 1,286 AI-made videos with child sexual abuse material (CSAM) that broke the law, compared with two in the same period last year.The IWF said just over 1,000 of the videos featured category A abuse, the classification for the most severe type of material.The organisation said the multibillion-dollar investment spree in AI was producing widely available video-generation models that were being manipulated by paedophiles
Tax pubs on profit not property value, urges Greene King boss
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‘Great for tennis’: Alcaraz lauds rivalry after Sinner crowned Wimbledon king
Sinner reaches for the sweets and comes away with the whole jar at Wimbledon | Jonathan Liew