Artificial Intelligence and recruitment

We know you may choose to use AI tools to support your application. These tools can be a helpful way to organise your thoughts and polish your writing—just make sure anything you share about your experience, skills and qualifications is accurate and genuinely your own. We’re most interested in your real achievements and what you’ve learnt along the way.

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Gemini can generate and review text in ways that feel very similar to human writing. Used well, they can help you prepare and present your best self. However, they should never be used to create misleading or untrue information at any stage of the recruitment process.

This guidance explains how AI can be used appropriately in your application, what to avoid, and some practical ways it can help you prepare.

If you’re unsure: If you’re not certain whether a particular use of AI is appropriate, it’s best to keep things simple—write your response in your own words first, use AI only for light editing (such as clarity or spelling), and avoid using AI during any live assessments. You should also make sure anything you submit is accurate and does not include confidential or sensitive information.

What we look for in applications:

The most important thing is that we get a clear sense of you and how you align with Tamworth Borough Council. Your application should represent your skills and personal experience accurately and authentically. Strong applications help us understand:

  • How your skills and experience align with the role you are applying to
  • What motivates you to do your best work
  • What you have achieved and how you did it

The two main parts of the process are the written application and interview stages. In each stage there are different things AI might help you with.

Using AI should help you communicate your strengths more clearly and confidently. It shouldn’t replace your voice or create an impression that doesn’t reflect who you are.

Writing your application 

Acceptable use Please avoid

You can use AI to support your written application by:

  • Refining and clarifying your ideas
  • Summarising public information about the council
  • Helping you explore trends you can link to your own experience
  • Checking spelling, grammar and clarity in text you have written

 

To keep the process fair and your application accurate, please don’t use AI to:

  • Inflate or invent skills, responsibilities or achievements
  • Generate generic answers and copy them directly into your application without personalising them
  • Complete assessments that are designed to measure your abilities (for example, judgement or numerical tests)
  • Share sensitive or confidential information (for example, figures or personal details) with an AI tool

 

There are several ways AI can improve the clarity and quality of your written application while still being an honest reflection of your skills and experience. For example, you could:

  • Think about your own personal leadership experiences and ask AI to help you improve how you present them.
  • Ask AI to summarise public information about important projects or policies, in the organisation you are applying to, that you can think about in your responses.
  • Ask AI to help identify relevant skills and behaviours in the job advert and then think about how you’ve demonstrated these skills in previous roles as you prepare your responses
  • Write a list of examples with details of how they relate to your experience and skills to the role, then ask AI to help you structure them using the STAR format or other ways to strengthen your examples
  • Ask AI to check your answers are concise and recommend improvements that maintain their meaning