Chinese EV giant BYD has been praised for a “cheeky” detail spotted on one of its job advertisements. Recruiters are being inundated with a record number of job applications for each role, as many job seekers turn to AI to help them mass apply for open roles.
Companies are now taking a creative approach to screening candidates. In a recent job ad for a role with BYD Automotive, it included the following instruction for applicants: “For an extra bonus to cut through the other applicants, include a picture of Mariah Carey in your application.”
Realistic Careers founder Tammie Ballis told Yahoo Finance it was a “smart” way to screen applicants these days.
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“That is brilliant to weed out the people that just apply to everything and anything, and to also weed out if people are using AI for their application,” she said.
The tough job market means some Aussies have been taking a “spray and pray” approach to applying for jobs and hoping quantity over quality will land them a role. Many are also turning to AI tools to help them write CVs and cover letters.
Ballis said this particular recruiter told her he was getting heaps of applicants, but found no one was reading the whole job ad, so the Mariah Carey inclusion was a sneaky way to screen applicants.
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“Employers or recruiters want to make sure that you’ve actually thought about what you’re applying for because, yes, it’s a job, but it’s more than a job,” Ballis said.
“You need high attention to detail and you need to show from the very beginning that you can listen to instructions. And most people don’t do that.”
Ballis said the situation was “getting worse”, claiming around 95 per cent of people don’t read the job ad properly before applying.
Yahoo Finance has contacted BYD for comment.
Ballis shared the job ad on her social media and many Aussies said they thought the inclusion was a good idea.
“This is actually an oddly great test to see who [can] read, interpret and fulfill a simple task request,” one said.
“That’s smart. Every ad we post is spammed by people who clearly don’t read the description. That’s a great way to filter some of those out,” another said.
“Attention to detail and opportunity to display creativity. I would use AI to put Mariah Carey picture with myself on a BYD site,” a third person joked.
Ballis said she’ll often see companies asking applicants to reference the specific job number, or to include certain words to make sure they have actually read the job ad. In one case, she said a vet asked applicants to include the “meow” in the cover letter.
Ballis said the instructions also showed the company was reading through the applications, not relying on AI to filter through applicants.
“It bumps out AI for the candidate and the employer,” she claimed.
Job seekers are facing a tough market at the moment.
SEEK data showed the number of job ads on its platform was down 0.5 per cent month on month in February and 2.6 per cent year on year. While applications per job ad were down 0.6 per cent month on month, they remained at record levels for most of 2025 and remain extremely elevated.
A report by HR tech firm JobAdder in June showed there was a 42 per cent year-on-year increase in the volume of job applications.
This is partly thought to be due to candidates “spamming” their resumes to a wide range of potential employers, generating hundreds of versions using AI.
Companies are also using the technology to sift through CVs and cover letters, with JobAdder finding 80 per cent of businesses its surveyed use AI in their hiring process, up from 69 per cent last year.
Ballis said there was nothing wrong with applicants using AI, but encouraged them to make sure they used it properly and not trust it blindly.
«Be strategic with your job applications. Take a bit of time, read the advertisement, work out if you’ve got 80 per cent of the experience and then apply,” she said.
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