AI is fantastic and will certainly increase efficiencies across many industries. The white paper published by ERSA and Hudson and Hayes on AI in Employability: Opportunities, Challenges and the Road Ahead White Paper discusses the opportunities, challenges and the road ahead and concludes that “AI can complement human-centred approaches and help more people into meaningful work” and can “increase the human element of employment support by liberating work coaches from administrative and data inputting”.
When creating Candid, we wanted to ensure we were able to reduce the administration burden on key workers/job coaches. We issued an anonymous survey to 20 key workers/job coaches and our key findings can be found here.
Across the employability sector, key workers are carrying an administrative load that prevents them from doing what they are great at: delivering person‑centred support which everyone agrees with is the heart of the job.
Writing CVs themselves
Our survey of employability professionals in November 2025 made this clear: the majority are writing participants’ CVs themselves, producing around 10–15 CVs every month. With each CV taking roughly an hour to complete, that’s 10–15 hours of admin before tailoring for different roles or supporting job applications even begins. It’s a significant chunk of time for teams.
Figure 1 – Average Time to Complete a CV by Employability Professionals
Manually writing CVs can be challenging process
What stood out even more was how challenging key workers find the process. Many described difficulties gathering information, structuring non‑linear work histories, and explaining gaps sensitively. Others highlighted they were juggling multiple templates, systems and tools, none of which are designed specifically for employability. This can also compromise CV writing best practices. Generic AI tools aren’t filling the gap either. Key workers told us they’re often unsuitable for participants with challenges, producing generic content, isn’t considering ATS requirements or requiring vast numbers of prompts that frontline staff simply don’t have time to do.
Employability Specific AI focused on CV Writing
This is where employability‑specific AI can make a meaningful difference. When software is built around the realities of frontline delivery, it can generate high‑quality, employer‑ready CVs in minutes using key information the key worker/job coach already has. That alone can return hours each month to key workers who are currently tied up in manual writing, formatting and rewriting. In addition to this it also brings consistency meaning CVs follow best practice, remain ATS‑friendly, and handle employment gaps, lack of work experience or complex histories with dignity which too often generic tools are not able to achieve
How does Candid differ and help your teams?
This impact goes beyond efficiency as when admin burdens reduce, capacity can increase. Key workers/Job coaches told us that with more time they can focus on what actually moves participants forward: confidence‑building, barrier removal, employer engagement, and tailored job search support. No one wants AI to replace the human element they want to protect it which simply cannot be done when undertaking repetitive, and time‑consuming tasks, Employability‑specific AI CV writing Software enables frontline staff to spend more time doing the work that changes outcomes. The survey findings as well as the white paper published by ERSA and Hudson and Hayes demonstrates a sector ready for tools that genuinely understand its’ challenges.
The ERSA study makes it clear that the sector is ready for practical, purpose‑built tools that strengthens , not replace, the human relationship at the centre of employability support. Candid was built to remove the administrative strain highlighted in the white paper while giving key workers more time, more consistency, and more capacity to deliver the person‑centred support that changes outcomes.
The team at Candid would love to chat to you about our CV writing software specifically for Employability. Please get in touch here or book a call with us.