01 · Polish stopped being proof
When an AI writing tool arrived on a large hiring platform, the link between a tailored cover letter and a callback fell by about half. Employers turned to prior work histories instead.
Five million cover letters across more than 100,000 jobs. The finding is the reason every claim on a CareerVersion is connected to its proof: when anyone can generate a tailored claim, the record behind it is what carries the signal.
Cui, Dias & Ye. Yale University, Cowles Foundation. “Signaling in the Age of AI: Evidence from Cover Letters,” 2025. CC BY 4.0. arxiv.org/abs/2509.25054 ↗
02 · A career is a story you have to keep whole
People forced to change careers recovered by building a valid narrative of what they lost while establishing a new work identity. Their emotions were signals of that work, and drivers of it.
A longitudinal study of involuntary career change, interviewing the same people a year apart. It is why the record keeps every version, including the ones that ended, and why six private prompts sit under every role. Only you see them; they never appear on your bio.
Brazier, Parmentier & Masdonati. University of Lausanne; HEC Liège. “Navigating Involuntary Career Changes: Emotional Dynamics During Work-Related Identity Loss and Recovery,” Journal of Career Development, 2025. doi.org/10.1177/08948453251394015 ↗