For thousands of Indian students dreaming of a career abroad, artificial intelligence has become a powerful career companion. It is being used for writing resumes, cover letters, identifying visa-sponsored jobs and preparing for interviews. But experts warn that using AI without a clear strategy can do more harm than good.
Financial Express Digital spoke to Ashwin Krishnamoorthy, Director of Academics at Newton School of Technology; Manas Sandhu, AI expert at US-based consultancy Open Insights and founding member of the Foreigners Foundation; and Arnav Kumar, co-founder of Leap Scholar. Their consensus: AI works best when students use it to sharpen their own work, not replace their thinking.
Use AI to improve your resume, not write it from scratch
Many students paste their details into ChatGPT and ask it to generate a resume. Experts say this is one of the biggest mistakes applicants make.
“The biggest mistake students make is asking AI to generate a resume from scratch. Use it instead to translate the resume you have for each market and each role,” says Krishnamoorthy.
Students should first write down their own experiences, projects and internships, then use AI to improve sentence structure, highlight measurable achievements and present their work in language recruiters understand. Instead of “Worked on a college project,” AI can help explain the problem solved, the tools used and the outcome achieved.
Krishnamoorthy also recommends using AI as an interviewer: “Let it ask follow-up questions about your projects until every bullet has a number, a scope, or an artifact behind it.”
How to Actually Use AI in Your Job Search Abroad
Sandhu warns that many Indian students list programming languages and certifications without demonstrating impact. Overseas recruiters want evidence of leadership, collaboration and measurable outcomes. AI can help rewrite internships and projects to highlight these qualities without changing the facts.
Kumar adds that resumes prepared for Indian employers often fail abroad due to formatting differences, not qualification gaps. “A resume that works at home routinely gets ignored abroad. Almost always, the problem is format, not qualification,” he says.
Krishnamoorthy notes there is no universal international resume format, as US employers prefer one-page resumes, while UK and European employers often accept two pages. He also advises keeping resumes text-based, as applicant tracking systems (ATS) struggle with tables, graphics and multi-column layouts.
The bottom line: “AI should never exaggerate or invent accomplishments. Every point on a resume should be something you can confidently discuss in an interview,” says Sandhu.
Don’t send the same resume to every company
AI has made it easier to apply for dozens of jobs daily, but speed comes at the cost of quality. Krishnamoorthy advises students to maintain one detailed master resume because every internship, project, certification and achievement with metrics and use AI to tailor it for specific employers.
“Ask it to name the gap between your profile and the role; if the gap is a missing skill, no amount of tailoring closes it,” he says.
Sandhu agrees: “Recruitment is fundamentally about matching demand with supply. Your resume should clearly demonstrate how your experiences meet that requirement.” AI can analyse a job description in seconds and identify the skills that matter most and students should reorganise existing achievements accordingly, not invent new ones.
Kumar offers a practical five-minute hack: “Paste the job description in. Paste your resume in. Ask AI what’s missing and what’s irrelevant. Do this for every application. That five minutes is the difference between a callback and the ATS filtering you out.”
For cover letters, Krishnamoorthy says: “Let AI handle structure and research, but write the ‘why this company’ paragraph yourself. It’s the only paragraph anyone reads, and it’s the one AI writes the worst.”
All three experts caution against AI tools that promise hundreds of automated applications. Carefully chosen applications backed by strong preparation deliver far better results than mass submissions.
Using AI to find the right jobs and countries
Many students waste weeks browsing job portals without knowing which countries are hiring or which companies sponsor work visas. AI can make this process targeted but should never be the final source of truth.
Krishnamoorthy recommends having AI build a structured matrix of companies, countries, open roles and sponsorship evidence, but verifying every detail through official government websites. “Visa rules, work authorization and eligibility criteria change faster than any model’s training,” he warns.
Sandhu suggests using AI workflows to track global hiring trends, identify growing sectors and shortlist companies that have previously sponsored international candidates. Kumar advises asking AI to identify shortage occupations before applying, preventing weeks wasted on roles with limited demand.
“Thirty high-fit applications beat five hundred sprayed ones,” says Krishnamoorthy. “Twenty applications matched to real numbers will always beat two hundred sent on hope,” adds Kumar.
Let AI prepare you for interviews, not answer them
Experts say AI can be a valuable interview coach, but only for practice, not memorisation. Krishnamoorthy recommends voice-mode mock interviews: “Run mocks with instructions to interrupt, follow up and push on every number.”
For technical interviews, students should solve problems themselves, then ask AI to challenge their reasoning. For behavioural interviews: “Draft your own stories and let AI stress-test them. If AI writes your stories, you’ll be performing someone else’s memories,” he says.
Sandhu says AI voice features can help students improve grammar, pronunciation and fluency. Kumar recommends practising aloud across multiple formats, technical, behavioural and case-study, because “nerves show up differently when you’re actually speaking.”
All three also recommend using AI for deeper company research, analysing annual reports, earnings calls and engineering blogs to understand what a company is worried about and what the role is actually hired to fix.
Where students go wrong with AI
The biggest mistake, experts agree, is letting AI create a professional identity rather than communicate a genuine one. “AI’s first draft is the statistical average of everyone’s resume, which is exactly what you don’t want to be,” says Krishnamoorthy.
Other common errors include trusting AI blindly on visa rules and salary thresholds, memorising AI-generated interview answers that collapse under follow-up questions, and spending more time optimising prompts than building real skills.
“Recruiters don’t hire the person who writes the best AI prompts. They hire the person who can solve problems, communicate effectively and create value,” says Sandhu. Kumar’s final reminder: “Curiosity, judgement, and the instinct to make something new, that’s what’s left for humans once AI can do the rest. Protect that part of yourself.”