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Check a resume or cover letter for AI writing

You can check a resume or cover letter with Winston AI, but read resume results carefully. Bullet points are short and formulaic, so they often look predictable whoever wrote them, while cover letters and personal summaries give a clearer signal. Use the highlights to shape interview questions, never to reject a candidate on a score alone.

  • 99.4% accurate
  • Free to try
  • 14 languages
  • Sentence-level results
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Key facts

  • Winston AI highlights each sentence: red for likely AI, yellow for mixed signals.

    Source: AI Detector

  • All plans accept pasted text and .docx uploads; PDF and TXT uploads are on paid plans.

    Source: Pricing

  • Texts need at least 80 words to be scored.

    Source: AI Detector

What changes when you check resumes and cover letters

  • Bullets are formulaic for everyone

    An action verb, a task and a result, repeated down the page, is standard resume advice. That structure reads as predictable whether a person or a tool wrote it.

  • Templates and resume builders

    Boilerplate phrasing from templates and builder tools appears on thousands of human-written resumes and can look uniform to a detector.

  • Little continuous prose

    A resume may have only a short summary in full sentences. Check the whole document rather than one section, and give more weight to the cover letter.

  • Second-language applicants

    Careful, simple English from applicants writing in a second language can read as machine-like. That's a fairness risk, covered in can AI detectors be wrong.

How to check resumes and cover letters

  1. Step 1: Start with the cover letter

    Cover letters and personal statements carry more natural prose than a resume, so they give a more useful result.

  2. Step 2: Paste or upload

    Paste the text or upload a .docx. Most resumes arrive as PDFs, which you can upload on paid plans or copy and paste on any plan.

  3. Step 3: Read the summary and letter highlights

    Look at which claims are highlighted. Generic lines about being 'results-driven' matter less than vague descriptions of real work.

  4. Step 4: Ask about it in the interview

    Ask the candidate to walk through a highlighted achievement in detail. People can describe work they actually did.

  5. Step 5: Use the same process for everyone

    Check every candidate at the same stage the same way. Our pages for [recruiters](/for/recruiters) and [HR teams](/for/hr-teams) cover a fair workflow.

Resumes are among the hardest documents to judge for AI. They're built from short, formulaic bullet points that people have borrowed from templates for decades. Cover letters give a detector much more to work with. Winston AI highlights which sentences read as machine-written, and this page covers how recruiters and job seekers can use that without unfair conclusions.

AI help on a resume isn't automatically a problem

Many candidates use tools to tighten wording or fix grammar, and plenty of employers don't mind. What usually matters is whether the claims are accurate and whether the candidate can talk about them. Decide your own policy before you start checking, and apply it consistently.

For job seekers

Check your cover letter before you send it. If highlighted lines sound like they could describe anyone, replace them with a specific project, number or story from your own work.

Questions about checking resumes and cover letters

Still unsure? Browse our guides or ask our team.

Can recruiters tell if a resume was written by AI?

Not reliably from a score alone. Resume bullets are formulaic for everyone, so recruiters get more from checking cover letters and asking candidates to discuss their experience.

Should I check the resume or the cover letter?

The cover letter first. It has more natural prose, which gives a detector more to work with than bullet points.

Will a resume template make my resume look AI-written?

It can make it read more predictable. Specific details about your own work are the best counterweight.

Can I upload a PDF resume?

On paid plans, yes. On any plan you can paste the text or upload a .docx.

Is it fair to reject a candidate because of an AI score?

No. A score is evidence to review, not proof. Use it to decide what to ask, and apply the same process to every candidate.

Check other kinds of writing

Check your resumes and cover letters now

Paste the text to see which sentences read as machine-written. Sign up free when you want to keep your reports.

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