Practical tools from OU Assistant Director of Talent Acquisition Tzuri Merzel
As artificial intelligence continues to advance rapidly, many professionals in fields such as customer service, data entry and analysis, administrative work, and graphic design are beginning to worry that their roles could become obsolete. We spoke with OU Assistant Director of Talent Acquisition Tzuri Merzel about how employees can leverage AI to their advantage.
Many people are afraid that AI will replace their jobs. Which fears are realistic and which are exaggerated?
There’s definitely going to be a gradual elimination of some positions. I can’t tell you at what degree or scale, but many entry-level roles that require repetitive tasks are already being automated.
How exaggerated is it? The most extreme prediction I’ve seen is a 90% reduction in all entry-level jobs. I think those claims are hyperbolic, but I believe AI will shrink the pool of those positions, and people will need to develop new skill sets as well as become comfortable using AI. I’m reminded of a quote I heard at a conference: AI won’t replace everyone’s job, but it will replace everyone who refuses to use AI.
The concept of internships will also be significantly impacted, as they often involve repetitive tasks like filing and data entry. That market will likely shrink, except perhaps in industries like accounting, which largely rely on internships as their recruiting funnels. Since they are less focused on output and more on hiring pipelines, internships in industries like this may not be affected to the same extent.
On a positive note, during the Industrial Revolution, everyone was terrified that jobs would be lost due to new technology and machinery. In reality, the revolution created hundreds of thousands of new industries and jobs. Hopefully AI will give rise to a brand-new market with jobs for everyone, allowing people to focus more on their core skills and less on repetitive or routine tasks.
As AI takes over more routine tasks, what skills are becoming most valuable, and how should both job seekers and established professionals position themselves or pivot in response?
People who have strong emotional intelligence and the ability to connect and collaborate with others will continue to be in demand. While roles may look different in 10 –15 years from now, those human-centered skills remain areas where AI is still limited.
At the same time, both early-career job seekers and experienced professionals should focus on adaptability rather than reinvention from scratch. The goal is not to abandon existing expertise, but to evolve it in response to how work is changing.
Every field will still rely on subject matter expertise; people who understand which tools and platforms are best suited for different tasks, how to prompt AI effectively, and how to ensure outputs are accurate, compliant, and reliable.
Being an AI expert in your field does not mean you need to know how to program AI or get a PhD in machine learning. It means becoming a subject matter expert in the platforms and systems, and understanding within your specific industry how you and your team can best leverage them. That kind of judgment will become increasingly valuable.
In that sense, AI fluency will be essential. It will be part of becoming effective in almost any role, alongside the human skills that technology cannot replace.
What are the smartest ways job seekers can use AI when searching for jobs, writing resumes, or preparing for interviews?
When job searching, AI can be helpful in identifying companies that meet the specific criteria you are looking for, whether in terms of mission, size, demographic, or location. You can input detailed parameters and even ask it to generate a list of top 10 matching companies along with their career sites.
I do not recommend asking AI to write your full resume; I believe that is something applicants should do independently. But you can absolutely use AI to polish your language and check for grammatical and stylistic errors as well as customize your resume for the specific job you are applying to. AI is a great tool for plugging in a job description along with your resume and asking it to highlight relevant areas, elevate certain bullet points, or rephrase them using the company’s language. That is one way you can really stand out.
For interview preparation, I suggest plugging in a job and company description and having AI generate mock interview questions. There are also more advanced, video-based AI tools that will coach you. You can record yourself, and they will point out areas for improvement. Recording yourself even once can help you fix your posture, reduce filler words like “um” and “like,” and help you to present yourself in a more articulate way.
Tzuri Merzel is the Assistant Director of Talent Acquisition at the Orthodox Union, where he helps departments and managers fill vacancies across the organization. He has over a decade of experience in human resources and talent acquisition and holds a master’s degree in industrial-organizational psychology.