September 8, 2026

Same Résumé. Different Name. Completely Different Verdict.

Hi Friend, 

A UK research team at Code For Good Now ran a test this summer we haven't been able to stop thinking about. They built one AI-assisted resume for a marketing role, then showed it to 1,000 working adults. The test changed only one thing between versions: the name at the top. Emily Clarke on one. James Clarke on the other.

The work history was identical. The bullet points matched too, right down to the AI-polished phrasing.

The results were staggering. Reviewers were twice as likely to question whether Emily was actually competent, 22% more likely to say they didn't trust her, and men under 25 in the study were 3.5 times more likely to call her exact resume weak. James, holding that identical resume, read as efficient. Emily read as if she had something to hide.

We're sharing this for a reason. This isn't about whether women are adopting AI or using it well. It's about the perception that comes with relying on it too much. That's why this month's newsletter goes deeper into what we can do about it, and the skills we already have that we can keep leveraging.

“When a man uses AI, we question his effort. When a woman uses AI, we question her integrity.”

Why This Isn't a Confidence Problem, Again

The usual advice for closing the gender gap in AI adoption is some version of "women need to catch up." But the research shows something else. Women are adopting AI at rates 20% lower than men, even when their skills are equal or higher. Viewed in conjunction with the resume study, that gap stops looking like hesitation and starts looking like a rational response to a penalty that's already been seen, felt and measured.

That reframe matters. It means the fix was never "use more AI, faster," the same way confidence was never the missing piece in last month's self-promotion research. What's missing is a way to use AI that keeps your own judgment visible instead of invisible, because invisible judgment is exactly what's getting punished here.

It's the same wedge we keep coming back to. AI itself isn't the risk to your credibility. Using it in a way that erases your fingerprints from the work is. The Emily-vs-James study didn't measure two different resumes. It measured how the same resume gets read once a reader decides someone let AI drive.

Source: The AI Judgment Penalty, Code For Good Now (2026).

The Fingerprint Check

Before you send anything AI touched, whether it's a resume line, a LinkedIn post, or a client email, run this check.

Three steps, same idea:

•	Find one sentence AI wrote that you'd never have phrased that way. Not wrong, just not yours.

•	Rewrite it in your actual voice. Keep the substance, change the fingerprint.

•	Read the whole piece out loud. If a friend would say “this doesn't sound like you” on any line, that's the line the study is talking about.

The goal isn't less AI. It's making sure every reader, human or otherwise, can tell a person was steering. That's exactly what the AI-Resilient Skill Stack is built to teach: 7 places your judgment shows up in your work, and how to keep it visible even when AI is helping you move faster.

AI-RESILIENT SKILLS ASSESSMENT

Behind Every Program, Two Coaches

The AI Proofing Micro Program is a full 7-day version of this work.
Structured. Practical. Built around your real role and busy life.

Day by day, you will audit what you do, identify what makes you irreplaceable, build your visibility language, and practice saying it out loud.

•	A tech-leadership read and a people-leadership read on the same career problem

•	Fewer blind spots than working through it with one coach alone

•	One conversation, not two separate perspectives you have to reconcile yourself

AI PROOFING PROGRAM

Final Thought

Two resumes. One name changed. A measurable gap in who got believed. The file was never the problem.

What might be one of the more expensive habits still built into how AI-assisted work gets judged is how easily we test a woman's ownership of her own work, and let a man's slide. You can't control what a reader assumes on sight. You can control how much of you is actually on the page.

FREE WORKSHOP

Built by AI. Voiced by You

A one-hour live session where you'll watch a real AI-powered portfolio get built in real time, prompts, missteps, fixes and all, so you can see exactly how a human directs the machine instead of the other way around. We'll walk through the framework for translating what you actually do into language AI could never generate on its own: your judgment, your pattern recognition, your point of view.

You'll leave with:

•	A started portfolio foundation and a clear path to finish it the same week

•	A repeatable method for prompting AI to amplify your voice, not flatten it

•	Language for your value that works on a portfolio, a LinkedIn profile, or in an interview

P.S. Book a quick call if you’re ready to see results!

Same Résumé. Different Name. Completely Different Verdict.

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