This startup asked for handwritten cover letters from intern candidates. Hundreds applied.

Even the companies promoting analog lifestyles are being inundated with AI job applications.

The letters weren't "connecting with our mission and our greater goal," said Marlee Pelton-Fuentes, customer success manager at Dumb.co, who oversees the company's internship program.

She discussed the problem with the company's CEO, Danny Hogenkamp, as well as other coworkers. To bypass the flood of cookie-cutter applications, they added an unusual requirement a few days after the listings went live: handwritten cover letters.

The company said that nearly 900 people applied to four internship roles — marketing, business and operations, customer success, and tech — through the job platform Handshake. About 70% of those applicants uploaded handwritten letters answering why they were interested in "dumb living," why they wanted to work at the company, and whether they had a "dumb" phone.

Another 200 to 300 applicants physically mailed their apps, including handwritten letters, said Afreka Ebanks, Dumb.co director of brand and communications. After reviewing the notes and interviewing 60 people, the company hired 10 interns.

At a time when job seekers are burned out from mass-applying and hiring managers are equally overwhelmed by the flood of applications, AI becomes increasingly used to ease the burden on both ends. Cover letters — when they're written at all — are often smoothed out or entirely written by AI. On the hiring side, the tech is used to more quickly screen applications.

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In this new reality, both employers and applicants have to find creative ways to stand out. "Anything that can break that equilibrium, that can inject more of real people showing their real selves to actually help employers find the right fit" is worth trying, he said.

Dumb.co hired Ian-Karlo Krockel as a marketing intern in July, a few months after he graduated from Boston University. Despite feeling like a "very go-go-go kind of person," he said he had no luck with job and internship applications until he applied to Dumb.co.

It was as if the mindset he'd cultivated over years around analog living had led up to this moment. In his cover letter, he wrote about owning multiple flip phones and recently interning in London, where he enjoyed disconnecting from his smartphone and enjoying the city's green spaces.

"I was reading through more aligned applicants," she said. Plus, because she had to individually review each one, she said it made the interview process more personal; she remembered what each applicant wrote who made it to the next interview round.

For Krockel, it also made the hiring process more intimate. He said he remembered Hogenkamp, the CEO, holding his letter and referencing it during his second-round interview. "It felt like I was very supported and going to be an actual part of the team," he said.