A Five-Check Review Before You Send AI Writing

AI tools write fluent text. That is the useful part, and also the risk: a draft can sound confident and polished while containing a wrong date, an invented detail or a promise you never meant to make. If the message goes to a client or a candidate, the mistake is yours, not the tool's.

You do not need a long process. A five-check review, taking two or three minutes, catches most problems before they leave your outbox.

What actually goes wrong

The common failures are plain ones:

• Made-up specifics. Names, figures, job titles, quotes or references that look plausible but were never in what you gave the tool.
• Wrong facts about your own business. Fees, notice periods, locations or services described slightly differently from how you actually work.
• Tone drift. A message that is too eager, too formal, or promises more than you can deliver.
• Leftovers. Placeholder text, another client's details from an earlier draft, or a generic opening that makes the whole message feel mass-produced.

The five checks

1. Facts and numbers. Read every date, amount, name and job title against your source. If you cannot point to where a fact came from, delete it or confirm it.

2. Promises. Look for anything that commits you: a deadline, a fee, a guarantee, a "we will always". Would you be comfortable being held to it in writing?

3. Names and details. Check you have the right person, company and role. This matters most when you reuse one conversation for several clients.

4. Tone. Read it aloud. Does it sound like you? If you would not say it to the person's face, rewrite it.

5. Safe to send. Make sure nothing confidential has slipped in, such as another client's rates or a candidate's personal details that this recipient should not see.

Make it a habit

• Keep the five checks as a short note next to wherever your team drafts messages.
• Decide in advance what always needs a second pair of eyes, for example anything with a fee, a contract term or a candidate's personal information.
• When you catch an error, tell the tool what went wrong in your next prompt, and note it. Patterns show you where to be extra careful.
• Treat the draft as a first draft. The time saved is in not starting from a blank page, not in skipping the read-through.

The caveat

A checklist reduces mistakes; it does not remove them. If you are skimming at speed, you will still miss things, and checks are only as good as your own knowledge of the facts. Anything legally or financially significant, such as contract wording or terms of business, should be reviewed by someone qualified rather than relying on an AI draft plus a quick read.

If you want help building AI drafting into your recruitment workflow with sensible checks in place, talk to us.