AI in HR & Hiring: Trends & Implications for Career Practitioners

Welcome to New & Next Brief: Preparing Career Pros to Speak with Authority & Serve with Confidence. Each week, we unpack one critical trend reshaping the world of work and how it impacts career services. If you’re not already getting the full New & Next Weekly, a summary of three critical trends each week, subscribe now to stay sharp, speak with authority, and guide your clients confidently through what’s now, new, and next. 

This week, we’re digging in to how AI is reshaping every stage of recruitment. We’ll show you how these trends and the move toward validated, skills-based hiring translate into powerful coaching and resume strategies.

Listen to a summary of these trends instead (audio overview courtesy of NotebookLM):

AI Adoption Accelerates and Trust Grows

Weekly AI use among HR pros jumped from 58% in 2024 to 72% in 2025, with tools like ChatGPT (61%) and chatbots (43%) deployed for screening, assessments, and communications. Trust in AI systems climbed from 37% to 51%, and 53% now rely on AI’s hiring recommendations (2025 HireVue Guide, HRD Australia).

"AI adoption among HR professionals is surging in 2025, reflecting a shift from experimentation to active integration."

AI is moving beyond generation to action, with agentic systems like Salesforce's Agentforce proactively solving problems like scheduling, candidate engagement, and even decision support. Chipotle’s “Ava Cado” virtual assistant cut application-to-hire time from 12 days to 4 days, doubled applicant flow, and increased completion rates from 50% to 85% (HRD Australia).

As Martyn Redstone shared with us at Career Jam last year, AI is helping recruiters achieve the “efficiency imperative” while managing applicant volumes that have tripled since 2021. In fact, 58% of TA leaders are prioritizing efficiency and cost reduction, and 76% believe they’ll fall behind if they don’t adopt AI within 1–2 years (AMS, Gartner).

How are they using it? AI now supports forecasting future talent needs, proactive sourcing and advertising, AI-driven assessments and interview scheduling, and even personalized onboarding. Recruiters lean on AI for interview scheduling (their #1 headache), automated sourcing, and candidate ranking.

But wait! AI candidate ranking doesn’t mean humans aren’t seeing your resume. In Martyn’s research, only 17% of companies said they auto-rejected applicants, and that may be happening due to application questions, not necessarily the resume. 

Right now, at least, AI isn’t replacing people; it’s surfacing the most relevant candidates from thousands of resumes so humans can make the final call. Job seekers are expecting transparency from employers and laws in many countries and US states are requiring it.

"While they appreciate AI’s ability to streamline their job search, 79% want transparency about its role in the hiring process because 30% fear it would replace the human factor—which is fair!" (HRD Australia). 

Internal use of the tools is also growing. Microsoft has just rolled out People Skills, a new data layer in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Viva that automatically infers employees’ skill profiles from Microsoft Graph signals (emails, documents, meetings) and maps them to a 16,000-plus skill taxonomy (with LinkedIn partnership). 

Alongside this, the Skills Agent launches in June 2025 to help employees explore their own skills, find internal experts, and guide leaders in strategic staffing of high-priority projects based on real-time skill gaps. 

The Move to Skills-First Hiring

Skills-based hiring goes much beyond staffing internal projects. There's a growing recognition that resumes and traditional qualifications are not always accurate predictors of job success. Skills-based hiring emphasizes evaluating individuals based on their actual abilities and competencies relevant to the role, regardless of their formal education or direct experience. 

According to SHRM, skills-based hiring is a "method for finding talent [that] focuses on individuals’ abilities and competencies rather than their education and direct experience."

AI is seen as a tool to move beyond "inferred skills" based on assumptions to "validated skills" that are objectively measured and data-backed. AI tools map skills directly to role requirements, offering fairer, data-driven matches than keyword searches ever could. AI-powered solutions, particularly skill assessments, can help HR professionals identify and evaluate candidates' capabilities more effectively than traditional methods.

“Validated skills are objectively measured, ensuring candidates have the abilities needed for a role—with data that proves they do. Inferred skills, on the other hand, are less reliable and come from assumptions based on experience, education, or past roles—often leading to bias and misalignment if not grounded in sound data.” (HR Tech Feed)  

Does this mean the death of the resume? Platforms like HackerRank, Coderpad, and Eightfold.ai are being used to evaluate candidate skills. But skills-based hiring doesn’t mean the resume is gone. Instead, resumes are being paired with assessments and profiles built from testing and questionnaires.

As bots flood job openings with fake applications, companies are adding more hoops: think one-way video interviews, gamified assessments, and more. For now, though, most still require a resume as part of the process, especially for roles where testing is harder to design, like marketing or HR.

What hasn’t (and won’t) change? The need for strong personal branding and storytelling. Whether it’s woven into a resume, a LinkedIn profile, or the answers you give in an assessment, being able to tell the stories that matter and connect them to employers’ needs is more vital than ever.

Building relationships, engaging in communities, and being visible in your field still bring most of the real opportunities. These relationships and authentic connections with recruiters will become even more important as the increasing sophistication of AI tools presents new challenges in the hiring process.

Recruiters are also seeing an increase in fake job seekers. They sit in disbelief as real candidates use AI to generate answers and even alter their appearance during virtual interviews, raising concerns about authenticity and the integrity of the assessment process.

"all of his answers were from ChatGPT… HE WAS USING SOFTWARE TO CHANGE HIS APPEARANCE... This is so messed up." (David Moczadlo)

As assessments, video interviews, and AI-driven screenings become the norm, your clients will need a polished resume filled with compelling stories backed by practice and genuine experience. Show them how to use AI to sharpen their answers, simulate test conditions, and identify skill gaps, while sharing examples that are true to their own journey. This way, they can navigate high-tech hiring processes without sacrificing the human touch recruiters still value.

Thanks for diving into this week’s deep dive on AI and skills-first hiring. What challenges have you faced in helping clients showcase validated skills? Share your experiences below!

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The mission of Career Thought Leaders Consortium is to advance and professionalize the career industry by improving career management, leadership development, and career agility of professionals worldwide.

CTL brings together experts from every sector and function within the career industry, sharing best practices among those in workforce, college, primary/secondary school, corporate, and private practice to raise the bar for career services internationally.

We look forward to your reactions to the data we share and your questions that help us dig deeper to uncover the trends and best practices most important to you and your clients.