AI Impact on Job Market: What Recruiters Are Looking for in IT Candidates Post AI

To understand the AI impact on job market, lets go back to pre-covid era, when the focus of the recruiters was on hiring candidates with high skills, good qualifications from reputed educational institutions; and off course the majority of IT hiring was based on references. 

Since post-covid era and rapid adoption of AI by organizations had greatly impacted the way recruiters are hiring candidates and the top use case of AI currently in the HR field is ‘talent acquisition’. 

Recruiters are focusing on candidates having more human centric skills such as decision making, collaborative mindset, problem solving, critical thinking, beyond professional qualification or degree from a high-end institution.  

In this article we will learn more in detail about the AI Impact on Job Market and how recruiters’ outlook has changed towards IT candidates in the era of AI.

AI Impact on Job Market

The war of hiring the right set of talent remains fierce since attracting and retaining talent requires a focused approach. Technological advancements, rise of professional networking platforms and growth of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the traditional way of hiring. AI usage in the recruitment space has increased by 64% in a recent survey. 

As AI is transforming the job market and impacting almost all industries across recruiters are not just asking if you know about ‘AI’ they are looking for tangible proof of your capabilities. It is not just about having an AI skill but more towards how you demonstrate your AI capability in the time of need. Some key metrics clearly depict changes in hiring strategies as under:

• Out of 4 – 1 position requires to have AI skill set
• 71% hiring decisions are falling in Favor of AI skills over traditional work experience
• Screening process is integrated with AI across 91%
• 83% companies are using AI to evaluate resumes
• Use of AI based credentials have substantially bought down average hiring time to less than 40%

AI is helping recruiters in analyzing best fit candidates by analyzing large data sets based on skills, experience and cultural alignment. AI is delivering real-time updates and tailored content and helping in selection of the right candidate to fill the skill gap and help in fixing the role and skill alignment mismatch. 

What Recruiters Evaluate?

Recruiters want to understand how you integrated AI to address real world business challenges? What is your problem-solving approach if an AI tool falls short? Specific improvements and outcomes achieved. 

Portfolio based tangible proof of your skills such as AI live demonstrations, case studies, documentation, metrics and outcome.

AI based creditable verification systems used by recruiters to get access to recognized certifications, university-based programs and research proof, Industry partnerships that ensure curriculum relevance, Peer-reviews of project portfolios which demonstrate real-world use of AI application.

Human skills in the AI ecosystem are critical for the business success henceforth recruiters are looking at skills beyond technical aspects such as complex AI concepts translations, effective collaboration, quick adoption of AI and tools, ethical decision making, critical thinking and problem-solving. 

Adaptability and strategic actions – candidates should have ability to leverage their work using AI tools and contribute towards business efficiency. They should be continuously adaptable in embracing new technologies using AI. 

Top 5 Skills Required to Stay Relevant in AI Era

Being an IT professional, you need to develop a hybrid skill set which is a combination of technical proficiency and human centric mindset. Let’s look at top 5 skills required to sail this ‘AI tide’ 

• AI awareness and literacy – even if your role does not involve directly building AI models, still understanding AI capabilities and limitations is crucial to a job role. Familiarity with generative AI and NLP help in effective use of AI tools.
• Critical thinking and ethical awareness – evaluation of AI outputs is essential and IT teams need to ensure AI systems are built responsibly and ethically.
• Continuous learning and adaptability – IT professionals need to stay updated about new AI developments, tools, frameworks, regulations etc. and being adaptable in usage of AI.
• Data management and analytics – creating robust pipelines for data collection, storage, retrieval which aid in high quality data for AI models. Ability to interpret AI generated insights 
• Cross functional collaboration – AI projects alignment with business goals and enabling human expertise with AI driven tools and agents to create a synergy between humans and machines. 

Bias and Ethics in Recruitment

Ethical recruitment is a competitive differentiator being 70% organizations using AI for recruitment process or talent acquisitions. As AI adoption is on rise, human centric skills such as adaptability, critical thinking, problem-solving, and emotional intelligence are becoming more vital as they cannot be automated using AI. 

The responsible and ethical use of AI is a big question in talent acquisition and we cannot leave it only to machine judgement. The EU AI ACT puts use of AI in recruitment under top AI risks category due to its weight towards misuse rather than gain from both recruiters and candidates.