New survey indicates significant pivot toward skills-based and AI-backed hiring

A new survey from HireVue ­— a Utah-based artificial intelligence and human resources management company — reflects a global shift toward skills-based hiring and away from traditional graduate screening proxies.

Titled “The State of Global Early Career Hiring 2024,” the report was produced in partnership with The Institute of Student Employers, The National Association of Colleges and Employers, and The Australian Association of Graduate Employers.

“With the nature of work changing and disruptions becoming more frequent, portable skills will underpin employer and employee success in the future,” according to the report. “Hiring based on skills will also enable candidates to be considered for a broader range of roles — helping to ease talent shortages. Skills-based hiring is highly predictive and has proven to improve performance [and] extend average tenure length.”

As recruitment teams face increased pressure with rising application numbers and ongoing budget constraints, the report underscores the importance of leveraging new technologies to improve efficiency while maintaining a personalized candidate experience.

Key takeaways

Here are four takeaways from the report, which reveals key insights into the evolving landscape of early career recruitment in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia:

• More than three-quarters of U.S. employers rated the job market for the Class of 2024 as “good” to “excellent,” underscoring employer perception of the current market’s strength.
• In the U.S., fewer than 40% of employers reported that they are screening candidates by GPA this year. In the UK, 54% of employers expected to move to a recruitment approach that focuses on evaluating candidates based on their skills, rather than education or past work experience alone. And in Australia, only 30% of employers said they felt examination results were “very important” or “quite important” to assess during the selection process, down from 38% in 2022.
• In the U.S., more than 40% of career services professionals reported using AI for work tasks over the last year. The UK, meanwhile, saw AI usage jump from 9% to 28% in 2023. On the other hand, Australian professionals reported significantly lower adoption of the technology, with just 16% of organizations currently using AI as part of their recruitment process.
• Nearly 50% of all respondents expected most of their recruitment to be conducted fully online within the next five years, and they plan to increasingly automate the process of student recruitment.

Related: 8 in 10 hiring managers say recent grads will get laid off due to AI

“Employers need to hire based on the potential of candidates to adapt in a rapidly changing environment. IO [industrial-organizational] psychologists have always recommended hiring based on a combination of skills, motivations, and individual characteristics, and it’s great to see wider acceptance of the methodology,” concluded Dr. Nathan Mondragon, Chief IO Psychologist at HireVue. “This holistic approach is helping organizations unlock the true potential of early career talent.”