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If resume validity is any indication, most job seekers over-introduce themselves to employers. Multiple studies have shown 85% of applicants have lied on a resume, including exaggerating their skills, level of experience, college degrees and past responsibilities.
Studies have shown, even after lying to get a job, 88.4% of new hires keep up the lie and say they can indeed operate equipment or software they can’t. How is artificial intelligence changing the game? Has “pretend until you make it” changed to “pretend until you get caught?”
Performance matters, which is why it is often said that managers don’t care what you know, but what you do. Skills are arguably less sustainable than in decades past, largely because of the speed of innovation and transformation of processes we use every day in our work.
Artificial intelligence, integrated into the business systems we use, has the potential to change what we do even faster than before. But what impact will that have on the development of skills for people? Will increased peer pressure force the job market to “fake it until you make it,” or will true expertise be valued at every organizational level?
Related: Busting the myth: No, AI won’t take your job
Table of Contents
AI in HR
Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) are on the rise, inclusive skills inventories offering organizations the opportunity to switch quickly by reorganizing already available talent. In an instant, skills inventories try to answer the question: can we do business differently with our current employees or with the available talent in the labor market?
The same skill inventories made possible with AI decision capabilities can do that too make impersonal reductions in force, at scale, as organizations fail to keep pace with market conditions. AI has many potential applications for HR professionals; however, its deployment has extraordinary cultural implications for organizational trust and transparency.
Skill inventories provide data that can unlock a great deal of individuals’ future potential. Open skills verification systems using digital credentials can also make recognition of training and experience transferable from one organization to another. For individual employees, these systems offer a lot:
Advantages:
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Structured learning paths create clarity for progression
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Skills mastery is recognized in the market
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Skills have currency-like value for future opportunities
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Dashboards highlight trends in technology, processes and innovation
Cons:
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Perception that the system controls people
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Promotes playing the system rather than deep investment in skill development
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Potential to recommend skills that are irrelevant
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Creates role requirements that prohibit applicants from growing after hiring
The pace of innovation makes permanent education and investing in personal growth an important value in the labor market. Organizations that invest in employee training programs scored much more favorably among the current workforce when comparing job openings.
AI as a shortcut to acquiring skills and experience
Generative AI systems have shown value early on – from creating ads, writing original copy, summarizing and reformatting proprietary data with insights, to writing lines of software code. There is no doubt that AI systems can support human performance, especially in terms of speed of creation.
Perhaps the most in-demand skill for the coming year will be mastering new generative AI systems as they come online. However, early results show that domain knowledge is very important when querying systems for output. That is, people with experience ask AI systems better questions. And people with experience can validate both the relevance and accuracy of what an AI system delivers.
Craftsmanship and experience have value. Verified skills and experience are gold.
Related: Is Your Employee Development Broken? Here’s how to fix it.
Proprietary data and competitive advantages
For argument’s sake, let’s assume that your organization hires several less than truthfully skilled employees who do a great job using generative AI solutions. Good work is valuable. Who else has access to the value your new hires have created?
AI systems need training data to prime the pump and fine-tune the perfect answer to a question. That could be your organization’s most important proprietary data training commercially available AI systems, which refines the answer not only for your employees, but also for your competitors’ employees. For many professions, using AI systems to refine individual work has the extraordinary potential to be a legal issue and/or ethical violation.
Generative AI systems may have made running a business a lot more difficult.
Regardless of how (if at all) AI is integrated into your business, your employees play an important role. Designing experiences that foster authentic interactions and value individual career advancement not only creates a more enjoyable environment, but also highlights strategic risk before data is lost or corners are cut.
