The Must-Read Articles for Talent Professionals This Week

“It’s an old story,” writes the Harvard Business Review in a recent article. “In the corporate world, regulators seek to curb abuses, but some players find ways to circumvent the new rules. So, too, with skills-based hiring. Executives revamp hiring policies, but thousands of hiring managers find ways to think and act the way they always have.”

To hammer this point home, HBR cites research that found that over the past decade, “the number of job postings that once required college degrees but no longer do has jumped fourfold.” That sounds like progress, right? Well, not so fast: For every 100 of those job ads, fewer than four additional candidates without degrees actually got the gig.

If you’re an advocate for skills-based hiring, this may seem like disappointing news. But HBR has some solutions up its sleeve, offering six practical steps that companies can take to arm managers with the tools needed to successfully implement skills-based hiring — including celebrating successful skills-based hiring outcomes, nailing skills-based promotions as a starting point, and even allowing that some jobs do require a college degree.

To learn more, be sure to check out the top spot in our list below of must-read articles for talent professionals. And further down that list, you can also find out what a path forward (spoiler: it may be hard at times) looks like in the age of AI; why tiny giraffes could make a big impact at your next offsite or training session; and why the grass isn’t always greener for employees who have switched jobs.

Here are the must-read articles from this week:

1. What Companies Get Wrong About Skills-Based Hiring (Harvard Business Review)

2. AI at Work Is Here. Now Comes the Hard Part (2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report)

3. Why Every Professional Should Take the Time to Evaluate Their Human Skills (Christopher Lind on LinkedIn)

4. Why a Bowl of Tiny Giraffes Could Help Your Next Offsite or Retreat (Robin Weinick on LinkedIn)

5. Talent Architect or AI Copilot? New Roles for Recruiters (Future of Talent)

6. The ‘Big Stay’ Is Still Here — But May Not Stay That Way for Long (LinkedIn Talent Blog)

7. Why Being in HR Can Be Pretty Damn Scary (Melanie Naranjo on LinkedIn)

8. A Message for Business Leaders: Think More About How the Roles in Your Organization Are Going to Change Because of AI (Jacob Clemente on LinkedIn)

9. How Cricket-Tech Can Teach Leaders to Become Dream Employers (Dreamers and Unicorns)

10. Workers Switching Jobs Find the Grass Isn’t Always Greener Elsewhere (Bloomberg)

Here is the must-listen podcast:

This Is How We Finally End the 40-hour, 5-day Workweek (The New Way We Work)