Employers are searching for employees who contribute immediately, adapt quickly, and grow with the organization. At the same time, artificial intelligence is reshaping entry-level work in ways businesses find difficult to predict. Employers are questioning everything—how effective are their people in an AI-powered world? How many people do they really need? How can they be sure their people will have the skills to keep their business competitive into the future? Graduates are wondering how they will gain experience needed to advance, where they will gain it, and how long it will remain relevant. According to the 2026 ETS Human Progress Report, workers expect AI to be involved in 52% of their work within two years, up from 32% today.

Even as AI reshapes how work gets done, emerging talent remains essential. Early-career roles do more than assign responsibility for routine tasks. They are also the training ground where organizations develop the specialists, managers, and leaders they need. The work may change, but organizations still need people with the right durable skills to learn the business, exercise judgment, and grow into greater responsibility.

The talent is there, but employers don’t have access to the right signals. Hiring systems are not often built to recognize potential outside familiar patterns. A capable candidate may come from an unfamiliar institution, an unconventional academic program or a background that differs from that of employees who previously succeeded. That does not make the person unqualified—it makes the quality of the evidence used to evaluate that person critical.

Employers failing to recognize the quality of a candidate doesn’t mean that candidate doesn't have value. When employers overlook emerging talent, it is because they lack reliable, scalable methods to identify potential and mitigate hiring risk. Every hiring decision involves risk, and employers are asking 1) whether a candidate can perform the work, and 2) whether the time, training, and resources invested in that person will produce stronger performance, retention, and long-term value.

Most of the signals used to answer those questions were never designed to measure potential at all.

A stronger hiring process begins by separating what a candidate must bring from what an employer can develop.

Communication, adaptability, judgment, tolerance for ambiguity, problem-solving, and the ability to learn are core capabilities that should drive talent decisions. Knowledge of technical systems, tools, and processes is actually best developed through onboarding, mentorship, and targeted training that happens post-hire.

Entry-level job descriptions reverse that priority. They include long lists of technical requirements and demand previous experience, even when domain-specific competencies could be taught to candidates with the right role fit. This does not mean lowering standards. It means organizations must clarify which standards are most important.

Degrees, institutional reputation, resumes, referrals, previous job titles, and years of experience all provide information about a candidate. Degrees and transcripts may verify that a candidate completed a program, and resumes may offer self-reported evidence of experience, but neither validate that the candidate has capabilities required for job success.

When stronger information is unavailable, employers rely on the signals they know. Often, when relying on these signals, promising entry-level candidates are screened out of the process before well their potential becomes clear.

Experienced hiring managers undoubtedly develop a strong sense for talent. After years of interviewing candidates and observing workplace performance, they learn to recognize patterns associated with success. They know it when they see it.

This knowledge is difficult to explain, challenging to measure, and nearly impossible to apply consistently across an organization—it’s human inference and by its very nature, it’s unique to the human exercising it. Without stronger or more reliable evidence, even experienced hiring managers fall back on familiar signals that provide a partial view of a candidate’s potential.

Two candidates with similar degrees and comparable resumes could have substantial differences in judgment, adaptability, communication, learning capacity, and fit for the role. Traditional hiring signals must be supplemented with valid and reliable direct evidence of capability to overcome bias, identify fit, and avoid missing out on talent that could change the trajectory of a business.

The science behind direct skills measurement is not new, but advances in artificial intelligence and lower-cost technology are making validated, role-specific evidence practical at the scale emerging talent acquisition requires. Performance-based assessments, simulations, applied projects, portfolios, and problem-solving demonstrations can provide evidence that goes beyond credential or resume-based inference.

These tools can help employers define success and identify candidates who align with those requirements. They do not replace human judgment in hiring decisions. The value gain is in improving the process when several candidates appear equally qualified on paper—the way that value is expressed or quantified is up to the stakeholders involved.

Better information can help answer questions that conventional hiring signals cannot. Which candidates are most likely to adapt? Who has the judgment required for the role? Who has the capacity to learn? Which person is more likely to retain and grow into a leader?

The goal is not perfect prediction. It is a better decision than the one based solely on incomplete information.

Employers are not opposed to developing newly hired, entry-level talent. They are hesitant to invest time, training, and resources in someone who may leave, underperform, or prove to be a poor fit.

Stronger evidence can change that perception. When an employer has greater confidence that a candidate possesses the durable skills required, technical training becomes a more informed investment.

That confidence can support faster time to proficiency, stronger productivity and retention, lower recruiting costs, greater internal mobility, and a less cyclical, more predictable talent pipeline.

Trusted measurement can also make professional development more purposeful. Instead of giving every employee the same training, employers can identify individual strengths and gaps and build learning pathways aligned with both the employee’s potential and the organization’s current and future needs. Employees gain a better understanding of their skills, clearer direction about where to focus their development, and greater agency to adapt and stay relevant as work changes.

The value of an assessment is not the assessment itself. The value is in collecting reliable information, understanding what it means in the intended context, and helping people use it to make better decisions. By improving the quality of information available to employers and employees, organizations can identify talent with greater confidence and invest in people development more effectively.

Organizations can begin with three changes.

1. Define success by identifying the durable capabilities that distinguish high performers and drive business outcomes.
2. Supplement degrees, resumes, and previous experience with direct evidence of skills, ability, and potential.
3. Separate what candidates must bring from what the organization can teach, hire for fit, then invest intentionally in the technical development employees need.

Entry-level candidates will not always arrive with every technical qualification, but many will possess the durable capabilities needed to learn, adapt, and grow.

Organizations that improve how they identify those capabilities can broaden their talent pools, make stronger matches, and create clearer pathways from entry-level potential to long-term performance. The organizations that win the war for talent will be those that use the right tools to recognize promise early, develop their people intentionally, and empower their people to pursue their full potential.