According to Business Insider, at a private roundtable in Davos with 15 HR and C-suite leaders from firms like Deloitte, Salesforce, and ManpowerGroup, a clear and troubling picture emerged. Executives like Deloitte’s Elizabeth Faber admitted they are “very carefully” navigating how AI automates traditional entry-level tasks like financial modeling and PowerPoint creation, leading to downsized analyst programs. Indeed’s data shows a 40% spike in tech job postings demanding 5+ years of experience, while Salesforce, which gets 2 million applications a year, has pivoted to assessing “learning aptitude” over experience. ManpowerGroup’s Becky Frankiewicz, processing 10 million resumes annually, stated the new rule is that “the title doesn’t matter” and “years of experience do not matter,” as AI begins to proactively match candidates to roles.
The pipeline problem
Here’s the immediate crisis these execs are sweating over. For decades, industries like consulting and finance built their future leaders by hiring armies of 22-year-olds to do the grunt work. That grunt work is now being handed to AI agents. Melissa Stolfi from TCW flat-out said they’ve downsized their analyst class because “a lot of the tasks… we’ve actually employed AI” to do. So they’re cutting the bottom rung of the ladder. But, and it’s a huge but, they all still need that pipeline of future managers. Svenja Gudell from Indeed nailed the contradiction: if you’re not training juniors, you’ll eventually run out of people with the five years of experience you now demand. It’s a classic case of optimizing for short-term leanness while potentially starving the future. I think we’re going to see a real talent crunch in a few years because of this.
The skills shift is real
So if you’re not hiring for Excel wizardry or perfect slide decks, what are you hiring for? The answer from the room was unanimous: adaptability and learning speed. Nathalie Scardino from Salesforce said they’ve completely switched the question for recruiters. It’s not about years of experience; it’s about “your ability to learn.” They want real-life examples of how you’ve picked up new tools or managed relationships. Frankiewicz from ManpowerGroup took it further, envisioning a world where static job descriptions die. It becomes all about your output and what you’ve actually contributed. This is a massive shift. Basically, the resume as we know it—a ledger of titles and tenures—is becoming obsolete. The new currency is demonstrable agility.
The AI application nightmare
Now, here’s the other side of the coin that’s giving HR departments headaches. AI tools have made it trivially easy for job seekers to customize and blast out applications. The result? A deluge. Salesforce gets those 2 million apps a year with no extra recruiting staff. ManpowerGroup sees 7 million people in their system who apply but don’t get placed. The response is to fight AI with AI, using it to screen and process faster. But the most interesting evolution, noted by Frankiewicz, is around bias. The early fear was that AI would bake in human bias. Now, the conversation is about actively teaching AI to be *less* biased than humans might be—to find candidates based on skills and potential, not just pedigree. Could AI actually democratize hiring? It’s possible, but the systems need to be built with that explicit goal.
What it means for you
Look, the takeaway is pretty stark. If you’re early in your career, the traditional path in many white-collar fields is shrinking. You can’t just bank on getting your foot in the door with a big grad program. The onus is now on you to demonstrate learning velocity and tangible impact from day one. For companies, this is a dangerous game. They’re betting they can find experienced people later without growing them internally. And in sectors facing labor shortages, like healthcare, they’re moving in the opposite direction—reducing experience requirements. So we’re not looking at a uniform apocalypse, but a huge, uneven transformation. The firms that figure out how to balance AI efficiency with human pipeline development will win. The others might just find themselves with a very empty, very experienced talent pool in a few years.
