This is a guest contribution from Global Verification Nerwork.
The reality of the workforce market is complex. You’ll often find jobseekers saying they’ve applied for 100+ jobs without a single bite. Some blame it on AI. Others, the economy. Then there are a few industries where that narrative doesn’t apply. Ask any nurse at a local ER, and you’ll hear that they’re shorthanded yet again and often are multiple times in any week.
How can there be such a shortage and equally such a huge number of people looking for work? According to data from ManpowerGroup, 72% of employers continue to struggle to fill out roles despite an active job market.
For HR professionals, the challenge is clear. The available talent pool often lacks the real-world skills and experience that employers need, however, gaining that experience requires opportunities that can be tough to access.
But no matter the industry, HR professionals need to modernize and adapt their efforts to meet the current market’s big skills gaps.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
How HR professionals can adapt with new planning strategies
Workforce planning is starting to look more like reinventing. Adaptability is more important than ever. It’s even the difference maker when AI enters the picture. But the goal is still the same: fill the open positions with qualified talent. However, finding talent that fits the bill is the hard part.
Companies that thrive will be able to balance:
- Integration and effective use of advanced technology
- Human compassion and value
- Flexibility to deploy human capabilities where it matters the most
Data continues to be an incredibly valuable tool, but that’s not everything. Success comes from recognizing there’s a problem looming on the horizon and taking action.
1. Conduct skills assessment
What’s missing from your team? Be specific here. Document the details. Did you:
- Turn away a project because you didn’t have an AI-trained assistant
- Hire someone with the same skillset as your current team who can’t really do anything different for you
- Miss key opportunities due to leadership competencies or communication mistakes
Understanding what is going wrong allows you to create a plan for moving forward. Create a list of the specific skills you need that your workforce is currently lacking.
Conduct routine skill “inventories.” Use client work files to document what skills each person doesn’t have that they should. Determine what skills could help this employee achieve better alignment with your company.
2. Complete a formal skills gap analysis
To identify gaps in the skills of your team, identify the most important skills for each role.
- What skills are essential in the role every day?
- What are the nice-to-have skills?
- Which skills are going to build your future?
To do this, you must work with your management team to understand their day-to-day struggles and limitations.
3. Prioritize the big ones
Tech skills are always in demand, but they also keep evolving, and recruiters are constantly looking for them. If you’re in a tech-focused industry with a company that’s growing and scaling, this means you need to stay on top of industry changes and innovations to keep up with the standards that your recruitment and training efforts must align with. Determine which skills gaps you must address first internally. Some could be major when there are significant industry changes. It could also be skills that are critical to an upcoming project.
Put these at the top of your hiring must-haves. Align your marketing efforts with each position to pull in qualified candidates. It may mean paying a bit more. It may mean adjusting your talent strategy.
4. Develop a training plan
Anticipating future skill needs creates a big opportunity for action. You can forecast what your company needs in the years to come. Create a plan that aligns your current employees with those goals, which typically entails introducing learning programs. You could also incentivize current team members to refresh their skills.
Developing a local program is another option. For example, if your company plans to integrate automation in the near future, you may network with a local community college or trades program to find tech talents. If there isn’t one yet, you could work with the school to develop programs. Initiating these types of community interactions can help widen your talent pool.
This way, even when your team doesn’t have the most advanced skills, you’re encouraging future generations to have them. You must think beyond AI too. Consider skills gaps related to communication and leadership, including competencies for advancing science.
5. Involve stakeholders into the HR planning
Bring stakeholders into the conversation too. If the company’s owners and investors recognize the importance of such education-focused programs and alignment, they’ll be more likely to push for them. Demonstrate this clearly by:
- Researching industry trends
- Documenting emerging technologies within your specific industry
- Analyzing competitors’ strategies and what they’re hiring for
- Determining what sustainability options are available
- Considering the value of automation so that people skills can be better honed
Communication about opportunities should emphasize the importance of building educational, skill-building programs. This may mean turning to third-party professional services that can help handle the workload, which includes specialized training programs. Bringing in highly skilled people to develop your current team is also a good idea.
6. Use technology to aid in the search
Looking for the perfect hire often feels like looking for a needle in a haystack. The good thing is we now have technology that can help speed up the process. You can Use AI to help you sift through applications and save time, so your HR team can focus more on refining your recruitment strategies. Utilize AI to filter your applicant pool and include only those who have a very specific background or skill set.
Most HR teams rely on employment background checks and verification processes as part of the hiring process. Applying the same level of structure and scrutiny earlier in the funnel is a natural extension of how hiring is evolving. AI, along with other data tools, can support this shift by identifying signals that might otherwise be missed in large applicant pools.
Take this one step further. Use AI and data analytics to identify emerging skills that will be critical to your organization’s success five years from now. AI can research not just current trends but also point you in the direction of what’s to come. This makes creating job descriptions far more effective.
7. Refine talent acquisition strategies to align with your future needs
Consider a game plan that incorporates steps that will help build your perfect future workforce. Focus on a process that works through the following:
- Complete a comprehensive skills gap analysis. Know what you’re missing so you can seek out or train for specific skills. Don’t overlook the skills that your seasoned team possesses, which your business could lose when they retire.
- Create a skills matrix to compare your current workforce’s skills against your company’s future goals. What’s missing? What points your talent in the right direction?
- Create an internal path toward success. Determine which among the core employees are the best candidates for acquiring the necessary missing gaps through upskilling. Build a path to those opportunities. Reskilling employees is a good move when you have enough people but lack specific skills.
- Refine job descriptions and hiring guidelines to match future needs. Place priority on applicants who have critical skills. Use your AI tools to bring forward applicants who are on the cusp of having the necessary skills too. Choose candidates for roles who show aptitude to learn new skills.
- Educate your HR team. If you’re hiring for high-tech professionals, your HR team needs to know how to “talk the talk.” Anyone can use an AI tool to create a résumé filled with highly desirable skills. But once they sit down in front of you, you need to know just how deep those skills really run.
Your game plan must pay very close attention to rapidly changing industries. Don’t assume your HR professionals understand those areas. Invest in them as well. Offer career seminar access. Allow them to research industry hot points for your company. This ultimately helps build your pipeline of talent over time.
Balancing the AI & human components of your future workforce
It’s a mistake to rely solely on AI because there’s real value that’s missed when technology does all of the work and the human component is pushed aside.
Likewise, you can’t simply ignore the value that AI and higher-end technology are incorporating into the workforce. You cannot train your employees fast enough to keep up with the competition just because you don’t want to move towards AI.
Instead, find the middle ground that’s operationally beneficial. Here are some tips to help you move away from hiring in just one direction:
- Experience does not mean more value. Hiring a worker with 20 years of experience sounds impressive, but it’s possible that they don’t have modern skills. 39% of core workforce skills are expected to change by 2030, according to research from the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs report. Consider what people bring to any role and then how important that skill is to your business’s bottom line. For example, tedious tasks that are repetitive are best suited to a computer. But building relationships with your prospective customers should be all human. Draw the line where it matters within your business.
- Don’t focus solely on degrees. That applicant fresh out of college looks great. But they didn’t take the courses that introduced advanced technology. This creates a skills gap. A certificate of completion simply isn’t enough. A degree isn’t more valuable than time spent working with the tools.
The reality of many HR professionals is that the skills gap is going to make or break a workforce’s resilience. Many of these skills gap are showing already, made more evident by the introduction of newer technology, particularly artificial intelligence.
When you first run a skills gap analysis to align with future business objectives, it may feel frightening. And even before you start the process, you’re likely already feeling the pressure to hire better. But consider this from another point of view. Modernizing the workforce isn’t about picking AI over human skills. It isn’t about not allowing demographics, a lack of degrees, or long-term experience to define your hiring. Rather, it’s about creating a plan that’s strategic.
Invest time in upskilling yourself and refining your research skills as an HR professional. Learn what’s happening within each sector of your business. Educate your HR team to do the same. Work within the community to build the talent that’s best suited for positions in your company. No schools to work with? Create your own training program. Mold students into the ideal workers for your future needs.
To sum up
The world will continue to shift. What’s new this year can be blown away by even newer technology next year. Having a skill-focused hiring process enables your HR team to consistently work toward emerging changes before your organization is impacted. This way, you can stay ahead of the competition along the way.