Candidate sourcing | How to recruit for skills that don't exist yet

By David Vincent, Managing Director of Randstad Sourceright EMEA

As the AI revolution accelerates, how can you ensure your company has the right skills — even if they don’t yet exist? By focusing on people’s human potential and inherent capabilities, you can create a workforce able to learn and adapt to help you capitalise on the promise of AI.

While much uncertainty remains around AI — such as its full potential to transform how work gets done, the best ways for companies to use it responsibly, and its impact on the workforce — there is no denying that it’s here to stay. As the use cases for AI increase exponentially, companies (and their employees) will need to embrace it to ensure they stay competitive and innovative. But to fully realise the promise of AI, you need to have people on your team who understand the benefits, can see the potential and will help you leverage all it has to offer.

Here’s the challenge: not only is the talent pool for the nascent AI skill set relatively small, but with AI still in its early stages, you might not even know the particular AI skills your company needs. In fact, as we’re still in the early stages of the AI revolution, many of the skills needed to fully capitalise on AI don’t even exist yet.