Hiring & human skills
Why don't CVs match what employers are looking for?
Employers say the skills they most need are problem-solving, communication and the ability to work with others. However, exams and course work rarely measure these, so CVs don't show them. The problem is then compounded when employers screen applications with software that most believe favours technical skills instead.
Summary
City & Guilds surveyed 908 employers across five sectors and 1,014 people aged 18 to 24. 83% of employers said they have been negatively affected by a shortage of employability skills, and around a third reported lower efficiency, productivity or growth as a result. 43% of employers now use AI to screen or filter candidates, and 69% of employers believe those tools prioritise technical skills over the human capabilities businesses actually need. A separate survey of hiring teams by the recruitment platform Willo found most now regularly receive AI-generated or AI-assisted applications, and fewer than four in ten rate credentials among the most reliable indicators of talent.
Our perspective
Our traditional education system is set up to measure and test for knowledge. We have exam results, we write essays, and we take exams. That doesn't assess our ability to make good judgements, to think critically, communicate well, and collaborate with others.
If a CV is showcasing a list of facts and a list of exam results, it is not showcasing how that person is going to work. Do they have the skills that the employer is actually looking for? We have this disjoint between the most in-demand skills that employers are asking for and what education is giving young people the tools to deliver.
When recruiting, a CV gives you an indication of someone's experience and what they've done, but an interview is really where you see that person show up. How do they communicate? How do they hold themselves? How do they understand the questions you're asking? How do they reason out answers? How do they think critically about the problems that you're posing them? How do they showcase judgement calls they've previously made?
We think that the way that recruitment happens needs looking at. Otherwise, we're just getting people AI-generating CVs, which are then going to be read and assessed by a different AI.
The difficulty is that things like judgement aren't traditionally measured, and we treasure what we measure. If there's not an exam that showcases it, it's a claim, and young people need to be able to showcase experience where they've made that judgement. That's not always possible when you're a young person without career experience, and that's not always the way CVs are set up.
Experiences where young people can showcase how they've developed these key skills are important, and so is making sure they align their application with what the job description is asking for. Measuring human skills can be messy and complicated. However, it's imperative that we do so in order to enable young people to showcase that they have developed these skills and been practising them. This is something that is hugely beneficial to both employee and employer.
“Confidence is built through experience, not expectation.”
Laura-Jane Rawlings MBE DL, CEO, Youth Employment UK · City & Guilds