Executives today are eager to incorporate AI into their businesses, and doing so means finding and hiring people with the right skills to help the company stay up-to-date with the latest technology. But recruiting that talent remains a major struggle, according to a new study of 500 HR leaders from upskilling platform General Assembly.

Around 99% of HR professionals surveyed at companies using AI say they’ve been asked to add more AI skills to job requirements. But 63% of hiring leaders say it’s more challenging to source candidates with AI skills than applicants for other tech roles, with 18% calling it “significantly more challenging.”

The current talent pool is just not “wide or deep enough” to satisfy current demand, let alone future hiring needs, according to the report. That means companies that are serious about improving their talent hiring strategy need to think about a three-part strategy: shifting to skills-based hiring, recruiting non-traditional talent, and growing their own existing internal talent to take on those roles.

Delivering on that approach includes things like looking past college degrees and focusing on skills-based hiring. Employers should also consider recruiting talent at places like community workforce development programs, which are often also more diverse than traditional tech talent pipelines.

“Technology is advancing so rapidly that entirely new roles and functions are emerging every day,” says Todd Weneck, vice president of technology at LHH Recruitment Solutions in the report. “Oftentimes, the jobs that candidates are applying for are ones that did not even exist while they were in school getting their education. This makes it easy to overlook the person behind the résumé if you’re only scanning for the same few credentials.”

It seems that human resource departments are slowly catching on. While 53% of HR leaders say they still rely on college degrees as a top method to determine an applicant’s capabilities for tech roles like remote software engineering, data analytics, and data science, 18% are increasingly likely to look first at certifications and non-degree education. That’s three times the number of HR leaders who were doing the same thing just two years ago.

And of course, HR leaders should think carefully before overlooking the employees they already have that might be capable of taking on these AI-focused roles.

“We're seeing candidates constantly educating themselves, and not just with boot camps or a college degree,” says Lupe Colangelo, director of alumni engagement and employer partnerships at General Assembly. “They're continually looking to upskill themselves and that shouldn’t be ignored.”

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