Employers are still recruiting against job descriptions written before artificial intelligence reshaped daily work – and the gap is slowing hiring, according to Betul Genc, senior vice president and country head, Australia and New Zealand, at workforce solutions firm the Adecco Group.

Genc says job redesign has not kept pace with the technology. Rather than tweaking old roles, she argues, HR leaders need to break each job into tasks, decide which ones AI can handle, and hire for the human skills that remain.

"The companies are still using the job descriptions they had 2 years ago, 4 years ago," Genc told HRD. "So I don't think the skills mapping has been completed. It's not done."

The warning lands as new Adecco Group research finds only 36 per cent of C-suite leaders say their talent strategy shows employees that AI will create opportunities rather than replace them. The Business Leaders report, The human premium: Leadership beyond the algorithm, surveyed 2,000 executives across 13 countries between December 2025 and January 2026.

Why job descriptions are falling behind AI

Genc's own business shows how quickly tasks are moving. Adecco recruiters no longer source and screen candidates – AI tools do it overnight.

"I'm not expecting my recruiters to do screening and sourcing. We now know that AI can do it better, faster, and in 24/7 mode," she said. "And when in the morning the recruiter comes in, they would have 100 CVs that has already been screened and sourced, so it is just ready for them to give a call and ask those killer questions."

That changes what a good recruiter looks like. Genc now wants people who can run a needs analysis and challenge hiring managers, yet she concedes those expectations have not made it into the written role. Other employers face the flip side of AI in recruitment, as how hipages is taming AI-driven hiring shows.

"I think we should look at it with a lens of looking at tasks," Genc said. "These are the tasks that we can expect AI or technology to do it better and faster, but these are the areas that I would expect them to do."

The pressure on skills is global. The World Economic Forum's (WEF) Future of Jobs Report 2025 found employers expect 39 per cent of workers' core skills to change by 2030. In Singapore, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) reported that 49.3 per cent of 2025 job vacancies were newly created positions, up from 45.7 per cent in 2024.

Leaders are not confident they are keeping up. Adecco's research found just 22 per cent of executives are highly confident they are developing digital and future-ready capabilities, and only 31 per cent say their leadership team has enough AI knowledge to understand the risks and opportunities. It echoes concerns over whether employees actually know how to use AI as companies scale it.

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