Credentials are losing their grip on hiring — and AI is doing the dismantling
The News
Writing in Personnel Today, Amy Farner — executive vice president and head of product and research at The Josh Bersin Company — argues that AI is dismantling "credentialism": the habit of treating formal qualifications as proof of capability. Her case is that when facts, policy and legislation can be retrieved and synthesised instantly, the competitive advantage shifts from what a candidate knows to how flexibly they apply it. Degrees and professional certifications will not disappear, she writes, but practice-based models built around demonstrable judgement are becoming as valuable as academic achievement.
Why It Matters
This lands squarely on how TA teams write job descriptions, screen applications and design assessments. If qualification requirements are quietly filtering out strong candidates who learned on the job — while AI-assisted applications make written claims cheaper and harder to verify — your screening criteria may be measuring the wrong thing. For a TA leader briefing the CEO, the practical question is whether hiring is still gated on proxies that AI has simultaneously devalued and made easier to fabricate.
Taking Action
All action is situated in your corporate context. These are starting points, not prescriptions — choose what fits.
Connect
Who to talk with in your enterprise
Your L&D lead and your assessment or ATS owner. The argument is as much about learning pathways as hiring: ask L&D whether internal mobility and apprenticeships are being recognised alongside formal qualifications, and ask your assessment lead what you actually measure at screen stage beyond keywords and credentials.
Inspect
What to take a closer look at
Your job descriptions and screening criteria for your ten most-hired roles. Count how many list a formal qualification as "required" rather than "preferred", and whether any would screen out a strong internal candidate with equivalent on-the-job experience. Then check how you verify applied skill — not just claimed credentials — in the interview loop.
Reflect
What to think about more deeply
If a candidate can now produce a flawless CV and a polished cover letter with a single prompt, what exactly is your application review still testing — the candidate, or the prompt?