For HR leaders, this moment carries both urgent risk and opportunity. In terms of risks, current trends on both ends of the talent pipeline threaten leadership continuity, organizational performance, and long-term business success.

On the other hand, HR leaders have the most clarity to anticipate where leadership vulnerabilities will emerge by leveraging visibility into workforce demographics, engagement trends, capability gaps, and succession risks. HR also sits at the intersection of talent strategy and business strategy, giving it the authority and insight needed to redesign roles, reshape career paths, and build modern leadership development systems.

Current leadership shortages are not the result of a single issue but a convergence of trends that are reshaping the future of leadership. In this blog, we will provide clarity on the challenges of succession as well as actionable steps HR leaders can take to bolster pipelines and rethink organizational readiness.

Two Questions to Consider

Before organizations can redesign leadership pipelines for the future, they must first understand the scope of the succession challenge unfolding today. Two equally urgent and interconnected questions must be asked: Who is leaving leadership roles, and who is prepared to step into them? By examining both sides of the equation, HR leaders can more clearly identify where vulnerabilities lie and what strategic interventions are needed to sustain leadership continuity.

1. Who is going to retire? 

A significant percentage of today’s leaders are approaching retirement simultaneously, creating a major drain on institutional knowledge and capability. Since 2020, an estimated 5 million workers have left the labor force, and more than 80 percent were aged 55 or older.

For many organizations, this age group includes long-tenured individual contributors, seasoned managers, and a meaningful portion of director-level leaders. Their accelerated exit is driving critical vacancies and shrinking the leadership depth that organizations rely on.

2. Who is going to replace retirees?

Historically, management was the primary path to advancement, but shifting economic pressures, rising workload demands, and expectations for flexibility and well-being have changed this calculus. Nearly three in four Gen Z professionals prefer to deepen expertise rather than manage others—as a potential means of avoiding stress, limited autonomy, and misalignment with their values.

Another key factor contributing to the lack of interest in leadership roles is the confidence gap in current leaders: Only 46 percent of employees believe their manager is effective, for example. Collectively, these dynamics weaken the leadership pipeline that organizations have traditionally depended on.

Three Ways the Retirement Cliff Is Impacting Traditional Succession Models

To understand the full impact of the retirement cliff, it is important to examine the forces that are transforming leadership transitions. In response to increasingly rapid change, HR leaders are actively engaged in reworking priorities in talent development, employee data analysis, and workforce planning.

1. Retirement timelines are unpredictable

Senior leaders are retiring at uneven rates. In many organizations, some are postponing retirement due to economic uncertainty, while others are exiting early because of burnout or shifting personal priorities. This unpredictability makes it challenging for HR to plan leadership transitions and ensure a strong bench.

2. Mentorship is more necessary than ever

HR once relied on stable hierarchies and gradual leadership turnover. Succession planning focused on identifying a small set of ready-now leaders. But with more frequent and less predictable exits, those models are no longer adequate. New interventions such as long-term mentorship or multilayered leadership development are essential to rework succession and reduce the cost of acquiring talent for retirement-driven vacancies.

3. A leadership readiness strategy is now essential

As patterns of retirement become more volatile, HR must broaden talent identification and evaluate whether leadership roles need to be redesigned. A modernized approach to identifying and developing leaders is necessary to maintain continuity and support organizational performance. Rather than depending on traditional career ladders to naturally create pathways for the next generation of leaders, HR strategy must play a more active role in recognizing the skills and core competencies that the current workforce brings to the table, what needs to be developed, and how that translates to long-term needs.

Engaging the Next Generation

Factors such as hybrid work, artificial intelligence, and rising expectations around purpose and well-being are reshaping what the next generation of leaders wants from their careers. In many organizations, we are seeing that many traditional candidates for future leadership are “consciously stepping off the leadership track,” reflecting skepticism toward roles that feel stressful, inflexible, or disconnected from personal values.

One contributing factor influencing leadership development pipelines is that employees often see leadership experiences as neither motivating nor well supported. Of course, leadership is not for everyone. However, the issue seems to be less about who wants to be a leader and more about the traditional value propositions of organizational leadership, including financial gain and influence.

In fact, many early- and mid-career employees question whether leadership paths conflict with their personal values such as autonomy, meaningful impact, transparency, and well-being. They want roles that allow them to lead through collaboration and expertise—not hierarchy—and it is not clear whether current leadership roles are designed for that priority.

In response, HR leaders should take practical steps to address these concerns, including clarifying leadership role expectations, designing more manageable spans of control, strengthening coaching and development support, and creating pathways that allow for influence without sacrificing balance. These efforts to support future-ready organizations can ensure that leadership roles are motivating, sustainable, and supported by resources that enable leaders to succeed.

Bottom Line: Acting Now Saves Resources in the Long Run

Long-term investment in leadership development has been shown to increase both performance and bottom-line impact. This is particularly true when comparing the cost and performance of internal development to hiring external talent, showing that HR’s greatest source for future leaders already exists within the organization.

Organizations are experimenting with leadership models that better reflect today’s workforce expectations. Some are building dual career ladders that allow high-performers to advance through expertise instead of people management. Others are piloting shared or distributed leadership structures that reduce dependence on overstretched managers and elevate collaborative influence. There is also progress in modernizing manager support systems, such as AI-enabled workflows that reduce administrative burden and leadership training programs designed specifically for frontline supervisors.

These innovations are promising; however, many efforts remain isolated or stuck in the pilot stage. If an organization lacks a cohesive leadership architecture, it will continue to experience an uneven and insufficient leadership pipeline that will be worsened by rising rates of retirement. However, when HR steps into this moment with clarity and intention, the future of organizational leadership can look vastly different from today’s strained reality.

The post Who Will Lead Next? Rethinking the Leadership Pipeline appeared first on Seramount.

Over the past decade, Gen Z has grown to represent 15% of the workforce, and they are projected to make up one-third of it by 2030. Perception gaps between generations affect how decisions are received, how expectations are interpreted, and how efficiently teams collaborate. What sounds “clear enough” to one generation may feel ambiguous or risky to another. For HR leaders, the top priorities are to align expectations so that all employees feel grounded and to provide the structure managers need so their teams can be productive.

Five Interpretations of the Same Workplace 

You never want to assume a colleague’s experience based on age or generation. However, employees in the same generation may share historical touchpoints along the way that shape how they see work.  For example, older employees built their careers in more stable cycles, where pathways and expectations were clearer, while younger employees entered the workforce amid volatility, rapid technological change, and rising costs that pushed major life milestones such as marriage, home buying, and caregiving to later stages of life. These differences influence what employees look for from work and how much context they need to act.

In a recent Seramount study, 44% of the youngest employees said they aspire to become managers but emphasized the need to protect work-life boundaries as they advance. Some specifically said, “I want to have a good work/life balance, and the requirements for advancing go directly against that, therefore making me not want to advance.” Meanwhile, only 27% of their older colleagues expressed interest in supervising others. Across groups, a majority acknowledged that communicating across generations is challenging.

Why All Roads Lead Back to Managers 

Managers sit at the center of shifting expectations, unclear norms, and competing priorities that play out differently for each generation. Regardless of age or tenure, today’s workforce is one of the most disengaged and dissatisfied in decades. In fact, employees with managers 12+ years their senior are three times more likely to feel dissatisfied at work and 1.5 times more likely to report low productivity. In today’s employer-driven market, many employees are staying put, but many of them are not actively engaged in their work. This creates a fragile environment where even small misunderstandings can quickly turn into performance issues or avoidable friction. Yet, managers are expected to keep their teams moving forward even when clarity about what “good” looks like is lacking.

Qualities Employees Most Value in a Manager, by Generation¹

As a result, managers are burning out faster than employees at any other job level. At least 80% report experiencing one or more symptoms of burnout, while fewer than one-third of senior managers feel comfortable speaking about it at work. They’re also leading teams who feel just as stressed: 37% of staff feel so overwhelmed that it hinders their job performance. The good news is that HR leaders can help significantly reduce this pressure.

How Clarity and Consistency Unlock Better Performance

Effectively managing multigenerational teams requires more than navigating preferences across age groups. It requires creating the conditions for consistent execution, no matter how much life circumstances and definitions of “career” may vary. The most effective HR leaders recognize that managers cannot be the sole translators of organizational priorities. Instead, they make team alignment a shared responsibility. 

Three Practices That Help Managers Boost Team Collaboration 

1. Set shared expectations, not individual preferences 
   Many “generational differences” are really inconsistencies in norms. HR can reduce friction by defining what strong communication looks like, how teams escalate decisions, and how priorities should be interpreted across roles. Clear expectations cut down on the need to re-explain and allow managers to focus on moving work forward.
2. Make the “hidden” visible 
   For younger employees, organizational signals carry outsized weight. They want to understand how change affects  their contributions and growth. Regular check-ins and ongoing clarity about the reasoning behind decisions help close interpretation gaps and increase momentum across the team.
3. Give managers structured support 
   Providing consistent language and ready-to-use resources helps managers clearly communicate expectations. These tools remove the guesswork and reduce the amount of time spent explaining or rephrasing guidance.
   
   

When expectations are consistent and managers feel supported, work can move forward at the rate leaders expect. Multigenerational teams become more confident in their interactions, so managers can spend less time translating and more time leading.  To get a fuller view of the forces shaping performance this year, download Seramount’s State of the Workforce report. 

The post The Manager Challenge: Five Generations, One Workforce appeared first on Seramount.

Not a Labor Shortage—A Skills Shortage

The workforce pipeline is shifting in ways employers cannot ignore. Between 2024 and 2032, 18.4 million experienced workers with postsecondary education will retire, while only 13.8 million younger workers with equivalent education will enter the workforce. That leaves the economy 5.25 million skilled workers short including 4.5 million roles requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher.

This is not a labor shortage; the number of age-eligible candidates will continue to grow. The real problem is a shortage of prepared workers: people equipped to lead, solve problems, and adapt to rapidly changing demands.

While this shortage will impact the entire global workforce, disruption will be most acute in knowledge-intensive fields such as operations, finance, and technology, where expertise is accumulated and can’t be built overnight.

The numbers paint a worrying picture: 84 percent of hiring managers state that most high school graduates are not prepared to enter the workforce. Meanwhile, 40 percent of managers say graduates are unprepared, according to Forage’s recent study, “From Coursework to Careers.” Executives cite talent shortages as a major concern keeping them up at night.

Meanwhile, students are realizing too late that workplace expectations far outpace their own perceptions. Eighty-eight percent of students surveyed believe their coursework alone will prepare them for future roles. When asked, early-career accounting and finance employees rated themselves 7.4/10 in preparedness, compared to their managers, who rated them 4.9/10. However, once hired, career starters are admitting difficulty with interpreting feedback, conflict resolution, and additional abilities, realizing that their coursework alone was not enough to develop their professional competencies.

AI is reshaping the landscape further. While automation eliminates routine work, it also eliminates environments to learn at low stakes. Instead, it raises the bar for human decision-making, which now demands higher technical fluency, adaptive thinking, and ethical judgment.

The outlook is clear: Without new employees who possess vital communication, problem-solving, and analytical skills, employers are facing an increase in inefficiency, delayed productivity, and innovation bottlenecks. So what can companies do to raise readiness and ensure success?

What Leaders Can Do Differently

The skills gap is impending but not inevitable. Employers can take practical steps now to reshape how they identify, prepare, and support talent.

Three moves

1. Match Talent Where They Are

Most employers have gotten the memo to ditch credential bias, with less than 40 percent of companies screening candidates based on college GPA. But the next step is to prioritize exposure to real-life experiences for early-career employees to learn and practice critical skills. Internships are great, but they can be inequitable to candidates with additional responsibilities, such as those who are caring for children or aging parents or pursuing advanced degrees. Additionally, many companies lack the capacity to scale internship programs. Around 50 percent of employers mentioned lack of resources or lack of manager buy-in as obstacles to expanding skills-based hiring.

Employers who focus on skill tests have open access to larger pools of talent while ensuring candidates are educated on role expectations before day one. For instance, allowing a candidate to practice data trend analysis or compliance assessments can increase the candidate’s confidence and clarity.

2. Meet Candidates Earlier

Companies must meet talent earlier in the pipeline. Waiting until the interview stage is too late, and even the application submission process can delay locating prepared employees. Simulations, such as the ones offered by Forage, give candidates a way to try real-world tasks before applying and give employers visibility into how those candidates think and perform. A student can explore engineering by troubleshooting a design flaw before making a recommendation. These experiences not only build skills but also expand awareness of career options, especially for underrepresented groups.

3. Make AI Fluency a Must

Finally, employers should treat AI fluency as a core workplace skill. Few roles will require deep coding knowledge, but nearly every role will require the ability to use AI responsibly. That includes knowing how to prompt effectively, evaluate results critically, and apply outputs ethically. For operations positions, employers should protect future projects from delays and failures by utilizing process mapping and diagnostics simulations. Training in these competencies should begin at the earliest stages of career preparation, not years into the job.

By employing these three steps, companies will not only bridge the skills gap but also have a competitive advantage against peers who are slow to change. Only 15 percent of employers reported making changes to their recruitment programs in 2025; most are still relying on traditional strategies to surface talent, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Taking Action Means Better Outcomes

Left unaddressed, the gap in workplace readiness will widen, decreasing productivity, talent equity, and competitiveness. But employers can act now to close that gap in tangible ways. Forage partners report 20–40 percent faster recruiting cycles and 3.3 times higher hire rates among candidates who complete a Forage simulation. Ninety-five percent of students report a stronger understanding of a role after completing a Forage simulation. On average, Forage saves employers $1200 per hire by engaging and educating quality candidates.

Forage’s virtual simulations give students a way to learn and demonstrate their capability and give employers a way to measure readiness. Leaders who adopt these strategies will not just fill roles; they’ll cultivate a workforce that is prepared, motivated, and committed from the very start.

The post The Shortage Employers Can’t Afford to Ignore appeared first on Seramount.

Given the current state of workplace mental health, this may not be a difficult scenario to imagine. In fact, when Seramount spoke with more than 100 CHROs, workplace mental health emerged as one of the top challenges across industries and function areas. Too often, the conversation on employee well-being begins and ends with burnout. However, when interventions to combat burnout aren’t working, we have to look to other factors that may be impacting employees’ mental health.as

Seramount research shows that although burnout is a major concern, the mental health puzzle is much broader, spanning financial stress, return-to-office pressures, and even political and economic uncertainty.

Three Additional Factors Impacting the Mental Crisis

When addressing obstacles to employee mental health beyond burnout, we often need to look at factors outside the domain of everyday work. Although these may not be driven directly by company policy, they significantly affect employee well-being, productivity, and retention.

1. Change fatigue

 A combination of personal and work events, change fatigue is caused by interconnected challenges. From life milestones like becoming parents or taking care of aging relatives to political shifts, our lives are rapidly changing outside of work. Added changes at work can further strain our ability to adapt and perform. Leaders should be mindful of this and the strain it can cause as organizations change priorities, react to policy updates, or adjust work modalities.

2. Financial stress and economic instability

Economic instability and personal finances are key social determinants of mental health. At work, perceived economic instability is driving stress about job security—54 percent of U.S. workers say that job insecurity is affecting their mental well-being. Outside the workplace, the growing burden of debt is another factor that impacts employee mental health. Recent Seramount research explored how new models for financial wellness benefits can play a critical role in employee well-being, particularly as debt relief support becomes a highly sought-after benefit for job seekers.

3. Stage-of-life obstacles

From Gen Z’s entrance to the workforce to Baby Boomers’ exits, employees face significant pressures across the age spectrum. For Gen Z and many Millennials, loneliness is widespread, leading to higher risks of anxiety, depression, and other negative health outcomes.  For Baby Boomers, the approach to retirement often brings financial and identity struggles that affect engagement at work. In between, elder Millennials and Gen X—often called the “sandwich generation”—are increasingly balancing caregiving responsibilities for both children and aging parents. These stage-of-life obstacles complicate work-life balance, affect attentiveness, and challenge employees’ ability to fully participate in the workplace.

Three Recommended Interventions

Seramount has identified several interventions that balance both personal and workplace challenges and provide a holistic approach to employee well-being. Below are a few strategies with strong ROI potential:

• Improve managerial training and resourcing to normalize mental health discussions. Nearly half of employees report feeling uncomfortable discussing mental health at work. To reduce stigma, managers and leaders need to be equipped to handle difficult conversations and spot the signs of mental health factors beyond burnout.
• Reassess Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) to expand mental health benefits. Offering virtual and telehealth options can improve benefit usage and feedback. Additional wellness programs like sleep support or resiliency training have shown promise in reducing health care costs and improving mental health outcomes. Adding financial wellness programs can also help address money-related stress, such as debt management and financial literacy concerns.
• Expand volunteer opportunities. Research has found that a culture of volunteerism strongly correlateswith higher job satisfaction and can support employees through stage-of-life challenges like loneliness or isolation.

Effective Implementation Is Key to ROI

The right interventions can have a powerful impact on morale, productivity, and attrition. Employees who believe their organizations care about their well-being are 4.4 times more likely to be engaged, 73 percent less likely to be burned out, and 66 percent less likely to leave their job. With those figures in mind, it’s no surprise that organizations are making large investments in employee mental health resources—estimated at $94.6 billion globally by 2026. However, Seramount has found that employers are not always seeing the results they expect.

This is driven by lack of clarity around mental health benefits and resources. Many employees are unaware of available benefits, don’t know how to access them, lack time to participate, or are worried about costs.

Two ways to make sure your investments in mental health resources have the desired outcome are consistent communication and comprehensive manager training. That way, managers whose teams are struggling have a place to start and an awareness of the resources at their disposal.

The Bottom Line—An Investment in Talent Acquisition and Retention

We can continue to center burnout in our conversations on mental health, but HR leaders must also recognize the broader factors affecting employees, particularly as these pressures reach well beyond productivity.

Expanding mental health resources to address factors beyond burnout is also an investment in long-term talent acquisition and retention. While today’s labor market favors employers, building strong mental health resources now will strengthen your employer brand for the future.

When the pendulum swings back to a more employee-favored labor market, a strong record of employee well-being will be a powerful differentiator.

The post Beyond Burnout: What Are We Missing in the Workplace Mental Health Crisis? appeared first on Seramount.

Today, more than a third of the working-age U.S. population participates in some form of gig work. For Gen Z, that number jumps to 57%. And while pay still matters, autonomy, variety, and growth opportunities are driving up these numbers even more.

The Evolution of the Side Hustle

In general, gigs involve short-term, project-based work. But not all gig work looks the same. Many take on short projects to earn supplemental income. Others freelance full time or use gigs to bridge between roles. Some take on multiple gigs as their primary sources of income.

Is This a Threat to Culture?

While gigs aren’t inherently harmful to the employee-employer relationship, they do carry some risk to engagement:

• Some staff are distracted or less engaged with multiple balls in the air.
• Ability to create part-time work will make some feel less tied down and quicker to leave.
• Staff may believe their current job isn’t building skills or advancing their career

Combined with declining loyalty measures, employers should pay attention. Only 18% of employees reported feeling satisfied at work in 2024, and 79% of employees share that they feel detached. Tenure has also declined over the past decade, dropping from an average of 4.6 years in 2014 to 3.9 years in 2024.

For many employees, skills and career development have been key drivers of this voluntary turnover, as they want to build skills and take on meaningful work that aligns with their goals. However, they don’t need to leave their full-time jobs to do so. Some companies are leaning into the gig model. Instead of treating it as something to compete with, they’re adopting it internally to let employees take on short-term projects, apply their strengths in new ways, and grow beyond their current roles.

A Closer Look at Internal Gig Systems

In-house gig systems:

• Encourage exploration of opportunities by letting employees join short-term projects across different parts of the organization
• Require minimal time commitment—just a few hours a week—so they don’t disrupt core responsibilities
• Support skill building by offering employees the chance to stretch into new areas and tap into excess capacity
• Strengthen career progression and loyalty by giving staff more ways to grow without leaving the company

See promising examples below:

The post Leverage the Gig Economy to Adapt to Evolving Employee Behavior appeared first on Seramount.

When inclusion is embedded into how a business hires, develops, supports, and retains talent, it becomes a force multiplier for innovation, resilience, and growth. It is a performance enabler and can’t be treated as a standalone program. There’s simply too much at stake.

We’ve seen time and again that inclusive workplace cultures aren’t just more welcoming—they perform better. Companies that foster a strong sense of belonging tend to be more adaptable, more innovative, and better positioned to meet their goals. One study found that organizations with inclusive cultures are six times more likely to be innovative—proof that when people feel seen and supported, they’re more willing to contribute new ideas and take smart risks. When you design with a wide range of identities, abilities, and life experiences in mind, you’re not just accommodating difference—you’re creating the conditions for everyone to thrive.

That’s more urgent than ever. With six generations now in the workplace and expectations evolving rapidly, leaders must think about talent optimization efforts where inclusion is at the heart. Today’s strategies must address the full spectrum of human experience—including disability, neurodiversity, mental and emotional health, caregiving, and socioeconomic background. When companies adopt a “rising tide lifts all boats” mindset—designing with the most overlooked voices in mind—they create stronger systems for all. Think of the curb cut: designed for wheelchair users, it now benefits delivery workers, travelers, and parents with strollers. Inclusive culture, when done right, has that same universal design power.

Ignoring this evolution doesn’t just risk internal disengagement—it limits a company’s ability to connect with a rapidly changing customer base. Inclusive organizations are more attuned to market shifts and better equipped to meet the needs of diverse consumers. That includes Gen Z buyers, multicultural families, and customers with disabilities—segments that are increasingly shaping the future of the marketplace.

One powerful example comes to mind. For the Miami Heat, that meant recognizing a growing number of fans who weren’t seeing themselves reflected in the merchandise offerings. Engaging the customer of the future, it turned out, required a data-driven awareness of specific demographic changes to their fan base. Creating a truly inclusive fan experience—and capitalizing on an untapped market opportunity—led the organization to design a new line of size-inclusive apparel, intentionally developed with all body types in mind. This wasn’t a matter of optics. It was a business decision rooted in listening, understanding, and responding to who their fans really are. The result: stronger fan loyalty, broader reach, and increased merchandise revenue—proving that when inclusion meets insight, everyone wins.

This is why leading companies are reframing inclusive workplace practices not as a response to social pressure, but as a core business imperative. These organizations understand that psychological safety and flexibility aren’t perks—they’re key performance drivers. They also recognize that building trust isn’t a one-time initiative. It requires continuously listening to employees, addressing real barriers, and measuring progress.

Some of the most effective strategies are surprisingly straightforward: updating performance evaluations to recognize different work styles, normalizing caregiver leave and mental health days and creating systems that invite employee feedback regularly—not just through annual surveys, but through structured, ongoing dialogue.

These actions are mission-critical for long-term competitiveness, from attracting and engaging to retaining the talent of today and tomorrow.

The future of work will belong to organizations that evolve alongside their people—those that think holistically about employee experience, reimagine leadership development, and embed inclusion into every decision, not as an afterthought but as a standard.

The question isn’t whether to invest—it’s how to lead in a way that reflects the realities of the modern workplace and the values of the customers you serve. The time for inclusive leadership is now.

This article first appeared on forbes.com. View original article.

The post Talent Is Changing—Has Your Strategy Evolved With It? appeared first on Seramount.

Here’s why that matters—and what you can do about it.

Why AI-Generated Résumés Pose a Risk

1. Generic, Surface-Level Content

AI-written résumés often produce generic phrases and buzzwords (“proven track record,” anyone?). They may pass ATS keyword checks but reveal little about actual job performance, leaving recruiters struggling to differentiate candidates.

2. Misleading Qualifications

Generative AI tools are known to embellish or even fabricate skills and achievements. One study found nearly 49% of hiring managers automatically dismiss résumés suspected of AI authorship due to authenticity concerns.

3. Increased Recruiter Burden

AI-generated résumés often exaggerate experience or use vague, identical phrasing, which forces recruiters to manually cross-check details, add interview rounds, or administer skills tests to confirm qualifications. This flood of superficially perfect applications increases recruiter workloads as hiring teams must spend more time verifying claims and conducting deeper candidate assessments, potentially delaying hires and increasing costs.

How to Combat AI-Generated Résumés

Talent acquisition teams can shift away from résumé-dependent processes toward practical, skills-based hiring. Here’s how:

1. Prioritize Skills Assessments over Résumés

Rather than relying solely on keyword-driven ATS screening, integrate practical assessments into your hiring process. Real-world job simulations, such as those offered by Forage, provide candidates an opportunity to demonstrate tangible skills through task-based simulations.

Companies partnering with Forage report compelling outcomes:

• One leading law firm found Forage simulation participants comprised 44% of their applicants yet represented 90% of eventual hires.
• An investment bank discovered that Forage participants, making up just 9% of applicants, received 70% of offers with a 100% acceptance rate.

By screening based on actual performance, companies can reliably separate qualified candidates from AI-assisted pretenders.

2. Enhance Your ATS with Human and AI Screening

Ironically, AI can also help detect AI-generated résumés. Advanced ATS systems using contextual analysis and cross-referencing can flag inconsistencies or generic language. Pairing these insights with human judgment means trained recruiters quickly spot unnatural phrasing or implausible career achievements, enabling more informed candidate assessments.

3. Foster Authenticity and Transparency

Clearly signal your organization’s preference for authenticity. Consider asking candidates up front if AI aided their application materials—62% of hiring managers support this transparency. Frame this positively, emphasizing that the goal is understanding the candidate’s genuine qualifications.

Encourage interviewers to discuss specific résumé details during conversations, probing deeper into experiences. Genuine candidates typically respond confidently and specifically, while those relying heavily on AI tend to falter.

4. Build Curated Talent Pipelines

Reduce your reliance on the open résumé flood by creating pipelines from candidates who have already proven interest and aptitude. Forage job simulations offer this advantage by engaging thousands of motivated, skill-tested candidates who have proven relevant competencies. Leveraging such curated pipelines simplifies screening and elevates candidate quality.

5. Train Recruiters to Stay Agile

Educate your hiring team about emerging recruitment trends, including AI-generated applications. Regularly update screening criteria to prioritize skills, authenticity, and practical assessment outcomes over keyword-matching alone. An informed, agile recruitment team better identifies high-quality hires despite evolving candidate strategies.

Turn AI Challenges into Hiring Advantages

AI-generated résumés don’t have to overwhelm your hiring strategy. By shifting the focus from traditional résumé screening to practical skill validation, leveraging authentic tools such as Forage job simulations, and combining AI tools with trained human judgment, talent acquisition leaders can confidently separate outstanding talent from AI-assisted noise.

Your ATS might currently be cluttered with AI-assisted applicants, but with the right approach, you’ll spot genuine talent faster, reduce recruiter workloads, and ultimately make smarter hiring decisions.

The post Your ATS Is Filling Up with AI-Generated Résumés—Here’s How to Fight Back appeared first on Seramount.

Early career hiring is one of the most overlooked drivers of long-term business value. Done right, it builds your leadership bench, strengthens your hiring efficiency, increases representation across teams, and lowers the overall cost per hire. The companies that treat early talent as a strategic asset are the ones that gain momentum in performance, retention, and innovation.

The “Nice-to-Have” Trap

Early talent often gets deprioritized because the payoff isn’t immediate. It’s easier to measure the ROI of a senior hire than the potential of a recent grad. But that short-term thinking creates long-term gaps. When internship programs get cut or entry-level hiring slows down, your future pipeline dries up.

Around 10,000 Baby Boomers retire each day, underscoring the swift loss of experienced employees and their embedded knowledge. You can’t build future-ready teams without consistent entry points—and you definitely can’t build a diverse leadership pipeline if your early talent funnel is narrow or nonexistent.

Skipping the early talent investment may feel efficient now, but it costs more later in turnover, recruiting spend, and missed potential. The average cost to replace a mid-career employee is from 50% to 200% of their annual salary. In contrast, recruiting an early-career hire typically costs nearly $4,700. When that hire is sourced through an internship, the conversion rate to full-time employment is an impressive 66.4%. Translation: When you build early talent intentionally, it pays off—and keeps paying off.

Early Talent as a Lever for Growth, Fair Hiring, and Workforce Planning

When embedded into workforce planning, early talent becomes a lever for growth and transformation. Entry-level roles aren’t just there to be filled—they’re a foundation for:

• Sustainable growth. Early-career hires ramp faster than expected, especially with good onboarding. At staffing firm ALKU, interns-turned-hires generated 21% more revenue in their first six months compared to external peers—and 14% more in their first year.
• Fairer hiring practices. These programs reduce overreliance on pedigree and give overlooked candidates a shot. Swapping resume screens for skills-based assessments leads to a wider, more capable pool.
• Succession planning. Entry-level hires become future managers. Investing early means you’re building strength and continuity into your leadership pipeline.

How Forage Turns Early Talent into a Strategic Asset

Many organizations struggle to reach, assess, and prepare early talent at scale without overloading their recruiting teams. That’s where Forage simulations come in.

Forage partners with employers to create virtual job simulations—self-paced experiences that mirror the actual work done in a role. They’re open-access, employer-branded, and designed to give students a realistic preview of your company while helping them build relevant skills. These simulations also surface highly motivated candidates who show up to interviews informed, confident, and better prepared.

Here’s how Forage drives impact:

• Candidate readiness at scale. A summer internship might reach a few dozen students. A Forage simulation reaches thousands. More than 5 million students have accessed them to date.
• Stronger hiring signals. Resumes don’t tell you much. Simulations do. Candidates who complete a Forage program are 2x more likely to get an interview, 4x more likely to receive an offer, and 4x more likely to accept it.
• A pipeline that converts. At some organizations, Forage simulation participants have accounted for up to 90% of early talent hires—making simulations a powerful driver of high-intent, high-conversion candidates.

Your Early Talent Strategy Is a Brand Strategy

How you show up to early-career candidates impacts more than a hiring cycle. They’re also future customers, brand advocates, and decision-makers.

That makes early talent a long game. When you offer accessible, skill-building tools like Forage simulations, you’re signaling “We invest in people before they work here.” That generosity builds goodwill, employer brand, and loyalty.

Ninety-five percent of students who complete a Forage simulation say they better understand the company. Eighty-five percent say they’re more likely to apply. Those impressions matter—even if a job offer doesn’t come right away.

Don’t Just Fill Roles. Build the Bench.

Early talent isn’t just a pipeline to fill junior roles—it’s your long-term differentiator. These aren’t just entry-level hires. They’re your future leaders—the people who will understand your business inside and out, carry its culture forward, and deliver results that matter.

A strong early talent strategy doesn’t chase volume—it builds vision. With tools like Forage, you can identify, skill, and engage candidates before the first interview is even scheduled.

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A recent Forage survey of 2,000 college juniors and seniors shows that 72% of college juniors and seniors said they feel prepared to succeed in their first job. But only 41% of employers believe recent grads are truly ready for the workplace.

That 31-point perception gap isn’t just a philosophical divide—it’s a practical problem. In 2025, one in eight hiring managers says they plan to avoid hiring recent college grads altogether. More than half (55%) say they had to fire a recent college hire in 2024. And 33% cite a lack of work ethic as a top concern.

But in my experience, it’s not that students don’t care or aren’t trying—it’s that they haven’t been exposed to what real work looks and feels like. They’re navigating a hiring process that demands experience … without always showing them how to get it.

We’re Teaching—but Not Always Preparing

Many students approach graduation having done everything “right.” They’ve completed coursework, participated in campus activities, maybe even landed an internship. Yet nearly one in five still admits they don’t know what it’s actually like to work in the field they’re pursuing.

And let’s not forget: This is the COVID generation. Their high school years were disrupted, college orientation was remote, and formative work experiences—such as internships, summer jobs, and part-time roles—were canceled or moved online. That interruption in social, academic, and early professional development is still rippling through their confidence and career readiness today. It’s not just a résumé gap. It’s a context gap.

There’s also a failure of access. Only 27% of students say their college offered a course or experience that mimicked real-world job responsibilities. And when students haven’t had the chance to try the work, it’s not surprising that employers are hesitant to hire based on résumés alone.

A Rising Shift: Hiring for Skills, Not Just Schools

The good news? A better way is already emerging.

In 2024, 81% of employers reported using skills-based hiring practices—a sharp increase from 56% in 2022. And 94% agree that hiring based on demonstrated skills is more predictive of job success than relying on traditional résumé credentials alone.

By focusing on specific competencies and task-based performance, employers are better equipped to identify candidates who can contribute effectively from day one.

This approach also opens doors for students—especially those from nontraditional or underrepresented backgrounds—by shifting the conversation from “Where did you go to school?” to “Can you do the work?”

Simulations Make Readiness Real

Students who participate in employer-designed, hands-on learning experiences—such as virtual job simulations—show measurable gains in both confidence and competence. These experiences allow students to explore real job tasks in a no-stakes environment and understand not just what a company does but also how it operates and what success looks like in the role.

That means students show up to interviews not just excited about the company—but familiar with the work, ready to engage, and able to demonstrate core competencies in context.

We’ve seen this firsthand at Forage. Students who complete our virtual job simulations are more likely to apply to partner employers and are 3.3x more likely to be offered the job. That’s not a coincidence—it’s what happens when students are empowered to learn by doing.

Let’s Bridge the Gap Together

The readiness gap isn’t inevitable. It’s a solvable problem—if educators, employers, and students work together to build better bridges between the classroom and the workplace.

The future of hiring is skills-first. But students can’t be expected to demonstrate skills they’ve never had the chance to build. That’s where tools such as job simulations, experiential learning, and transparent hiring processes make all the difference.

By giving students early access to real work—and the context to connect it to their own strengths—we can unlock a generation of talent that’s not just confident, but capable.

The post Mind the Gap: Why Students Think They’re Ready for Work—but Employers Disagree appeared first on Seramount.

The job market is shifting quickly. Baby boomers are retiring at a rate of 10,000 per day, and younger generations are entering the workforce with different expectations. Workforce planning—the ability to anticipate talent shortages, skills gaps, and hiring demands—is a top concern for Talent Acquisition (TA) leaders today.

Why Workforce Planning Matters for TA Leaders

For years, workforce planning was viewed as a separate HR function. But in today’s labor market, top TA leaders are taking a more proactive role in shaping the future workforce. As companies reevaluate strategy in the wake of reorganizations, digital transformation, and shifting market demands, workforce planning has become a cross-functional imperative—aligning people strategy with business execution and ensuring TA, HR, and business leaders are working toward shared goals.

Consider these workforce trends:

• The labor force is shrinking. As older workers retire, fewer younger workers are available to replace them, creating increased competition for talent.
• Skills gaps are widening. By 2027, nearly half of core job skills will be disrupted by technological advancements such as artificial intelligence (AI), meaning companies must rethink how they identify and develop talent.
• Generational shifts are accelerating. Younger generations prioritize flexibility, purpose-driven work, and development opportunities, while companies face the challenge of replacing retiring expertise with future-ready skills.
• Roles are being redefined. According to the World Economic Forum, AI and tech advancements are expected to transform 86% of businesses by 2030, creating 11 million new jobs while displacing 9 million. Roles in areas such as AI, big data, and fintech are growing quickly, while administrative and clerical jobs are in steep decline.

Workforce planning helps businesses align teams around the future by tracking what’s changing, what’s staying the same, and what’s being phased out—not just reacting to the present.

How Forage Helps TA Leaders Plan for the Future

Forage makes it easier for TA teams to align hiring efforts with workforce planning by helping companies build evergreen talent pipelines that are focused on contextual skills and designed to meet talent through digital channels. With Forage, organizations can:

• Build Evergreen Pipelines

TA teams often scramble to fill roles once a vacancy opens. Forage enables companies to engage prospective employees early, through virtual job simulations that showcase real work experiences. This means recruiters will already have a warm pipeline of candidates who understand the company and its expectations before they even apply.

This is especially valuable as companies build talent strategies around emerging job categories and prepare for generational turnover. By cultivating talent early, organizations can ensure continuity and reduce time to hire for future-critical roles.

• Provide Immersive Digital Experiences

Today, brands  are expected to be engaging and personalized, but there’s often a disconnect between employer branding and recruiting. Today’s candidates are looking for more than polished messaging—they want to know what it’s really like to work at a company. Virtual job simulations offer a scalable way to bridge that gap, providing an authentic way for employers to showcase their opportunities while giving candidates hands-on experience.

Forward-thinking companies are also using virtual tours to give candidates a deeper look into workplace culture and team dynamics. These experiences can help companies stand out in a crowded talent market.

• Stay Ahead of Hiring Trends

TA leaders who rely only on traditional recruiting methods will struggle to keep up with the pace of workforce change. Forage gives companies valuable data on which candidates are most engaged, what skills are trending, and how hiring strategies should evolve to meet future workforce needs.

Workforce planning isn’t a separate function from talent acquisition. This data can also support broader stakeholder alignment—helping HR, business leaders, and TA work together to understand emerging talent demands and proactively adjust workforce plans. The best TA leaders aren’t just thinking about today’s hiring needs—they’re planning for the next decade. This is the key to staying competitive in a dynamic job market.

With Forage, companies can take a proactive approach to hiring, building stronger talent pipelines and ensuring they have the right people in place for the future. Interested in learning more? Let’s talk.

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