AI literacy now ranks among the top skills employers seek in candidates worldwide. Illustration / Elena Lacey, The Washington Post
As a former project manager, Taylor Tucker, 30, thought she would be a strong candidate for a job as a senior business analyst at Disney.
Among the job requirements, though, was an understanding of generative AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities and limitations and the ability to identify potential applications and relevant uses.
Tucker had used generative AI for various projects including budgeting for her events business, brand messaging, marketing campaign ideas and even sprucing up her resume. But when the recruiter said her AI experience would be a “tough sell”, she was confused.
“Didn’t AI just come out? How does everyone else have all this experience?” Tucker thought, wondering what she lacked but choosing to move on since the recruiter did not provide clarity.
In recent months, Tucker and other job seekers say they have noticed AI skills creeping its way into job descriptions, even for non-technical roles. The trend is creating confusion for some workers who don’t know what it means to be literate, fluent or proficient in AI.
Employers say the addition helps them find forward-thinking new hires who are embracing AI as a new way of working, even if they don’t fully understand it. Their definitions range from having some curiosity and willingness to learn to having success stories and plans for how to apply AI to their work.
“There’s not some universal standard for AI fluency, unfortunately,” Hannah Calhoon, vice-president of AI at job search firm Indeed, said. But for now, “you’ll continue to see an accelerating increase in employers looking for AI skills”.
The mention of AI literacy skills on LinkedIn job posts has nearly tripled since last year and it’s included in job descriptions from technical roles such as engineers to non-technical ones such as writers, business strategists and administrative assistants.
Indeed said posts with AI keywords rose to 2.9% in the past two years from 1.7%. Non-technical role descriptions that had the largest jump in AI keywords included product manager, customer success manager and business analyst, it said.
When seeking AI skills, employers are taking different approaches: from outlining expectations of acceptable AI skills to seeking open-minded, AI-curious candidates. A quick search on LinkedIn showed AI skills in the job descriptions for roles such as copywriters and content creators, designers and art directors, assistants, marketing and business development associates. And it spanned employers from T-Mobile to American Express, Wingstop, RoomsToGo and Stripe.
“For us, being capable is the bar. You have to be at least that to get hired,” Wade Foster, CEO of workflow automation platform Zapier, who is making AI a requirement for all new hires, said.
To clarify expectations, Foster made a chart, which he posted on social media, detailing skillsets and abilities for roles including engineering, support and marketing that would categorise a worker as AI “capable”, “adoptive” or “transformative”.
A marketing employee who uses AI to draft social posts and edit by hand would be capable, but someone who builds an AI chatbot that can create brand campaigns for a targeted group of customers would be considered transformative, the chart showed.
For a recent vice-president of business development job opening at Austin-based digital health company Everlywell, candidates were expected to use AI to learn about their clients, find new ways to benefit customers or improve the product and identify new growth opportunities. The job advertisement promised financial bonuses for those who transform their work using AI and revealed plans to evaluate employees on their AI use by the year’s end.
Julia Cheek, the company’s founder and CEO, said it is adding AI skills to many job openings and wants all of its employees to learn how to augment their roles with the technology. For example, a candidate for social media manager might mention using AI tools on Canva or Photoshop to create memes for their own personal accounts then spell out how AI could speed up development of content for the job, Cheek said.
“Our expectation is that they’ll say, ‘These are the tools I’ve been reading about, experimenting with, and what I’d like to do. This is what that looks like in the first 90 days’,” Cheek said.
Job candidates should expect AI usage to come up in their interviews, too. Helen Russell, the chief people officer at customer relationship management platform HubSpot, said it regularly asks candidates questions to get a sense of how open they are and what they’ve done with AI. A recent job posting for a creative director said successful employees will proactively test and integrate AI to move the team forward. Hubspot wants to see how people adopt AI to improve their productivity, Russell said.
“Pick a lane and start to investigate the types of learning that [AI] will afford you,” she advises. “Don’t be intimidated ... you can catch up.”
AI will soon be a team member working alongside most employees, EY Americas vice-chair of talent Ginnie Carlier said. In its job postings, it used phrases including “familiarity with emerging applications of AI”. That means a consultant, for example, might use AI to conduct research on thought leadership to understand the latest developments or for analysing large sets of data to jump-start the development of a presentation.
“I look at ‘familiarity’ as they’re comfortable with it. They’re comfortable with learning, experimenting and failing forward toward success,” Carlier said.
Some employers say they won’t automatically eliminate candidates without AI experience. McKinsey & Co sees AI skills as a plus that could help candidates stand out, Blair Ciesil, co-leader of the company’s global talent attraction group, said. The company, which listed “knowledge of AI or automation” in a recent job post, said its language is purposely open-ended, given how fast the tech and its applications are moving.
“What’s more important are the qualities around adaptability and learning mindset. People willing to fail and pick themselves up,” Ciesil said.
Not all employers are adding AI to job descriptions – Indeed data shows the vast majority don’t include those keywords. But some job seekers say employers might use AI as a buzzword. Jennifer DeCesari, a North Carolina resident who is seeking a job as a product manager, was recently disappointed when a large national company sought a product manager and listed “AI-driven personalisation and data platforms” as requirements. She hasn’t had the chance to apply AI to much of her work previously as she’s only worked at one company that launched a rudimentary chatbot that was later recalled for bad experience.
“A lot of companies are waiting, and for good reason,” she said, adding that she thinks very few people will come with professional AI experience. “A lot of times, the first cases were not a good use of money.”
Many companies are still trying to figure out how to apply AI effectively to their businesses, Kory Kantenga, LinkedIn’s head of economics for the Americas, said. And some are relying on their workers to show them the way.
“I don’t think we’ve seen a definition shape up yet,” Kantenga said. It’s “going to be different depending on the job”.
Calhoon of Indeed advises job candidates to highlight AI skills in their resumes and interviews as AI will likely be a component in most jobs in the future.
“It’s better to embrace it than fight it,” Alicia Pittman, global people chair at Boston Consulting Group, said.
As for Tucker, the former project manager, she has begun looking into online courses and certifications. She also plans on learning basic coding.
“Right now feels like the right time,” she said. “By next year, I’d be behind.”
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