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I realized, like many of my recruiting colleagues, that most of us fell into recruiting. It's been a great career ...
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I realized, like many of my recruiting colleagues, that most of us fell into recruiting. It’s been a great career choice that allows me to meet new people every day, but most importantly to build long-lasting relationships with both clients and candidates alike. As I looked back on my career to analyze my successes and shortcomings, I began to think about the advice I would give my younger self. This got me thinking, and I became curious to know what advice other recruiters and clients would say to their younger selves. After connecting with a couple of them, here is what they said. Check it out.
“The biggest advice I would give myself prior to getting into recruiting is the value of following up (after interviews, job pitches, qualification call, etc). Following up with candidates when they don’t get a job or following up with a client when you don’t have any candidates to send, is extremely important. It is so important because it will distinguish you from your competitors and clients/candidates will come back to you when they are looking for a new job or they need help hiring for their current company.”
Bill Gates | Partner, HR & Admin Practice
“Focus on what you can control. You can’t control who the hiring team selects to hire. You can’t control who applies to your open role. You can’t control timing. The dream of dreams candidate could apply the same day you extend an offer to a candidate that was best for the role at that time. Respect timing. What you can control is how you treat your candidates. You can control treating them the way you want to be treated as a candidate. From the initial reach out to welcoming them on their first day. You can control focusing on relationships and strengthening them for the future, and you can control equipping yourself with research and active listening to become the best you can be! Offering someone a job is one of the best feelings, so let that be your guiding force as you go forward in your career.”
Erin Kube | Senior Recruitment Consultant
“Two pieces of advice I could have used earlier in my career… 1) ABUD – Always be using (labor market) data. If you want to be the guide on the search and not be guided, weave data into your conversations at any stage and sit back and watch a hiring manager’s or candidate’s reaction. 1) Less is more – Whether you are speaking with a candidate or a hiring manager be concise and let them do most of the talking! Same with digital cold calls. Be brief, original, personalize the message and, whatever you do, do not regurgitate the job description! 60 words or less!”
T. J. Huestis | Director
If you have any advice or questions for those in the recruiting world, feel free to get in touch. I’m glad to connect. You can reach me at bill@hirewell.com.
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If you’re hiring in 2026, you’re dealing with two realities at the same time.
First, traditional signals like degrees and pedigree are losing their value.
Second, Gen Z is reshaping expectations around speed, transparency, and trust.
Together, those forces are pushing talent acquisition into its next evolution.
As we outlined in Agentic HR Is Here: What Talent Acquisition Really Looks Like in 2026, recruiting is becoming more autonomous at the execution level. But autonomy alone doesn’t solve the core hiring problem.
You still need a better way to evaluate people.
That’s where skills-first hiring comes in.
The Degree Barrier Is Collapsing
For decades, degrees were used as a shortcut.
Not because they reliably predicted success, but because they reduced perceived risk and simplified decision-making.
That logic no longer holds.
Roles are changing too fast. Job titles mean less than they used to. And in a market where AI can generate a polished resume in seconds, pedigree is an even weaker signal.
Companies need capability, not credentials.
Skills Intelligence Is Becoming the New Operating System
The bigger shift isn’t just skills-based hiring. It’s skills intelligence.
Instead of organizing work around static job descriptions, companies are starting to think in terms of capabilities. Work is assigned based on skill, not hierarchy or tenure.
This is the same evolution happening across workforce planning more broadly. Not headcount planning, but capability planning.
And it’s the only model that holds up in a fast-moving market.
Why Skills-First Hiring Is Accelerating Right Now
Skills-first hiring is gaining traction because it solves multiple problems at once.
It improves quality of hire.
It increases internal mobility.
It reduces bias tied to pedigree.
And it aligns better with how work actually gets done.
But it’s also accelerating for a more practical reason.
The resume is no longer reliable.
As we covered in The AI-on-AI Hiring Arms Race, recruiting teams are now dealing with a flood of highly optimized, AI-generated applications. Many look great on paper and collapse under real scrutiny.
When that happens, skills-based evaluation stops being a “nice to have.” It becomes the only way to restore signal.
Gen Z Is Forcing the Issue
Now layer in Gen Z.
By 2026, Gen Z is one of the fastest-growing segments of the workforce. They are also the least tolerant of slow, opaque hiring processes.
One of the most important data points in the market right now is this:
A majority of Gen Z candidates will drop out if a hiring process exceeds 22 days.
Speed, to them, isn’t about impatience. It’s about competence.
If a company can’t run a clear, efficient hiring process, candidates assume it can’t run the business well either.
Ghosting Is No Longer a Candidate Experience Issue
It’s a trust issue.
A large percentage of job seekers report that looking for work negatively impacts their mental health. The biggest driver isn’t rejection.
It’s silence.
Waiting to hear back. No closure. No clarity on next steps.
For Gen Z, that lack of transparency is a dealbreaker. It signals misalignment, not just poor communication.
In 2026, how you hire is inseparable from how you’re perceived as an employer.
The New Hiring Deal in 2026
For Gen Z, the hiring experience is part of the offer.
They expect:
- speed and clear timelines
- skills-based evaluation
- consistent communication
- honest feedback
- values alignment
If the process feels like a black box, they assume the culture is the same.
This is where skills-first hiring and agentic systems intersect. Technology can speed up execution, but only leadership can ensure the experience remains human.
What Talent Leaders Should Be Doing Now
The companies adapting fastest in 2026 are focused on a few fundamentals:
- Shortening the hiring process
By removing unnecessary steps, not by cutting corners. - Shifting from resumes to proof
Work samples, structured interviews, and skills assessments matter more than pedigree. - Improving transparency
Candidates don’t need perfection. They need clarity and closure. - Designing hiring for humans
Technology should reduce friction, not replace basic respect.
Final Thought
Skills-first hiring isn’t just about fairness. It’s about accuracy.
And Gen Z isn’t asking for special treatment. They’re forcing employers to modernize a hiring process that’s been broken for a long time.
The companies that adapt will hire better, faster, and with less churn. The companies that don’t will keep blaming the market while losing candidates to competitors who simply run a better process.
Most companies agree with skills-first hiring in theory. Very few have operationalized it in a way that actually improves outcomes. If you want help redesigning your hiring process for 2026, especially around skills-based evaluation and candidate experience, we can help. Reach out and we’ll walk you through what’s working right now.
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