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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Employers may employ buzzwords to signal innovation.
- Both employers and job hunters may confuse AI terminology.
- Creativity and curiosity are sought-after skills.
In today’s employment environment, job hunters may be padding their resumes to some degree with AI skills, but employers are also padding their job descriptions. In a trend known as “AI language inflation,” employers are using buzzwords to appear more cutting-edge, but are highlighting capabilities that may not be essential skills for the roles. The result of this inflation is a vicious cycle, with job hunters dropping AI buzzwords into their resumes.
That was the conclusion of a recent panel that featured executives from Indeed, Salesforce, and IBM. For job hunters, AI language inflation means learning the different flavors of AI — machine learning, versus generative AI and agents, for example, “and don’t just drop terms,” said Jessica Hardeman, head of talent attraction at Indeed.
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The panel said employers need to be clear about requirements that may not necessarily focus on AI. In many cases, employers value curiosity and a willingness to learn over AI skills. Certain skills, such as cybersecurity, also rank high as sought-after skills, according to a recent SpiceWorks survey. (SpiceWorks is owned by ZDNET’s parent company, Ziff Davis.)
Some of the roles seen in job descriptions “are just branded with AI buzzwords to attract talent or to signal innovation without actually requiring real AI expertise,” said Shibani Ahuja, senior vice president of enterprise IT strategy at Salesforce: “Conversely, there are some roles where you actually need AI literacy, but employers are failing to clarify what that actually means. Is it technical depth? Is it business fluency? And so I think it’s creating a bit of confusion for candidates and misalignment in hiring.”
Ahuja added that when conducting interviews, she looks for how people use the term AI. “AI is used very loosely and almost like a buzzword. What I’m looking for is the appropriate use of the word AI. How well are people really starting to understand, more deeply, what is artificial intelligence or digital labor? Or how they’re using it, so it’s not just as a buzzword but day-to-day practical examples?”
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At IBM’s large consulting organization, “we’re increasingly looking at and focusing on things that are uniquely human,” said Matt Candy, global managing partner for generative AI at IBM. Traits such as “creativity, curiosity, innovation, language skills, and liberal arts skills become even more important in the future. Think about English becoming, effectively, the latest coding language.”
The ability of humans “to express ourselves, to ask better questions, to interact with this technology in a curious iterative way becomes really important,” Candy added.
That trend implies it’s less crucial to know a single programming language really deeply, Hardeman said: “It’s more about being able to work alongside AI systems to improve productivity and decision making.”
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Professionals in traditional technology roles, such as developers, will find their jobs enhanced by AI agents from end to end. “It becomes far more than just coding,” Candy said.
“I think about platforms, tools that enable people to accelerate coding — that’s one part of a traditional development lifecycle. But there are many other parts to delivering software end-to-end. We want to build agents to support people at every stage of that journey. The agents are new teammates.”
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