‘AI-generated outputs should be treated as a starting point’
Canadian HR professionals may be screening candidates for the wrong AI skills, as new survey data from Adobe shows hiring managers prioritize judgment-based oversight of AI outputs while job seekers are focused on building visible technical and creative skills instead.
The findings, based on a survey of 805 job seekers and 406 hiring professionals, show hiring managers are 175% more likely than job seekers to prioritize "ethical AI oversight" as a critical skill.
The top soft skills hiring managers now prioritize are:
- time management (47%)
- adaptive problem-solving (44%)
- collaboration (41%)
- ethical AI oversight (33%)
- and creative intuition (28%).
Job seekers, by contrast, believe the following are the hard skills that will boost their hireability this year:
- brainstorming with AI (30%)
- AI image generation (19%)
- workflow automation (19%)
Only 45% of job seekers report confidence in their own prompting abilities, Adobe's data shows, even as adoption of AI tools continues to rise across industries. Director-level professionals are 106% more likely than entry-level candidates to list AI image generation as a core skill, according to Adobe.
One in three Canadian workers admit to faking their AI abilities at work, according to a previous study.
Interview red flags centre on judgment
Adobe's report identifies "lack of fact-checking" as the most common red flag among hiring managers, cited by 70% of respondents, followed by "blind compliance" with AI outputs at 54%.
"AI-generated outputs should be treated as a starting point," Adobe states in the report, adding that candidates are expected to "verify data and sources manually" before presenting AI-assisted work.
"The strongest candidates are the ones who know when to challenge an output," according to the report, which notes that being able to explain how a flawed AI response was improved demonstrates critical thinking rather than blind reliance on the technology.
Judgment about when to use AI
Despite the emphasis on oversight, nearly two in three hiring managers (63%) told Adobe they would still hire a candidate who lacks basic AI proficiency, suggesting the bar for entry-level competence remains more forgiving than some employers might assume.
"Knowing when not to use AI is just as important as knowing how to use it," reflecting hiring managers' growing attention to over-automation as an interview red flag, cited by 40% of respondents, according to the report.
Separately, Adobe found that while 91% of hiring managers say their organizations support AI skill development, only about one in three tech-sector organizations has a formal system for sharing AI knowledge among staff.
When it comes to early career employees and their skills, using AI responsibly, rather than impressing with jargon, is preferred, according to a previous report.
Human oversight thresholds – which decisions always require a person – should be part of any organization’s AI governance policies, one expert previously told HRD.
“Governance provides velocity, not friction. Companies that build real oversight into their AI adoption move faster and with less risk than those improvising, because they are not constantly managing unforeseen failures,” Himanshu Joshi, founder of Cohumain Labs, said in an email.
