Outdated job descriptions are slowing hiring as AI reshapes tasks, pushing workforce planning to the fore
Employers are still recruiting against job descriptions written before artificial intelligence reshaped daily work – and the gap is slowing hiring, according to Betul Genc, senior vice president and country head, Australia and New Zealand, at workforce solutions firm the Adecco Group.
Genc says job redesign has not kept pace with the technology. Rather than tweaking old roles, she argues, HR leaders need to break each job into tasks, decide which ones AI can handle, and hire for the human skills that remain.
"The companies are still using the job descriptions they had 2 years ago, 4 years ago," Genc told HRD. "So I don't think the skills mapping has been completed. It's not done."
The warning lands as new Adecco Group research finds only 36 per cent of C-suite leaders say their talent strategy shows employees that AI will create opportunities rather than replace them. The Business Leaders report, The human premium: Leadership beyond the algorithm, surveyed 2,000 executives across 13 countries between December 2025 and January 2026.
Why job descriptions are falling behind AI
Genc's own business shows how quickly tasks are moving. Adecco recruiters no longer source and screen candidates – AI tools do it overnight.
"I'm not expecting my recruiters to do screening and sourcing. We now know that AI can do it better, faster, and in 24/7 mode," she said. "And when in the morning the recruiter comes in, they would have 100 CVs that has already been screened and sourced, so it is just ready for them to give a call and ask those killer questions."
That changes what a good recruiter looks like. Genc now wants people who can run a needs analysis and challenge hiring managers, yet she concedes those expectations have not made it into the written role. Other employers face the flip side of AI in recruitment, as how hipages is taming AI-driven hiring shows.
"I think we should look at it with a lens of looking at tasks," Genc said. "These are the tasks that we can expect AI or technology to do it better and faster, but these are the areas that I would expect them to do."
The pressure on skills is global. The World Economic Forum's (WEF) Future of Jobs Report 2025 found employers expect 39 per cent of workers' core skills to change by 2030. In Singapore, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) reported that 49.3 per cent of 2025 job vacancies were newly created positions, up from 45.7 per cent in 2024.
Leaders are not confident they are keeping up. Adecco's research found just 22 per cent of executives are highly confident they are developing digital and future-ready capabilities, and only 31 per cent say their leadership team has enough AI knowledge to understand the risks and opportunities. It echoes concerns over whether employees actually know how to use AI as companies scale it.
Longer time-to-fill and cautious hiring
Outdated role design is compounding a difficult market. Genc said Adecco's usual time-to-fill of 14 to 28 days has stretched.
"Now we are seeing that timeline expanded. It's reaching 6 to 8 weeks, which is almost double up of what it used to be," she said.
Jobs and Skills Australia's (JSA) Recruitment Experiences and Outlook Survey found 43 per cent of recruiting employers had difficulty hiring in February 2026, and 42 per cent could not fill their vacancies within a month. Globally, the International Labour Organization (ILO) projects unemployment will hold at 4.9 per cent in 2026, though it warns progress on job quality has stalled.
Employers are also hiring more carefully after the post-pandemic boom and the restructuring that followed. "Hiring and letting go of people is a big cost burden," Genc said. Uncertainty about future skills, she added, is pushing organisations toward short-term decisions – a trend reflected in recent data on job vacancies falling again as white-collar roles take the hit.
The squeeze falls hardest on new entrants. The ILO put global youth unemployment at 12.4 per cent in 2025. "They are not exactly as sure as I used to be or my peers used to be when we were entering the workforce," Genc said of today's graduates.
From transactional hiring to workforce planning
Genc says employers getting it right have shifted from filling vacancies to strategic workforce planning: a permanent core for long-term capability, with temporary and contract talent to absorb seasonal peaks and project work.
The same task-based logic is reshaping outsourcing. "It's not a turnkey project we're seeking. But if there is a task that we're looking at and we know that that can be done by AI technology, why not outsource it?" she said. Some clients now hand over only assessment, onboarding or medical and drug screening rather than the whole recruitment process.
Offshoring is less clear-cut, particularly in Australia. "Data sovereignty, data residency is very, very important," Genc said, adding that the right onshore and offshore balance depends on the industry and the task.
Melbourne-headquartered mining and infrastructure company Orica is one employer working this way. Sarah Van Helden, vice president of talent and organisational capability at Orica, said the company hires about 3,000 people each year under a lean, flexible model. It uses market intelligence to inform strategic workforce decisions and weighs options, including offshore hiring, for where people can be based.
What should HR leaders do next?
Adecco's report points to trust as the deciding factor. Its "future-ready" organisations – a minority of respondents – were far more likely to describe their workforce as highly adaptable: 76 per cent, compared with 42 per cent of other organisations. In Australia, 52 per cent of the 250 leaders surveyed said their talent strategy shows AI will create opportunities for workers, well above the 36 per cent global figure.
For Genc, the starting point is practical: map the tasks before rewriting the role. "Is this being translated to job descriptions? Not at the same speed that we see that change," she said.
