For WorldatWork Members
- Get Hands-On to Build Your HR Skill Set in the Back Half of 2026, Workspan Daily Plus+ article
- The AI Fluency Roadmap: Moving You From End-User to Strategist, Workspan Daily Plus+ article
- How to Leverage Skills Testing for Total Rewards Success, Workspan Daily Plus+ article
- Two TR Leaders Provide a Personal Take on Their 2026 Priorities, Workspan Daily Plus+ article
- 2026 Priorities of Total Rewards Leaders, research
- Employees’ Reward Priorities Evolve. WorldatWork and HR Must, Too. Workspan Magazine article
For Everyone
- What Are the Most Important HR Skills for 2027? Workspan Daily article
- Can You Guess the Top 10 Rising Skills for HR Professionals? Workspan Daily article
- What Are the Most Draft-Worthy Total Rewards Skills? Workspan Daily article
- What Are the Top Hard Skills and Soft Skills for Workers in 2026? Workspan Daily article
- Alignment, Market Competitiveness Are TR Leaders’ Top 2026 Priorities, Workspan Daily article
- HR’s AI ‘Future’ Is Now; WorldatWork Can Help You Make the Most of It, Workspan Daily article
- WorldatWork Courses, education
“The trend we’re witnessing is less that entry-level employees aren’t prepared, but that they’re not necessarily getting a chance to prepare appropriately.”
— Amy Dufrane, CEO, HR Certification Institute
The human resources (HR) world today is not a zero-entry pool — there’s often little opportunity for new HR employees to test the waters before being thrown into the deep end with complex demands.
A study by search firm HR Recruit found around 80% of job applicants for HR roles have no experience advising on a formal employee complaint or disciplinary matter. And with artificial intelligence (AI) tools taking administrative or routine tasks off early career HR employees’ hands, those workers are now being charged with navigating more challenging tasks much earlier in their careers.
But learning on the job isn’t a given. Only 27% of HR professionals said their hiring philosophy is to hire smart people and train them, compared to 39% who prefer to hire individuals who already have experience in the industry, according to the 2026 State of HR report from the HR Certification Institute (HRCI). Just 2% hire based on a candidate’s strong educational background.
“The trend we’re witnessing is less that entry-level employees aren’t prepared, but that they’re not necessarily getting a chance to prepare appropriately,” said HRCI CEO Amy Dufrane. “The entry-level roles where people used to learn by doing are getting harder to find. This is particularly relevant to HR, because so many of us ‘fall into’ this field through nontraditional paths.”
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Soft Skills Are Struggling
Under-preparedness among early career workers extends further than HR.
Forty-seven percent of leaders described entry-level workers as only “somewhat” prepared for their roles, with another 29% saying they’re “hardly” prepared, according to 2025 research from tech training and recruiting company General Assembly. The portion of U.S. leaders describing junior employees as “very” or “completely” prepared was less than half of the share of U.K. leaders saying the same.
When asked why the gap exists, 56% of leaders and 42% of employees (spanning all generations) pointed to under-developed soft skills.
That sentiment is carrying into 2027, with 83% of learning and development leaders saying human skills are increasingly valued at their organizations, according to the General Assembly research. And, 41% noted that one of the biggest challenges they’ll face in the coming year is ensuring employees retain or build critical thinking, communication or other soft skills — despite AI usage.
The Challenge and Opportunity for HR
These gaps translate to HR in significant ways.
“Many of the entry-level tasks employees would typically learn from on the job have been automated, meaning junior employees are expected to add strategic value much earlier than in the past,” said Michaela Clark, General Assembly’s vice president of product and learning. “They are missing opportunities to build the judgment and workflow expertise by ‘doing’ that senior employees had before AI. For entry-level HR employees, that might mean that AI is now answering employees’ policy questions, and they are dealing with more complex, sensitive questions right off the bat.”
Technology itself plays into the gaps. While 71% of HR pros told HRCI they already use AI regularly, the area they feel least prepared to handle is implementing new HR technologies, cited by 52%.
The merging of AI and human skills presents a particularly distinct challenge — and opportunity — for HR.
“HR is uniquely positioned to champion empathetic leadership and the inclusion of human skills in AI training, while also remaining practical about using data to identify skills gaps, measure the ROI of training and plan for future workforce needs,” Clark said.
Editor’s Note: Additional Content
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