There’s a growing professional identity crisis amongst workers looking for a change. New data from our career development platform, Phai, revealed that out of 1,000 users, 63% were looking for advice on completely changing direction in their careers. That’s a huge number of people who don’t know where they fit in the new world of work. And we’re not talking about just graduates or first-time job seekers; 43% of them are mid-career or beyond.
Unsure where to turn to next, these individuals need clear direction and a fair process to help them into their next role. But that isn’t always the case, and it’s having a drastic impact on career development across the board.
Conventional hiring has fallen into a trap as the gap between what organisations say they value and what their processes actually surface continues to widen. Employers want clear demonstration of strong communication, adaptability and problem-solving, but when formal qualifications are used as the primary filter for sifting through candidates, too much emphasis is placed on the qualities that have nothing to do with the role.
Today, the people most harmed by this gap are those whose careers haven’t followed a straight line, whether due to financial constraints, disrupted education or the decision to turn in a different direction. These are precisely the people most in need of genuinely insightful career guidance.
The rise of AI in recruitment
Like in so many industries, eyes have quickly landed on AI as a potential solution as its presence has risen in the recruitment space. But its deployment cannot be rushed or without thought, as people’s careers and the success of a business depend on it.
Simply using AI to filter candidates via traditional means doesn’t help the situation; it only scales the problem in a dangerous way. If businesses train their AI tools on limited or third-party data, the same data recruitment teams have based hiring decisions on before, then the true value of potential candidates remains unsurfaced. As this technology has advanced and outputs have become quicker, more polished and confident, there’s a greater risk of employers being lulled into a false sense of reassurance. Career trajectories shape identity, financial security and long-term wellbeing. When an AI system steers employers toward a narrow range of options, or fails to surface possibilities because they don’t match patterns in its training data, no one benefits – not the business, and definitely not the individuals looking to find their place in today’s world of work.
Where traditional recruitment processes remain largely unstructured, AI changes that dynamic, but only when it is built with the right foundations. And at the same time, we cannot afford to remove human judgment from the hiring and training space. The most effective processes combine structured technology with human decision-making. Technology brings consistency and scale to how information is gathered and analysed, while experienced recruiters interpret that information in the context of individual circumstances, aspirations and the nuances that data alone cannot capture.
How AI can open doors for everyone
Explainability and ethically sourced data matter more in people-based decisions than anywhere else. When trained properly, an AI tool could recognise the transferable skills that would previously have been overlooked due to a lack of direct experience. Opting for science-backed AI systems means employers can uncover patterns and connections that help grow teams that are both more diverse and capable. That means reducing unnecessary qualification requirements, assessing for skills and potential rather than pedigree, and creating structured, bias-aware processes that give every candidate a fair hearing.
Ethical AI-powered tools can give candidates a voice through a structured interviews to help identify those individuals who bring valuable insights, regardless of who they are and their background. When built responsibly, science-backed AI systems can uncover patterns and connections human recruiters are likely to miss. These insights can lead to teams that are both more diverse and more capable of generating new ideas.
Too many workers are still left asking the question of ‘where do I belong’ without a clear pathway forward. If AI-powered career tools can articulate what good looks like, show how someone can grow into a new direction and surface the potential that conventional credentials never captured, they turn that uncertainty into genuine opportunity. That means steering clear of using AI for simply screening portfolios and opting for the approach that genuinely uncovers what someone could do and the growth they could achieve.
The technology to do this well exists, so employers now need the commitment to use it responsibly, with the rigour and transparency that decisions about people’s lives and livelihoods rightly deserve. Humans aren’t exactly without bias when it comes to assessing potential, which is precisely why getting AI right in this space matters so much. We need to move beyond the debate of whether AI has a role in career development, because it absolutely does. Now it’s about striking that balance between the scaling power of AI in a space that relies so heavily on human judgment.
