Hiring the right candidate means cutting through the CV clutter

In today’s hiring landscape, one thing is clear: the traditional CV no longer tells the full story. This is especially true for students and early-career professionals entering the workforce in the UAE For many younger jobseekers, the biggest challenge isn’t a lack of skills or ambition — it’s being seen. A one-page résumé often fails to capture their real strengths, especially soft skills like leadership, creativity, problem-solving, or adaptability. These are the qualities employers say they value most — yet they remain the hardest to evaluate with conventional tools.

From my experience working with universities and observing early pilot programs in the region, I’ve seen this gap firsthand. Students who perform exceptionally well in collaborative tasks or simulated problem-solving scenarios are often overlooked during traditional hiring processes — simply because they don’t have the ‘right’ titles or experience to list on a CV.

At the same time, companies across industries are struggling to find and retain talent. Many HR teams are overwhelmed by the volume of applications — a single job post can attract more than 1,000 CVs — and rely heavily on AI-based filters or keyword-matching systems.

While these methods help manage scale, they can’t assess human potential in a meaningful way. They are designed to screen, not to understand.

The disconnect between how young people develop and how companies evaluate has become more visible in recent years. Universities are starting to recognize that academic performance alone is no longer a strong predictor of job readiness. Career centers, too, are exploring ways to help students demonstrate their soft skills and growth potential beyond transcripts and grades.

Some of these efforts involve the use of interactive assessments — such as team-based challenges, behavioral simulations, or game-like scenarios that reflect real workplace situations. These tools allow students to show how they think, make decisions, collaborate, and adapt — qualities that are difficult to measure with a form or an interview alone.

What makes these approaches promising is that they can benefit both sides: students gain insights into their own capabilities and areas for development, while companies receive more dynamic data to inform hiring decisions. In a job market where timing, culture fit, and communication matter just as much as qualifications, this kind of visibility can make all the difference.

This isn’t just a student issue.

The broader hiring system — especially at the entry level — needs to evolve. When potential is invisible, opportunities are missed. When hiring becomes purely transactional, long-term retention suffers. And when companies rely too heavily on surface-level filters, they risk overlooking the very talent they’re trying to attract.

There’s a growing need for scalable tools that can offer a fuller view of a person — not just their past achievements, but their mindset, motivation, and capacity to grow. Traditionally, this kind of insight required time-intensive interviews, tests, or one-on-one evaluations with psychologists or coaches — solutions that don’t scale easily.

But with the right frameworks and technologies, we now have the opportunity to rethink how we identify, nurture, and match talent.

A CV may still have its place, but it should no longer be the only lens through which we view potential.

If we’re serious about preparing the next generation for the future of work, we need to start hiring for what people can do — not just for what they’ve already done.