The career stories enterprise IT pros actually read.
Volume 343, Issue 2 · 10 articles
Fiverr's CTO argues AI has become a talent issue, so firms should prize human judgment and build workforce models around AI-native skills.
Fiverr CTO Yossi Levin writes that AI tools are moving faster than the governance, workflows, training and skills around them, so the skills gap is now about human capability rather than access, and Fiverr has seen searches for AI automation rise 29% since November 2025.
Because LLMs reproduce existing patterns, widespread use produces generic output, and only human judgment, taste and context make work stand out.
He points to new roles such as AI directors, who combine creative judgment with technical fluency.
He urges businesses to rethink workforce models around AI-native talent rather than treating AI as a software rollout.
A former QA manager turned ML eval engineer shares tested, mostly free courses for moving from software QA into AI testing.
Lilia Urmazova, who spent 20 years in QA before becoming a senior ML evaluation engineer, distinguishes three paths: traditional QA using AI tools, AI QA engineers who test AI features in standard apps, and ML evaluation engineers who test AI-native applications.
She recommends learning Python, the lingua franca of ML, and building a real project with Claude Code in learning mode rather than vibe coding.
Her resource list includes a Coursera generative AI testing course, free LLM evaluation guides and courses, Anthropic Academy courses on Claude, Claude Code, subagents and the Claude API, and resources for more advanced evaluation work.
U.S. visa restrictions, including PERM suspensions for Microsoft and major IT services firms, threaten the pipeline of foreign AI talent.
The Trump administration has raised H-1B fees, introduced a wage-weighted lottery and, on Oct. 8, suspended Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini from the PERM labor certification process.
PERM is the first step in most employer-sponsored green cards, though the suspension does not revoke H-1B status, and Microsoft disputed the claim that it laid off about as many U.S. workers as it obtained H-1B visas.
Georgetown's CSET found that 70% of leading U.S. AI researchers from 2010 to 2021 were foreign-born or foreign-educated.
The article examines what tighter rules mean for employers competing for AI skills.
A designated pacer helps leaders match their operating speed to the moment; the authors explain warning signs and how to find one.
Borrowing from elite runners who use pacers, the authors argue that moving at the right speed is as important for leaders as choosing the right direction.
Survey research suggests a designated pacer, someone who helps match operational speed to the challenge, plays an essential role for leaders and teams.
The pacer slows a leader who is going too fast, speeds up one who is too slow and reduces the mental load of monitoring pace.
The article describes warning signs that a leader needs a pacer and how to find and use one.
The Center for AI Safety's Wage Loss Dashboard counts about 117,000 AI-attributed job cuts in 2026 and $8.5 billion in lost wages.
The Center for AI Safety's Wage Loss Dashboard maps layoffs explicitly attributed to AI since January 2026 and has now been updated with September data.
It counts just over 117,000 AI-related job cuts nationally and estimates $8.5 billion in annual wage losses by multiplying cuts by average salaries.
Nationally that works out to about $25 per person per year, but California, with more than 27,000 attributed cuts, reaches $56.
ZDNET notes that much AI job fear is amplified by labs and CEOs, though some cuts are clearly linked to AI.
Cutting junior roles to bank AI productivity gains leaves no pipeline once the new pace becomes the baseline.
After watching an FP&A analyst cut a two-hour variance report to two minutes with AI, the author notes that leaders immediately question junior hiring.
Stanford research shows falling employment for 22- to 25-year-olds in AI-exposed jobs where AI automates tasks, but Revelio Labs and Ramp data on 22,000 US firms found the heaviest AI adopters grew white-collar headcount 10.2% and entry-level roles 12%.
The difference, the author argues, is team design.
Productivity gains become the new baseline within a year or two, and companies that cut their junior layer will have nobody trained to step up, so roles and development paths should be redesigned instead.
Employ's Recruiter Nation report finds AI eases recruiter workload but makes candidates look identical and invites falsification.
Employ's 2026 Recruiter Nation Report found that 74% of HR decision-makers saw more hiring activity this year, and recruiter stress fell for the second year thanks to better AI tools.
But one-click applications have flooded recruiters with similar-looking candidates, which CEO Jerry Jao says makes the job harder.
Job seekers use AI to build and refine applications and, in some cases, to falsify them.
The report suggests AI in hiring requires closer human scrutiny and deeper analysis of candidates.
Seven precautions CHROs should require before and after rolling out recruitment chatbots, from vendor vetting to bias checks.
Recruitment chatbots can schedule interviews and answer candidate questions, but errors such as sending an offer to the wrong person or leaking PII can lead to lawsuits or fines.
The article advises vetting vendors, checking references and confirming integration with the existing ATS before purchase, and HR teams should understand how the bot gathers and analyzes data so they can correct inaccurate responses.
Candidates should know when they are talking to a bot, and the bot must not reveal confidential items like interview questions or pay ranges.
CHROs should also keep checking that the chatbot is not using demographic data in ways that discriminate.
CyberSN counts 235,786 US cybersecurity job postings in January to September 2026, the lowest in four years.
CyberSN tracked 235,786 US cybersecurity job postings from January through September 2026, the lowest for those months in four years of data.
Postings fell 26.4% from 2025, though the gap against 2024 is about 4%, since 2025 was unusually strong, and CISO listings fell 38.9% from 2025's record.
Demand has drifted toward governance, risk and compliance roles, while hands-on defense roles still lead but are shrinking in share.
The article notes that the data tracks postings rather than hires and has implications for CISOs planning 2027 headcount.
TestGorilla finds most recruiters spend an hour or more manually verifying each candidate's credentials despite AI sourcing.
More than two in three recruiters told TestGorilla they spend an hour or more checking a candidate's credentials, and 30% spend two hours or more.
CEO Wouter Durville says recruiters got a better search engine and a worse index, since reach is nearly free but a defensible shortlist is not.
According to Ashby, applications per hire have tripled since 2021, averaging around 300 per role.
The American Staffing Association found AI did free up time, with recruiter call time reaching a record 286 minutes a week.