The workplace volatility of the past few years is set to continue this year with at least three “troubling trends”, including “a tug of war on skills”, on the horizon, according to entrepreneur-focused title Inc.

Interest in skills-based hiring was strong in 2024, with 73% of recruiting professionals calling it a priority in a LinkedIn survey. “But while HR teams are ready to get on board, hiring managers – who often tend toward safer options when they’re in a crunch – aren’t so sure,” Inc reported.

Without some “change management” within organisations, Laurie Chamberlin, head of recruitment solutions in North America for HR solutions provider LHH, told Inc she expects this problem to persist in 2025.

Taking on someone without directly related experience might seem like a big risk, Chamberlin acknowledged, but by neglecting to consider candidates with non-traditional backgrounds, companies could lose out – “duplicating talent, rather than bringing a new way of thinking”, she said.

Chamberlin recommends that company leaders slow down the hiring process at their organisations and encourage teams to have honest conversations about what is on-the-job trainable and what is not for each position. She also suggests identifying the kinds of “players” who would be most helpful in achieving the goals for each position or project.

“I think it’s on both HR and the hiring managers to really go beyond the surface of why they’re hiring,” Chamberlin says, “and into the ‘What does success look like if it’s the right hire?’.”

The other two trends forecast by Inc are AI CV ‘catfishing’ and rising employee resentment.

To identify AI catfishing, managers should take note if a candidate’s CV has both all the required and all the “ideal” qualifications, uniform sentences with “stiff” language and only “vague achievements,” Inc said, quoting Michelle Volberg, founder and CEO of Twill, a New York City-based talent platform that leverages referrals. Volberg told Inc that over the past six months she’s seen an explosion in seemingly ideal AI-generated CVs.

Managers can also employ some trickery of their own, such as incorporating a random word, like ‘raccoon’ or ‘banana’, somewhere in the job posting, Volberg says. If any candidate’s CV has the word ‘banana’ in it, that could mean AI had a hand in drafting it, she says.

Also in 2025, employee resentment is rising, given the cooling job market in which it’s not as easy for workers to jump ship as it was during the days of ‘the Great Resignation’.

Inc quoted a recent report from Glassdoor, which found that nearly two in three professionals polled felt “stuck” in their current roles. At the same time, ratings for companies on Glassdoor have declined in recent years. It’s a recipe that could lead resentment among employees to ‘boil over’ in 2025, the report stated.

While employers might not be able to control the job market, they can take steps to alleviate built-up resentment, Glassdoor lead economist Daniel Zhao says. First, they can recognise that this is a problem. If they don’t, they could be “caught flat-footed”, he says, if the job market reaccelerates and workers start quitting again.

Second, even if pay rises and promotions aren’t in the budget, leaders and their teams can find ways to make employees happier, Zhao says, “whether that’s allowing for some internal mobility or lateral moves, or just creating projects and opportunities for people to expand their skill set”.

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