Skills-based hiring is winning, and so is CV inflation

Recruiting has become the fastest-adopting function for AI in HR, with utilisation around 81 percent across HR software categories, ahead of learning, payroll and workforce planning. The reason is simple: AI in recruitment shows a measurable return faster than anywhere else in the HR stack.

At the same time, skills-based hiring has become the dominant approach. Employers screen for demonstrated capability rather than qualifications and years served, which widens the candidate pool and is particularly useful in a market like Uganda where formal credentials do not always track real ability.

The two trends collide in a problem the industry has started calling skillfishing: candidates overstating capability because AI makes a polished, keyword-perfect application almost free to produce. A CV that reads perfectly against your job description tells you far less than it did three years ago.

The response is not to slow hiring down. It is to move verification earlier in the funnel. Practical work sample tasks at shortlist rather than final stage. Structured interviews scored against defined criteria rather than impressions. Aptitude tests and assessment centres where the role warrants the cost. Referee checks conducted properly, by telephone, with specific questions.

What separates employers who get this right is a process that produces evidence rather than impressions: applications graded against written criteria, structured interviews at two levels, aptitude testing where the role justifies the cost, and referee checks conducted by telephone with specific questions. A ranked shortlist built that way is defensible; one built on CV quality alone increasingly is not.

A closing note on AI in your own hiring process. Several jurisdictions now restrict how employers may use AI in hiring and dismissal decisions, and the direction of travel is towards more regulation, not less. If you deploy a screening tool, keep a human decision-maker accountable, document why candidates were rejected, and be able to explain the logic. That is good practice regardless of what the law in your market currently requires.