Strategies for Overcoming the AI Talent Shortage
Published Jul 30
The increasing reliance on AI across industries has led to a significant talent shortage. More than 70% of companies are struggling to find professionals with the right AI skills, especially in creative fields like graphic design. Superside's Employer Marketing Manager Eden Laboda shares strategies for bridging the divide and finding the AI design talent you need.
The AI talent shortage is a pressing issue impacting industries worldwide. A recent study revealed that over 70% of companies struggle to find AI talent, highlighting a significant AI skills gap in the workforce. While demand for skilled AI professionals grows, the talent pool isn’t keeping pace. Finding and attracting AI-skilled talent has become increasingly challenging, calling for innovative approaches to talent acquisition. In this article, I’ll share Superside’s approach and walk through some key aspects of navigating the search for AI talent.
Superside’s Unique Position Solving the AI Talent Shortage
At Superside, we recognize that AI lets us stay at the cutting edge of technology, ensuring we remain competitive and deliver exceptional value to our customers. By integrating AI into our creative workforce, we continue to build our differentiation.
We do so through our robust AI upskilling program, designed to enhance our team's AI skills and keep us ahead in the AI hiring landscape, and through an innovative approach to talent acquisition to reinforce our global creative all-star team.
How to Attract AI Talent Effectively
In a highly competitive market, where AI talent demand is more than what exists, attracting AI talent requires clearly communicating what sets your company apart. This comes from building a culture and environment that provides an unmatched talent value proposition.
Build the right work environment
People have specific expectations when considering potential employers. They seek opportunities for growth and a supportive company culture. For AI talent, they are looking to continue building their AI skills, working on projects that will enable them to progress and accelerate their career.
At Superside, we address these expectations by creating a thriving remote work environment and prioritizing career development. We foster an environment that encourages continuous skill development and career progression. Our initiatives include mentorship programs, training sessions, access to cutting-edge AI tools, and professional development opportunities. By supporting long-term career growth, we ensure that our AI candidates remain engaged and motivated once hired.
Develop and adapt your EVP
A strong Employer Value Proposition (EVP) is crucial in attracting AI talent. Your people and candidates need to quickly understand and see the value you provide as an employer in return for their skills and experience.
We continuously update and refine our EVP as our company furthers its position with AI (link to marketing page) and attracts ambitious candidates who share our values and vision. We emphasize career and professional development, as well as innovation opportunities. Showcasing our AI upskilling program and our supportive and inclusive culture, we ensure that candidates see Superside as a place where they can continue to build and grow their AI career while making a significant impact.
Where to Start When There's an AI Talent Shortage
Sourcing effectively, engaging with candidates and providing stellar hiring experiences are key to recruiting any type of talent. Hiring AI talent requires creativity and spending time understanding the market in depth while keeping a flexible idea of what your ideal profile is.
Identify the AI skills your business needs
Before starting recruitment, it's crucial to understand how your company and its team use AI. Whether you're building robust products, enhancing customer experience, analyzing large datasets, or improving decision-making, your goals must guide the hiring process, not the other way around. You also need to assess the budget available to invest in AI technologies and talent, as this will significantly impact who you can attract.
Not doing so will risk hiring talent misaligned with your objectives, underutilizing skills, and wasting resources.
At Superside, we regularly assess our organizational needs, identifying the conceptual and technical skills necessary for our AI-Enhanced Creative projects. This allows us to build extensive, comprehensive, and often unique job descriptions. For example, we've developed roles like Creative Technologist and AI Creatives, each requiring a unique blend of skills. (See our current openings.)
How to Be Market Savvy When Sourcing AI Talent
Sourcing AI talent is one of the most challenging aspects of hiring. While LinkedIn remains a key platform for talent acquisition, users often update their profiles only when actively job hunting. Therefore, although focusing on recently updated profiles is a good start, it’s not enough.
There's definitely an AI talent shortage, but it could be perceived as worse because people are not advertising their AI skills. People need to know that companies are looking for them.
Market research is essential to understand where the AI-trained professionals are. This includes identifying the AI landscape and its key players, such as schools with AI programs, companies building AI tools or developing AI teams and agencies offering AI consultancy. Building these market resources allows you to understand where AI talent exists. Referrals are also valuable, especially from current AI experts within your team.
Keep hiring processes flexible
Flexibility is crucial in successfully navigating the rapidly evolving AI landscape. As AI has only recently become mainstream, there's a noticeable gap between technology advancement and the available talent proficient in these technologies.
At Superside, our Talent Acquisition Team has focused on creating a highly flexible recruitment process. Our methods for testing AI-related skills have evolved and adapted as the number of upskilled candidates has increased.
When we started hiring [AI profiles] about two years ago, we prioritized potential and adaptability over traditional hard AI skills, testing for curiosity and cognitive abilities related to using new tools. As technology has progressed, we've incorporated more tasks to assess experience and knowledge.
This continuous adaptation of our interviews and assessments to the market's realities has been a game changer for us, ensuring we remain competitive and effective in our hiring efforts.
Evaluate candidates through a combination of interviews and practical assessments
There are many ways to leverage AI. The evaluation should be less about finding the 'right' answer and more about understanding how candidates use AI to solve problems and think through challenges.
At Superside, we aim to gauge their interest and experience in AI, focusing on their overall perspective and feelings toward the technology. Since AI is revolutionizing creative processes, we look for candidates who are comfortable with AI and enthusiastic about its potential. Questions like, "How do you leverage AI in your daily work?" help us determine if they have integrated AI tools into their creative process and whether their approach has evolved as a result.
We seek to understand each candidate's purpose and goals in using AI and what they are trying to achieve.
Engage with candidates all along the hiring process
Engaging candidates during the hiring process is crucial to keeping them excited about joining your company. Like any hiring, the candidate also checks if the company they’re applying for is the right fit for them. You need them to continue believing it by taking the time to answer questions and showcasing the environment they will be joining.
At Superside, we emphasize the exciting projects our team is working on, showcasing cutting-edge AI initiatives that push the boundaries of technology and creativity. We highlight our customers, demonstrating the reach of our work. Additionally, we introduce candidates to our top talent, underscoring the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from industry-leading experts. We also emphasize our commitment to continuous learning, offering numerous opportunities for professional development, including workshops, mentorship programs, and access to the latest AI research and tools.
Adapting to the Future
Addressing the AI talent shortage requires a proactive and adaptable approach. A key takeaway from our hiring process is flexibility. We can rapidly adjust our strategies to stay ahead in the AI talent market by including a feedback loop and continuously improving our process.
In turn, by building a strong AI-powered workforce, we further empower our customers who rely on Superside and our global network of talent to act as an extension of their teams.
As Superside's Employer Marketing Manager, Eden Laboda combines her digital marketing background and her passion for organizational culture to help attract the top 1% of global talent. Connect with Eden on LinkedIn and learn more about Careers at Superside.
