AI is changing the type of worker companies say they want to hire

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Employers spooked by artificial intelligence are more interested in locking down experienced workers — and that comes at the expense of new graduates.

According to a Western Governors University survey of more than 3,000 employers on how AI is reshaping their hiring practices, 76% of employers report a shift in the types of candidates they seek to hire because of AI. Additionally, 38% of employers said they have reduced the number of entry-level employees they are hiring due to the spread of AI tools.

The most in-demand category of worker is a mid-level worker with five or more years of experience, followed by a junior-level worker with two to three years of experience. After that are senior-level workers with 10 or more years of experience.

The least in-demand workers are those with no experience and, even less so, executive-level workers with 15 or more years of experience.

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2026/01/29/ai-tools-jobs-hiring-entry-level-experience.html

They want someone with experience who'll work for less.

[OC375]

1. 15 years executive?

Who knew? Not a lot of Gen X, that's for sure. We've been sitting as senior tech specialists/SME's for 10 of the last 25 years now., doing the "tow the line/come early/stay late" our parents told us was the key to their success.

There are no "Manager/Exec" positions to be had in many/most Tech fields anymore, and haven't been since the mid 2010's. Most HR departments ran out of defined and numbered hierarchal positions to lend the appearance of career progression, long ago. Lots of people called Business Analyst III, SysAdmin III, Senior Project Engineers out there, who now just want to hold on like grim death to their Business Analyst III, SysAdmin III, Senior Project Engineer jobs for another decade and a half. We keep our notes, IP and original thoughts and works on personal flash drives (not Sharepoint) because "Fuck em.". We know some Friday before are 67 the bad news is coming.

Remember, many of us don't need home down payments so much as we just want to maintain that little corner we beat down for ourselves, so we can eventually get to those corp 401k's that were supposed to let everyone retire and live on Skyrizzi and Viagra forever, while restoring classic cars and traveling.

As we attempt to quiesce our own careers, we are absolutely going to be gunning for and bogarting jobs that X/Y/Z should be competing with just themselves for.

It's a horrible system.

[CelticCrow]

2. Amen brother!

These days many of those jobs are being sent to Global Capability Centers over in India now, the future is bleak.