How will organizations attract and develop the AI-native workforce they’ll need tomorrow when entry-level roles are shrinking today? Here’s the future-ready, early talent strategy you need.
Fewer opportunities for early talent
The job marketplace has contracted significantly for those with less than five years of professional experience. Research published by SAP shows that openings in the 10 most common entry-level job titles declined by 35% in just one year, from 2024 to 2025.*
Budget constraints, hiring freezes, and uncertainty around the ROI of early talent as AI increasingly takes on routine and manual tasks are among the reasons cited by HR leaders today.
Applications skyrocket
AI is also having a major impact on the recruitment process. With such limited opportunities available, more than half of early talent candidates use AI to help them land a job—a process that now takes eight months on average and involves more than 300 job applications.*
HR is feeling the pressure managing the candidate pipeline, with the number of applicants per early talent job opening doubling since 2021. A high volume of candidates are submitting AI-generated résumés and applications, and it’s becoming much harder to detect high-fidelity signals around skills, fit, and potential.
HR can strategically select and develop the workforce of tomorrow
It’s a painful scenario for everyone involved. Fragile and unsustainable. And the implications will be profound for enterprises that don’t act quickly.
HR leaders voice concerns
Playing out the current trajectory to its natural conclusion, what happens when all the fresh talent eventually dries up? Already, HR leaders are alarmed by this risk. “Ultimately, if we stop investing in early talent, we will wind up eliminating our talent pipeline,” one global head of early talent programs at a high-tech organization told researchers.*
A senior HR director at a high-tech organization commented: “If we continue down this path and don’t provide a way for early talent to get started, it’s going to lead to massive skill shortages in the future.”
Widespread reductions in early talent hiring will lead to skills gaps that will prove expensive to remedy. Organizations will struggle to build company capabilities, retain knowledge, and develop future leaders.
But by far the most common concern from leaders was around not seeing early talent as AI-native. If the AI capabilities of this cohort are overlooked, companies may miss out on a key opportunity to scale AI innovation and adoption across the business.
What’s the answer?
Today, there’s an opportunity for HR leaders to be more intentional and strategic, to reimagine their approach to early talent from the ground up. With the right early talent strategy, organizations can gain a competitive advantage.
Here are three steps to consider.
Step 1: Rethink entry-level roles
Traditionally, junior employees have mainly been given routine, repetitive tasks. Combined with frustratingly slow career progression, the result is eroding morale and commitment.
This approach must evolve. The nature of work is changing rapidly, and early talent no longer need to take on those routine tasks. These employees need the opportunity to develop at speed and to be supported in performing work that meaningfully addresses business challenges.
HR has the chance to reshape entry-level positions, to provide support, guidance, and tools to enable junior staff to contribute in more impactful ways. This may involve them working with proper guidance to support more critical projects, interacting with customers, and even owning some tasks end to end.
This approach not only enables early talent to contribute more positively to the business at an earlier stage, but when combined with clear goals, regular feedback loops, and occasional coaching, it also fosters greater engagement and commitment.
Step 2: Support your strategy with technology
Hiring and developing early talent have become more complex—from deciphering AI-generated applications, to redesigning roles and meeting their aspirations in a fast-changing business context. And with the nature of early talent work shifting, leaders need tools to help understand the new capabilities that will predict long-term success and demonstrate the value of early talent initiatives.
Here’s where technology can help. During the hiring process, technology can help employers see beyond the noise of AI applications and rediscover the meaningful signals they need to create candidate shortlists and strengthen hiring decisions. Meanwhile, technology can also help to maintain engagement with other high-potential candidates who applied—for when the next opportunities arise.
Once early talent begin work, today’s technology can help you track their participation in early talent programs and progression towards their goals. It also helps facilitate individualized learning opportunities and demonstrate the ROI of your early talent investments. For research-based recommendations on the role of technology in early talent selection and development, check out this quick guide.
Step 3: Reframe the business case for early talent
As the nature of early talent work is changing alongside the technology used to support them, HR leaders agree that the old business case for early talent investments needs to be reimagined. Many organizations are focused on mitigating critical skill gaps and engaging in large-scale AI transformations. While early talent lack experience, they are eager to engage in continuous learning and understand how to work effectively alongside AI.
Research also reveals that—as they work alongside modern tools and technologies—early talent can contribute to high-value, meaningful work much faster than in the past.
A modern early talent business case is one that involves focusing on faster time to meaningful work, reducing critical skill gaps, and leveraging the AI-native capabilities of today’s entry-level workers.
Build your early talent strategy
Will HR leaders watch on as a generation of AI-savvy talent remains underused, or act now and build the skills pipelines necessary for a future-ready workforce?
Get further insights on this topic by reading our report, “Early talent in peril: How HR can strategically select and develop the workforce of tomorrow.” Visit our research library to stay tuned for when phase two of this research gets published later this year.
Dr. Autumn D. Krauss is chief scientist at SAP SuccessFactors.
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*Early talent in peril: How HR can strategically select and develop the workforce of tomorrow, SAP, 2026.
