For most of the last decade, hiring early-career talent meant reading CVs and ranking degrees. That's quietly stopped being the default. In NACE's Job Outlook 2026, 70% of employers say they use skills-based hiring for entry-level roles — up from 65% the year before — and most of them apply it at least half the time, usually at the screening and interview stages.

It's a sensible shift. When you hire on demonstrated skills rather than the prestige of a credential, the early signs are good: research consistently points to higher retention and faster time-to-productivity, because the person was matched to what the work actually needs. For a graduate without years of experience, that's the opening — what you can do starts to count as much as where you studied.

There's a catch, though, and it's worth being honest about it.

A CV still can't prove a skill

Skills-based hiring only works if the skills are real. And the document at the centre of the process — the CV — was never designed to prove anything. It lists claims. "Python." "Teamwork." "Led a project." A recruiter reading it has no way to tell a strong claim from an optimistic one without a call, a test, or a take-home — all of which cost time, which is exactly why so much early-career talent never gets a proper look.

So there's a gap between the way companies want to hire and the evidence they actually have to work with. NACE found something telling alongside the adoption numbers: students don't fully understand skills-based hiring yet. Many are still optimising the old artefact — a tidier CV — for a process that has moved on.

The model increasingly runs in reverse

Here's the part that changes how it feels to look for work. When skills are verifiable, the search can run the other way. Instead of you sending a hundred applications into the dark, a company describes the skills a role needs, and the people who can demonstrably do the work surface — including ones who never applied.

That's what a recruiter match is. It isn't a job you applied to; it's a company that was searching for talent and found you, because your profile carried evidence a search could read. The first time it happens it can feel strange — you didn't do anything that day — but it's the natural result of having proof instead of claims.

On InTransparency the evidence comes from your real work. You upload projects — code, a thesis, design files, an internship — and the skills are extracted from the artefacts themselves, not from a list you typed. An internship supervisor's evaluation or a professor's endorsement can add a human stamp on top. The result is a profile a company can trust enough to reach out first.

What this means in Italy right now

Two things are moving at once. The entry-level market has been tight, and at the same time the rules around hiring are getting more transparent: the EU Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970), in force in Italy from June 2026, means job offers have to state a salary range and the applicable collective agreement, and candidates can't be asked what they currently earn. The direction of travel is the same on both sides — toward evidence and toward transparency. A market that hires on proven skills and states what it pays is a fairer one to enter than the one most graduates were taught to expect.

What to do about it

You don't need a perfect CV. You need proof.

Put your real projects on your profile, and let the skills be read from the work — that's the part a search can find.
Finish your About You so the picture is complete, not just technical.
Get a project verified, or complete an internship that's evaluated — verified evidence is what makes a company reach out before you've applied.

Skills-based hiring rewards people who can show, not just tell. The good news is that if you've done real work, you already have the material. The job now is to make it legible — so that when a company goes looking for exactly what you can do, you're who they find.

Sources: NACE — Nearly two-thirds of employers use skills-based hiring for entry-level, NACE — Skills-based hiring grows, but students don't fully understand it.