The Hiring Intelligence Report: Q3 2025
Has the rise of generative AI changed how we assess people at work?
In our last Hiring Intelligence Report Q2 2025 (HIRe), we zoomed in on hiring trends across key job families, examining how personality trait preferences vary across different functions like management, sales, and customer-facing roles. These insights helped us uncover what truly matters in modern hiring, beyond traditional job descriptions
With the rapid rise of AI tools, led by ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, we wanted to understand how trait requirements have shifted since this inflection point. In this report, we take a closer look at how hiring priorities have evolved from Q3 2022 to Q3 2025, giving us a unique lens into how automation, remote work, and digital collaboration are reshaping the human side of work.
What Employers Value Now: Most Assessed Traits in Q3/2025 vs. Q3/2022
Three years after the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT, the data reveals how hiring priorities have evolved. Comparing the most assessed traits in Q3/2022 and Q3/2025, we see a clear shift toward emotional resilience, structure, and interpersonal ease—suggesting employers are responding to a more complex, dynamic world of work.
Here’s what’s changed:
Key findings
Traits that gained ground since Q3 2022:
Stress Management
Previous position: 9th
Employers increasingly want people who don’t get flustered under pressure, thrive on tight deadlines, and remain effective in high-stress situations. In a world of uncertainty and shifting demands, performance under pressure has become a top priority.
Calm
Previous position: 12th
Closely linked to stress management, staying cool and composed, even when things go wrong, is now a highly valued quality, particularly for leadership and customer-facing roles.
Order
Previous position: 13th
A strong move up the list for those who prefer clearly defined rules and orderly environments. This suggests that structure, predictability, and control are more desirable in increasingly complex organisational settings.
Gregarious
Previous position: 17th
Sociability is making a comeback. The ability to work well with others and enjoy being around people is more relevant in hybrid teams and collaborative work cultures.
Traits that remained valued:
Resilient
Previous position: 1st
The most consistently valued trait, Resilient individuals bounce back from criticism and setbacks without becoming emotional. It’s clear that emotional toughness is a foundational skill in today’s workforce.
Listening
Previous position: 4th
Employers continue to value those who take the time to listen, consider others’ perspectives, and are easy to talk to. It’s a cornerstone of effective collaboration and leadership.
Striving
Previous position: 2nd
Motivated achievers who dislike idleness remain near the top of the list, although other traits (like emotional regulation) have edged slightly ahead in priority.
Optimistic
Previous position: 10th
The ability to accentuate the positive and stay confident about the future continues to be a strong asset, especially in roles involving people leadership or customer engagement.
Traits that lost prominence:
Adaptability
Previous position: 3rd
Once seen as a key differentiator, being able to change behavior to suit different people and situations appears to be less frequently assessed. This could suggest that adaptability is now considered a basic expectation rather than a unique advantage.
Decisive
Previous position: 7th
The trait of making quick decisions and closing issues fast has dropped, perhaps indicating a shift toward more collaborative or data-informed decision-making styles.
Key insights:
The trend is clear: employers are prioritising people who stay calm under pressure, manage stress well, and maintain emotional resilience, while still being able to connect with others and contribute positively to team culture.
As AI and automation take over more routine tasks, it’s the human skills like emotional stability, interpersonal ease, and the ability to perform under pressure, that are gaining ground.
Machines run on code, people run on composure.
While AI accelerates output, humans are being hired for balance. The sharp rise in calm and stress management reflects a new reality: organisations don’t just need speed; they need people who keep the system steady when everything moves faster.
Leadership roles:
From authority to emotional intelligence
In the past, effective leadership was often associated with decisiveness, influence, and relentless drive. But the data tells us that the modern view of a strong manager is shifting—toward someone who listens well, manages stress, and leads with emotional intelligence.
Here’s what we found when comparing trait assessment rankings for managerial roles between Q3/2022 and Q3/2025:
Listening
Previous position: 12th
Now the most assessed trait in managerial hiring, this shift underscores how crucial it has become for leaders to listen attentively, consider others’ perspectives, and be approachable. In flatter organizations and hybrid teams, being heard matters more than ever.
Stress Management
Previous position: 13th
Managers are now expected to stay calm under pressure, thrive under tight deadlines, and lead by example during uncertainty. This trait’s rise reflects the need for steady leadership in a volatile business landscape.
Assertive
Previous position: 16th
While soft skills are in focus, making one’s presence felt and being able to take a stand remains critical—especially when leading with clarity and confidence is needed.
Influential
Previous position: 1st
Persuasiveness and the ability to sway others were once top priorities. While still valued, this drop may reflect a reduced emphasis on top-down influence in favor of collaboration and trust-building.
Striving
Previous position: 3rd
The relentless pursuit of achievement has taken a step back, possibly indicating a more balanced view of leadership, where supporting others is as important as personal ambition.
Resilient
Previous position: 2nd
This drop is surprising, especially as stress management rises. It may suggest that emotional toughness is now viewed as less assessable, or that employers assume resilience as a baseline trait for leadership.
Key leadership insights:
Today’s most in-demand managers are no longer defined primarily by authority, speed, or personal ambition. Instead, they’re expected to listen well, stay composed, inspire confidence, and assert themselves when it matters, a mix of empathy, calm, and strength.
This evolution reflects a broader organisational trend: prioritising trustworthy, emotionally intelligent leaders who can navigate complexity with clarity and care.
Listening is leadership.
Leaping to the number-one spot for managers, Listening has overtaken influence and decisiveness as the hallmark of effective leadership. The best leaders in 2025 aren’t the loudest, they’re the ones who make others feel heard, trusted, and understood.
The latest HIRE Report doesn’t just chart changes in trait rankings. It shows a deeper shift in what employers value as technology, uncertainty, and automation reshape how people work. Recruiters today are operating in a labour market that prizes steadiness over speed, balance over bravado, and human connection over technical precision.
Since AI tools became mainstream, a clear reordering of priorities has taken place. Traits like resilience, calm, stress management, and listening have risen sharply, while decisiveness and adaptability have slipped. On the surface, this looks like a move toward stability. But it also reflects a new understanding of what performance looks like when so much of daily work is supported, automated, or accelerated by machines.
AI hasn’t removed the need for human skill; it has clarified which ones matter most. As algorithms handle data-heavy or procedural tasks, employers are placing higher value on qualities that AI can’t reproduce — empathy, composure, and emotional reliability. Recruiters are now being asked to find candidates who not only perform but also stabilise those around them. In teams where digital systems handle the pace, it’s people’s emotional steadiness that keeps everything functional.
At the same time, these patterns shouldn’t be read as universal truths. The decline in adaptability or decisiveness doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve lost importance. It could mean they’re now assumed as part of the baseline. Most professionals today already operate in conditions of constant change, so flexibility is no longer seen as a differentiator. The rise of calm and order may simply indicate collective fatigue — a cultural desire for balance after years of upheaval.
For recruiters, the lesson is not to hire only for calmness or resilience, but to recognise that the definition of a “strong hire” is shifting. It’s no longer just about output or ambition. It’s about consistency, trust, and the ability to stay grounded when pressure builds. Assessments that capture emotional regulation, listening skills, and interpersonal ease will increasingly separate the good from the great.
This also means the recruiter’s role is changing. The job is less about spotting individual brilliance and more about understanding the chemistry that keeps a team functioning in hybrid, AI-enabled environments.
The human side of hiring has not disappeared in the age of automation; it has become more valuable. The rise of AI has stripped away some noise, revealing the traits that hold workplaces together. Resilience, composure, and empathy aren’t just soft skills — they’re the infrastructure of performance in an environment that no longer stands still.
Recruiters who can read these signals without overreacting will shape stronger, more balanced teams. The data doesn’t hand out final answers. It offers direction. And right now, that direction is clear: the future of hiring belongs to those who understand both technology and temperament — and know how to bring the two together.
