In Part I we argued the center of gravity is shifting from résumés to proof. That raises a practical follow-up: who is already turning proofs into signals recruiters trust—and how will those signals actually travel through Europe’s hiring pipes?
Job-insertion assessments: three models that matter
We can start with three “job-insertion” approaches that meet candidates where hiring happens. Vervoe frames applications as auditions: you do the work; its AI grades and ranks submissions so teams see the best evidence first. TestGorilla favors comparability: short, standardized tests that measure specific abilities quickly. Forage comes earlier in the journey with free, employer-designed simulations that let students try the work and carry a small proof into internships. Different angles, same goal—evidence over claims.
From learning to matching: why Coursera (and OpenAI Learning) sit in the loop
Those assessments plug into a larger loop: learning → credential → match. That’s why Coursera matters to this story—and why OpenAI is hiring from that world. Coursera changed CEOs this year (Greg Hart succeeded Jeff Maggioncalda), and shortly after, former Coursera APAC head Raghav Gupta joined OpenAI to lead education across India/APAC. If OpenAI Learning aims to certify skills at consumer scale, you’d expect exactly this kind of leadership shift.
How proofs actually travel: micro-credentials and EU rails
But proofs don’t move on intent alone—they need formats and rails. The EU’s 2022 Recommendation defines micro-credentials as small, assessed units of learning with common metadata so anyone can read level, workload, outcomes, and issuer. Europe then delivered the plumbing: European Digital Credentials (EDC) for cryptographically signed, portable certificates, and Open Badges 3.0 aligned to W3C Verifiable Credentials so achievements jump between wallets and HR systems without losing meaning. This is why Europe could be the easiest place on earth to make skills travel.
Weak signals: what tells us the stack is ready to scale
You can tell the stack is maturing from the quiet signals. The European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) now lists conformant wallets and runs formal conformance tests—boring, essential steps before recruiters trust what’s inside a credential. Eurostat shows enterprise AI adoption climbing in the EU (from roughly 8% in 2023 to ~13.5% in 2024, with large firms above 40%), which means internal demand for AI-literate roles is real, not just vendor hype. Out in the market, Lightcast tracks generative-AI job postings rising from a novelty in 2021 to roughly 10,000/month by mid-2025, alongside a measurable salary premium for AI-skilled roles. Standards harden; demand grows; wages respond.
How many AI-literate specialists will we need?
All of which leads to the question everyone asks. There’s no single global figure—but Europe gives a durable anchor: 20 million ICT specialists by 2030, up from ~10.3 million in 2024. Multiple official trackers say we’re off-pace; without intervention, projections drift closer to ~12 million, leaving a ~10 million gap—and that’s before counting non-ICT roles that still require AI literacy. Global syntheses (WEF et al.) point to tens of millions of jobs reshaped by AI through 2030; you can argue the deltas, not the slope.
Talantir’s approach: bridging learning, assessment, and hiring
Where Vervoe, TestGorilla, and Forage each excel, we stitch the end-to-end. Like Vervoe, we anchor on doing the work—but we preserve provenance: prompts, code diffs, reasoning traces, and short Looms live with the result so a manager can audit how a candidate got there. Like TestGorilla, we ensure comparability with calibrated rubrics and bias checks aligned to EU AI Act expectations, so two candidates’ scores actually mean the same thing. Like Forage, we keep on-ramps open, but we require transfer: whatever you learned elsewhere (Coursera, OpenAI Academy) is re-proved on a fresh, job-like case before it becomes a signal. We mint each outcome as EDC-ready micro-credentials and support EBSI-conformant wallets so proofs move into ATS/LinkedIn/Europass without logging into us at all. That’s how we connect learning, assessment, and hiring into one auditable path.
Bottom line
Assessments are getting closer to real work; credentials are getting easier to verify; demand for AI skills is rising on both the inside (enterprise adoption) and the outside (postings and pay). The bridge between them—the thin place where promise becomes proof and proof becomes placement—is where Talantir builds.
FULL REPORT OF TALANTIR TEAM HERE