Introduction: Why Entry-Level Hiring Feels Broken
For many graduates hoping to land their first Project Manager role in the UK, the hiring process feels like a maze. One stat captures the challenge: in 2023, graduates faced an average of 49 applications per vacancy—a 286% increase year-on-year (Tribepad). For entry-level candidates, this means long waits, limited feedback, and heavy competition.
Employers, on the other hand, face a flood of CVs with little clarity on who can actually deliver. The result is a system that frustrates both sides: students send applications into the void, while recruiters struggle to spot the signal in the noise.
When we look specifically at Project Manager jobs, the issue becomes even sharper. PM roles sit at the intersection of coordination, planning, and stakeholder management. These skills are hard to capture on a CV and even harder to validate in a 20-minute interview.
This is where Talantir’s perspective comes in: what if we evaluated real work, not promises?
Current Frictions in Early-Career Hiring
1. Application Volume
Employers are overwhelmed. With nearly 50 candidates competing for every entry-level position, application review often becomes mechanical. Promising candidates can be overlooked simply because their CV didn’t contain the right keywords.
Students, meanwhile, send out application after application, with rejection often arriving without explanation—or not at all. This cycle discourages young professionals before their careers even begin.
2. Time to Hire
The average time to hire in the UK is 4.9 weeks from application to offer (StandOut CV). For a graduate waiting for that first chance, every week matters. Delays sap momentum, extend financial uncertainty, and push skilled candidates to accept other offers. Employers also lose out: projects can’t wait for drawn-out hiring cycles.
3. Skills Mismatch
Employers often complain of a gap between what graduates can do and what roles demand. A recent CIPD Labour Market Outlook found that more than half of UK employers report difficulties finding applicants with the right skills (CIPD). For Project Manager roles, where both soft skills (communication, leadership) and technical familiarity (agile tools, reporting systems) matter, this mismatch becomes acute.
4. Poor Signal Quality
CVs and cover letters are weak signals. They say little about how someone approaches real-world tasks, solves problems, or collaborates under pressure. Interviews, especially for entry-level roles, often reward confidence over competence. Employers risk hiring candidates who interview well rather than those who can deliver.
5. Assessment Drift
Even when employers adopt assessments, these often drift into artificial exercises: abstract tests, logic puzzles, or multiple-choice questions. While they may measure general aptitude, they rarely reflect the daily challenges of a Project Manager role. The result? Candidates feel misjudged, and employers don’t gain meaningful insights.
Why Project Manager Roles Are Hard to Evaluate Early in Careers
Project Managers sit at a crossroads of responsibility. For entry-level candidates, three challenges make evaluation difficult:
- Hybrid skill mix: PMs need both organizational discipline and people skills. Graduates may have practiced one side (e.g., scheduling tasks) but not the other (e.g., stakeholder negotiation).
- Emerging tools: Modern PMs are expected to use tools like Jira, Trello, or MS Project. Students may have theoretical knowledge but limited applied experience.
- Unclear titles: “Junior Project Manager,” “Project Coordinator,” and “Assistant PM” often overlap. This creates confusion about role expectations, making hiring decisions less consistent.
Without real evidence of performance, employers fall back on proxies: degree, university ranking, or interview polish. These are weak predictors of success in managing real projects.
The Alternative: Work-Sample Evaluation
So what if, instead of asking for polished CVs or hypothetical answers, employers asked candidates to do a small slice of the real job?
This is the idea behind work-sample evaluation: short, realistic tasks that mirror day-one responsibilities. For Project Manager jobs, this could mean:
- Reviewing a sample project plan and spotting risks
- Prioritizing a backlog of tasks with limited resources
- Drafting a short stakeholder update email
- Running a 30-minute case simulation of task coordination
Unlike abstract tests, work samples provide clear, practical evidence of how a candidate thinks and acts.
Why it works:
- For students: It’s fairer—they show what they can do, not just what’s written on paper.
- For employers: They get a sharper view of capability and motivation.
- For universities: These tasks can align with curricula, preparing students for the transition from study to work.
Work samples are already used in some industries (e.g., coding challenges in software). Extending them into early-career Project Manager hiring could reset expectations across the UK job market.
Talantir’s Perspective and Model
At Talantir, we’ve built a model around this principle: capability-first, not CV-first. Students explore real roles by completing job-based cases inside structured roadmaps. Each roadmap is made of milestones and cases that take 15–20 minutes each—manageable, authentic, and role-aligned.
For Project Manager readiness, this might include:
- Planning milestones across a simulated product launch
- Communicating with a fictional stakeholder team
- Identifying dependencies and risks in a case study project
For students: They gain a portfolio of evidence they can show employers, not just grades. They build clarity about whether PM is the right fit before applying.
For employers: They can launch challenges tied to real PM tasks. Instead of sifting through CVs, they review deep candidate profiles, with AI-generated abstracts summarizing how each student approached the work.
For universities: They can integrate PM roadmaps into programs without extra teaching load, helping students graduate with both theory and practice.
What makes Talantir different is not just the format, but the feedback loop:
- Authentic tasks give employers clearer signals
- Students build confidence and orientation
- Universities collect analytics on readiness
It’s a shared ecosystem where all three groups benefit.
Conclusion: What If We Evaluated Real Work, Not Promises?
The friction in early-career hiring for Project Manager roles in the UK is not inevitable. It stems from outdated signals—CVs, cover letters, and long delays—that serve neither students nor employers well.
Work-sample evaluation offers a better path. By asking candidates to demonstrate capability on real tasks, we can reduce mismatches, shorten time-to-hire, and give students a fairer chance to show what they can do.
For Project Manager roles, where coordination, clarity, and decision-making are everything, this approach is especially powerful.
What do you think? If you’re a student, an employer, or part of a university careers team—how could real work samples reshape early-career hiring in your world?
Explore how work-sample evaluation can reset early-career hiring standards.