The New Workforce Advantage Is Building, Not Buying, Talent

For decades, L&D, recruiting, and HR leaders have built talent strategies around two assumptions: External candidates are ready to do the job, and development can wait until after onboarding.

This model becomes less reliable as the nature of work changes and the capabilities organizations need evolve faster than traditional talent strategies can keep pace. Sixty-three percent of employers see skills gaps as a leading barrier to transformation, while 59 out of 100 workers are expected to need training by 2030.  

To gain and retain high-performing talent, leaders must shelve old strategies in favor of proactively building career readiness.

Old assumption: Organizations can find people ready to do the job

Employers once relied on the external market to supply experienced talent. Recruiting systems identified readiness through familiar signals such as past roles, employers, and years of experience. Based on these factors, readiness was viewed as something organizations could find by attracting, screening, and interviewing a pool of candidates.

But that’s no longer reliable—72 percent of surveyed employers are struggling to find the skilled talent they require. Put simply, employers can’t rely on the external market to supply the capabilities they need, when they need them.

This also creates a circular problem. People need experience to access opportunities, but they also need opportunities to gain experience. Traditional talent systems naturally favor people who have already had access to the experiences employers value. As a result, employers often mistake a lack of exposure for a lack of readiness.

New approach: Build the experience you cannot find

Leaders must build readiness earlier by giving people opportunities to gain relevant experience and develop the capabilities the business needs. That means giving prospective candidates and employees opportunities to understand the work, perform relevant tasks, and advance business goals.

Degrees, training, and job history are still valuable indicators of potential, but having the skills to perform day-to-day responsibilities is too important to leave to chance. In fact, 91 percent of employers who leveraged skills-based hiring reported fewer mishires. Instead of wasting time, energy, and money trying to buy the right talent, leaders must offer opportunities for people to become the right talent.

Old assumption: Development can wait until after onboarding

The second assumption is that development should happen after selection. Employers tend to choose the person who looks good on paper and begin upskilling them only after they start doing the work. As a result, organizations often spend the first months of a new hire’s employment addressing skill gaps, a process that eats into productivity and increases risk. Moreover, the average cost of training was $744 per new employee in 2025, and inadequate instruction only makes things more expensive.

Conceptual knowledge isn’t enough when people must navigate incomplete information, unfamiliar tools, and competing priorities. This problem extends beyond external hiring—current employees can complete courses without feeling prepared to apply what they learned.

New approach: Develop potential and current employees sooner

Development needs to begin before people are expected to perform the work. Learning can build knowledge, but readiness comes from applying that knowledge in context. Organizations can close this gap by creating realistic, structured experiences where people can practice the work, make decisions and mistakes, and receive feedback before the stakes are high.

For individuals, this early exposure helps them understand what a role actually requires, determine whether it fits their strengths and interests, and identify where they need to grow. Meanwhile, talent and L&D leaders gain a clearer picture of the person’s capabilities and development needs, allowing them to make more informed hiring and placement decisions.

Importantly, developing talent earlier does not replace onboarding, formal learning, or manager support. Rather, it’s a proactive investment—skills-based hires have a 9 percent longer tenure than traditional hires. People begin their jobs with more context, realistic expectations, and experience applying relevant skills, reducing backfill costs and setting up the employee and organization for success.

Better performance begins before day one

The line between finding and developing talent is blurring. Employers need to do both simultaneously. Organizations can no longer rely on the market to surface skilled applicants or wait until onboarding to develop skills. Success requires creating readiness earlier and treating development as part of the talent pipeline.

Forage helps organizations build workforce readiness earlier through simulation-based experiences that give potential and current employees opportunities to apply relevant skills, make decisions, and receive feedback before their performance carries real business risk. This enables organizations to create stronger talent pipelines while giving potential and current employees access to the experiences they need to succeed.

Individuals gain a clearer understanding of the work, while leaders can make informed talent decisions that support broader business initiatives. Armed with these insights, organizations can create a workforce with the capabilities they need instead of relying on the external market to provide ready-made talent.

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