More than half of employees are now learning new skills on their own, outside formal company training. That initiative is valuable, but it creates a visibility problem: managers often cannot see the capabilities their people are building. The answer is a management capability called skillspotting.

Skillspotting is the ability to recognize skills, or gaps in skills, that are not obvious from a job title or resume. "It's the practice of identifying skills strengths, skills gaps, and how they map to business needs," says Tigran Sloyan, co-founder and CEO of CodeSignal. "It means moving beyond rigid job descriptions and seeing your workforce as something more fluid."

Workplace skills are shifting, and continuous learning matters. But the skills a team needs may already exist in some early form. Managers just need to get better at finding them.

The Job Title Shortcut

Skills-first hiring, which prioritizes proven ability over a degree, has gained ground in recent years but is not fully implemented. It is skillspotting applied at the start of the employee-employer relationship. So why do so few companies make it part of their talent strategy?

"Because job titles are the shortcut for capability," Sloyan explains. "A title is great at telling you what someone was hired to do, but it doesn't reflect all of their unique skills that they brought to the role or that they've acquired since they started."

Resumes, degrees, and past titles have always been imperfect proxies for skill, Sloyan argues. "Now they are becoming even less reliable, because AI is changing how people learn, how they present themselves, and what they can accomplish in a role," he says. Those proxies offer a snapshot, but they should not be treated as proof of capability.

"Looking at demonstrated capability is much more predictive of job success than resumes, degrees, or past job titles, like how someone solves problems, applies judgment, communicates, and performs in work that resembles the job," he says.

Sloyan shared an example from CodeSignal. Someone in a customer-facing role noticed a recurring problem and built a technical solution for it. "That work eventually led to a move into engineering," he says. "A traditional process might have seen their original title and stopped there. But the work showed technical problem-solving, product judgment, and an ability to turn customer insight into a scalable solution. That is what skillspotting is about: looking at demonstrated capability in real work scenarios and taking action from there."

How to Spot Skills Internally

Skills-first hiring is a strong talent strategy, but skillspotting may be even more valuable inside a company. "Inside a company, skillspotting looks at the work people are actually doing: how they solve problems, collaborate, communicate, learn new tools, and handle unfamiliar situations," Sloyan says.

You might find an engineer who has taken up accessibility design, a marketer who has become fluent in building AI agents, or an individual contributor who is exceptional at coaching. "The real benefit of skillspotting is giving people visibility into their strengths and giving the company a better way to invest in growth, build teams, and fill new roles," he says.

Asked for one concrete way employers can start measuring skills and sourcing untapped internal talent, Sloyan recommended starting with real work artifacts:

• Project briefs
• Customer-call recordings
• Code reviews
• Sales materials
• Written analyses
• Feedback from cross-functional partners

"Use those to identify the skills people are demonstrating," Sloyan says. "How are they handling objections, making decisions, communicating, or solving unfamiliar problems? You can then use those insights to staff projects and bring that fluid workforce to life."

Skills intelligence makes this possible continuously and at scale by drawing on work people already do. Without it, Sloyan advises starting simpler: ask managers where they see people stretching beyond their role, and build that into regular talent conversations.

How to Make Your Skills Visible

If your skills extend beyond your job title, how do you make them visible? "If an employee feels overlooked, the best way they can make their skills visible is to show what they've done with them," Sloyan says. Share how you solved problems or took on new challenges, and what you learned along the way, even when an approach did not work.

Lean into human strengths that AI cannot easily replicate, such as adaptability, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. Document ongoing learning through courses, certifications, and workshops. And do not underestimate casual conversations with managers and leaders as a way to demonstrate durable skills.

Adaptability, one of the top four human skills in the age of AI, is also one of the hardest for employers to recognize, according to Sloyan. "It's about the ability to enter an unfamiliar situation, learn quickly, ask good questions, and become useful," he says. "And it's going to become more and more of a requirement due to how quickly work is changing in the AI era. While it used to be hard to measure, adaptability is in fact a measurable skill if you analyze how people handle real scenarios across customer calls, sales objections, 1:1s, and anywhere where someone works."

Becoming a Skillspotter

Skillspotting also means spotting incipient skills that are not fully developed yet. Recognizing potential is proactive skillspotting, and every leader should develop it.

"The organizations that get skillspotting right will be better positioned to stay agile as the work itself keeps changing," Sloyan says. "If you understand the capabilities already within your workforce, you can build better teams, spin up tiger teams for emerging projects, and unlock new possibilities without always having to look externally for talent."

Your workforce may already be more skilled than you think. What might you uncover if you really looked?