Building future-ready talent: How we hire for what comes next
Most companies aren’t hiring for the future - they’re hiring to solve today’s problems faster.
It’s easy to believe we’re building a future-ready workforce, until the future arrives faster than expected. The pace of change has accelerated beyond anything we could have predicted. New technologies emerge almost daily. Patient expectations evolve. Market dynamics shift. Amid all these changes, the uncomfortable truth is that the skills that made us successful yesterday are no longer enough today - and certainly won’t be tomorrow.
At Fortrea, a young company built on decades of experience, we feel this acutely. We know that building a future-ready organization means reimagining how we attract and develop talent, starting with the way we hire.
Hiring for skills and potential, not just to fill roles
Traditionally, recruitment was centered around matching candidates to pre-defined roles, focusing on job titles, degrees, and years of experience. But the modern workplace doesn’t stand still. Roles and business needs evolve faster than job descriptions can be updated.
A job description may be static, but our world isn’t - so our hiring practices can’t be either. Rigid requirements (like “5+ years in pharma”) have led companies to self-inflicted talent shortages. By redefining roles around key skills and outcomes instead of narrow credentials, we open up wider talent pools and can hire faster and more effectively.
At Fortrea, we believe in hiring for core skills and potential (where previous relevant experience or degree isn’t critical), not just for a static role definition. When evaluating candidates, we ask: What can this person learn and adapt to beyond what they already know? Skills-based hiring means looking for versatile problem solvers, critical thinkers, and collaborators who can take on multiple challenges - even those we can’t fully predict yet. In practice, at Fortrea, this shift has broadened our view of qualifications. We are open to candidates from other industries or non-traditional backgrounds, if they demonstrate the capabilities we need and the ability to learn quickly.
Learning mindset has become a core hiring criterion; in fact, I’d argue it’s one of the new competitive advantages. “Skills life” is short these days. Access to tools and information is democratized as ever. Who would have thought that ability to “unlearn” will become as needed as the ability to learn? Someone with high “learning agility” will evolve as our business does, picking up new knowledge or methodologies as needed. In interviews, we probe for curiosity, continuous improvement, and how the person has responded when asked to stretch beyond their comfort zone. We want people who don’t just have the right skills today, but who will keep acquiring skills for tomorrow.
AI as an enabler, not a replacement
We’re in an era where artificial intelligence and automation offer powerful tools in talent acquisition - from AI-driven sourcing and screening to chatbots assisting with candidate experience. I’m an AI enthusiast. I’ve experimented with emerging recruiting tech and seen how data-driven insights can improve decision-making. But I’m also openly critical of the hype. No algorithm can (or should) replace human judgment when it comes to understanding people, motivation, and culture fit.
We use AI tools as accelerators for our work, not as substitutes for the human touch. Yes, AI can compress timelines by quickly surfacing candidates or flagging trends in hiring data. But AI can search résumés in seconds, yet it can’t grasp passion or potential – people still see what algorithms can’t. In other words - tools don’t hire people – people hire people.
Our approach at Fortrea is to leverage AI thoughtfully, guided by principles of quality, ethics, and trust. For example, we have intelligent systems to reduce manual workload or analyze insights from the talent market, but we never surrender the crucial steps of personal engagement and nuanced assessment. AI can evaluate certain data points at scale, but it cannot truly gauge qualities like motivation or adaptability. Those elements still come from human-led interviews and holistic evaluations that consider context. We’re also mindful of AI’s limitations and biases. An algorithm might inadvertently filter out diverse or unconventional profiles, so we ensure a human is in the loop to avoid missing high-potential talent just because they don’t fit a past pattern. AI enables us to be more efficient and informed but hiring still remains a deeply human responsibility, requiring empathy, judgment, and being ethically grounded.
Quality of hire over speed of hire
In a competitive talent market, speed is often celebrated - fill roles faster, secure the candidate before someone else does. And of course, being efficient matters; unnecessary delays can mean losing a great hire and impact study timelines. But let me caution: speed should never come at the expense of quality. A quick hire who isn’t the right long-term fit will cost far more in the end, in lost productivity, team disruption, and perhaps another costly search. That’s why at Fortrea we consciously prioritize “quality of hire” as a north-star metric, even as we work to optimize time-to-fill. We encourage our Talent Acquisition team and our hiring managers (and even our clients) to pause and ask: Is this candidate truly aligned with our needs and values? If not – if it’s great potential, but not truly suited for what’s needed at the moment - we’d rather keep looking, even if it adds a little more time. Better to lose a candidate today than to hire the wrong one and lose your culture tomorrow.
This focus on quality over speed also means investing time up front in clarity and alignment with the business. Rather than rushing to present a slate of candidates, we first ensure we deeply understand what success in the role looks like and how it ties to Fortrea’s mission and our clients’ needs. A well-defined target profile focused on impact and key skills helps us avoid hiring someone just because they’re available quickly or meet the “standard” criteria. Once the search is underway, we remain transparent with stakeholders about trade-offs. I’d rather explain why we extended a search by a few days, sometimes weeks, than explain an avoidable bad hire a few months later. Time and again, our experience shows that taking a bit longer to hire the right person leads to them ramping up faster and performing better - saving time in the long run by reducing re-hiring cycles and turnover. The fastest way to build a strong team is to do it right from the start. That’s a principle we hold close at Fortrea: do it right the first time.
Talent prepared for change in Healthcare and Clinical Research
The only constant in our field is change. Healthcare and clinical research are evolving rapidly - whether it’s the introduction of decentralized trials, advances in personalized medicine, or new regulatory requirements. That means the talent we bring in must be comfortable with change, perhaps even energized by it. We intentionally seek out people with resilience and adaptability to thrive in dynamic environments. Yes, we hire for the right skills and experience, but we also prize curiosity and a growth mindset, because we know those traits will help our workforce stay ready for whatever the future brings. And this doesn’t stop at hiring! We also need to help our existing employees continually update their skills and perspectives, so they remain agile as the landscape shifts.
At Fortrea, we see our people as a definitive advantage in navigating change. We encourage cross-functional exposure, continuous learning opportunities, and open dialogue about industry trends so that our teams are not caught off guard by the next development but rather are leaning into it. In practice, this could mean – for example - hiring a data specialist not only for what they can do today, but for how they can help us integrate emerging real-world evidence methods down the line, or bringing in a project manager who has proven they can lead teams through ambiguity. It’s also about diversity of thought - we benefit when our talent pool includes varied backgrounds and experiences, because innovation often sparks at the intersection of different perspectives. The common thread is a willingness to learn and adapt. When healthcare industry shifts, we want our people already one step ahead, or at least ready to pivot with confidence.
Talent Acquisition as a strategic partner to the business
Perhaps the most significant evolution I’ve witnessed in Talent Acquisition is how our function has become a strategic driver for the business, rather than a back-office service. In previous eras, recruiting was sometimes seen as a transactional process – simply filling a requisition that a hiring manager requested, no questions asked. Today, especially at Fortrea, we expect much more. Talent Acquisition isn’t just about filling positions; it’s about shaping the organization’s future workforce hand-in-hand with business leaders. That means providing real-time market intelligence, advising on what skills the company will need next year or two years from now (five-year estimates no longer serve anyone), and building pipelines of talent aligned to our long-term strategy. We engage early and often with our stakeholders - whether it’s discussing how a scientific trend might drive demand for new roles or how our employer brand can attract emerging skill sets.
Being a strategic partner also calls for courage and credibility. We in Talent Acquisition need the courage to push back when hiring plans overlook future needs or compromise on quality, and the credibility to be trusted advisors on talent decisions. At Fortrea, we’ve earned our seat at the table by consistently demonstrating that we understand the business. This includes close partnership with our colleagues in Talent Management and Learning & Development (as part of our Talent Strategy Group) to ensure that once we hire great people, we’re collectively investing in their growth. It also means holding ourselves accountable to Fortrea’s mission and values. We know that hiring isn’t just about adding headcount – it’s about enabling better outcomes for patients and customers through every person we bring on board.
Building a future-ready Team is a shared journey
Ultimately, achieving future readiness is not a solo act by Talent Acquisition or any single group - it's a shared responsibility. As talent professionals, we commit to forward-thinking practices: hiring for skills and potential, leveraging AI responsibly and ethically, prioritizing quality, and championing adaptability. Our business leaders, for their part, partner with us strategically - planning workforce needs proactively and valuing long-term fit over short-term fixes. Lastly, each individual Fortrean (as we like to call ourselves) plays a role by embracing a learning mindset and agility in their own career development.
In a field as dynamic as ours, being prepared for tomorrow is as important as delivering results today. By evolving how we hire and develop talent, we position Fortrea – and our people – to stay a step ahead of what comes next.
The best way to anticipate the future is to hire people who can create it.