Trying to summarize every job you’ve ever had and then distill that onto a two-page résumé has been the bane of job hunter’s existence since around the 1950s. Fortunately, for Gen Z, it’s something they might never have to bore themselves with.
That’s because research shows many companies are moving away from relying on the traditional job application requirement.
In fact, almost three-quarters of companies now use skills-based assessments throughout their hiring process, according to TestGorilla’s The State of Skills-Based Hiring 2023 report which surveyed 3,000 employees and employers around the world. This is up from 56% in the previous year.
Although many of those employers are still also using CVs, it might not be long until they’re a thing of the past because most bosses are already favoring the new hiring practice and reporting big results.
Skills-based hiring is more effective, the data shows
The employers surveyed who use skills-based hiring—which includes role-specific skills assessments, instead of simply scanning someone’s listed career experience—reported massive gains.
According to TestGorilla’s research, it reduced the number of mis-hires by 88%, total time spent searching for the perfect candidate by 82%, and hiring-related costs by 74%.
Overall, 92% of the employers surveyed reported that skills-based hiring is more effective at identifying talented candidates than a traditional CV. Meanwhile, over 80% said it’s more predictive of on-job success and leads to new hires staying longer in their roles.
By testing candidates on how they would handle the actual day-to-day responsibilities of a role, employers are more likely to hire the best person for the job instead of being drawn by big names and snazzy titles.
As Khyati Sundaram, CEO of the skill-based recruitment platform Applied, previously told Fortune, just because someone has listed on their résumé that they’ve worked with the SEO team at somewhere alluring like Google, it doesn’t actually mean they know the ins and outs of search engine optimization to the extent that’s required for a role.
“We are trying to make sure the test or the question is as relevant to the job as possible,” Sundaram said, adding, “That’s the reason that candidates love it too.”
Intuitively people may assume that taking multiple skills-based tests would feel like more of a nuisance for job seekers than simply blasting their CV at hundreds of roles—but the data shows otherwise.
Most of the workers that TestGorilla surveyed think that skills-based hiring levels the playing field and improves their chances of bagging their dream jobs.
This is especially true for candidates who are often overlooked. In fact, around three-quarters of the Black, Asian, and Arab employees that TestGorilla surveyed have already reportedly gained access to new employment opportunities through skills-based assessments.
Move to scrap CVs comes as firms drop degree requirements
The uptick in skills-based hiring comes as degrees have slidden down the priority list for employers.
Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Apple previously eliminated their long-held degree requirements to remove barriers to entry and recruit more diverse talent. Meanwhile, recruiters globally are five times more likely to search for new hires by skills over higher education.
“In university, you come out with whatever degree you may get, but it’s almost certainly saddled with debt,” David Meads, former Cisco’s U.K. and Ireland CEO, told Fortune. “Is that better than on-the-job experience where you’re rotating through different parts of our organization, and living the reality and not just the theory?”
“For me, attitude and aptitude are more important than whatever letters you have after your name, or whatever qualifications you’ve got on a sheet,” he added.
But research has shown that skeptical Gen Z remain unconvinced: They’re shunning apprenticeship schemes in favor of going down the traditional route of college. So perhaps they will still go through the bore of writing a résumé—even if, like a college degree, it’s no longer needed.
A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on November 23, 2023.
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YouTube cofounder Steve Chen is one of the latest tech trailblazers to warn against social media’s impact on kids. Chen warned in a talk short-form video “equates to shorter attention spans” and said he wouldn’t want his own kids to exclusively consume this type of content. Companies that distribute short-form video (which includes the company he cofounded, YouTube) should add safeguards for younger users, he added.
A YouTube cofounder who helped pave the way for our modern, content-obsessed world is the latest tech whiz to come out against short-form videos because of their effects on kids.
Steve Chen, who served as YouTube’s former chief technology officer before it was acquired by Google in 2006, railed against the TikTok-ification of online life in a talk earlier this year at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
“I think TikTok is entertainment, but it’s purely entertainment,” Chen said during the talk, which was published on YouTube Friday. “It’s just for that moment. Just shorter-form content equates to shorter attention spans.”
Chen, who has two children with wife, Jamie Chen, said he wouldn’t want his kids only consuming short-form content, and then not be able to watch something longer than 15 minutes. He said he knows of other parents who force their kids to watch longer videos without the eye-catching colors and gimmicks that hook especially younger users. This strategy works well, he claims.
“If they don’t get exposure to the short-form content right away, then they’re still happy with that other type of content that they’re watching,” he said.
Many companies have had to rush to offer short-form content after the rise of TikTok, he said, but these companies now have to balance their motivations for monetization and attracting users’ attention with content that’s “actually useful.”
Companies that distribute short-form video, which includes his former company YouTube, could face problems with addictiveness. These companies should add safeguards for kids on short-form content, such as age restrictions for apps and limits on the amount of time some users can use them, he said.
Chen joins fellow tech trailblazers Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk in sounding the alarm about social media’s impact on children. In a podcast interview, Altman specifically called out social media scrolling and the “dopamine hit” of short-form video for “probably messing with kids’ brain development in a super deep way.”
Musk, who owns the social network X (née Twitter), said in 2023 he doesn’t have any restrictions on social-media use for his children, but added this “might have been a mistake,” and encouraged parents to take a more active role in their kids’ social-media habits.
“I think, probably, I would limit social media a bit more than I have in the past and just take note of what they’re watching, because I think at this point they’re being programmed by some social media algorithms, which you may or may not agree with,” Musk said.
A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on July 29, 2025.
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A stark new economic analysis reveals the Trump administration’s trade policies are extracting a heavy toll from Main Street, with small-business importers paying approximately $25,000 more per month in tariff costs since April 2025. The report, published Dec. 17 by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a left-wing think tank, details how a “chaotic approach” to trade and the elimination of key import exceptions have created a financial crisis for entrepreneurs during the critical holiday season.
According to the analysis by Michael Negron and Mimla Wardak, the administration’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement triggered a sharp increase in duties collected from American businesses. From April through September 2025, CAP estimated, the roughly 236,000 small-business importers in the U.S. paid an average of more than $151,000 in additional tariffs compared to the same period in 2024. (CAP cited the centrist Chamber of Commerce’s research on the small-business importer sector of the economy.)
“The Trump administration’s broad, costly, and frequently shifting policies threaten to undermine one of the strongest engines of the American economy,” Negron said in a statement to Fortune. “A season of opportunity for small businesses has turned into one of uncertainty.”
The burden is not limited to larger enterprises. The report found “mom-and-pop” businesses—those with fewer than 50 employees—paid, on average, over $86,000 more per business during this six-month window than they did the previous year. The outlook for the immediate future is equally grim: CAP projects that if current monthly costs persist, the typical small business will face a tariff bill exceeding $500,000 in 2026, potentially resulting in additional layoffs, bankruptcies, and delayed investments. For the holidays, CAP concludes the tariffs are a “costly lump of coal” in American small business’ collective, proverbial Christmas stocking.
Administrative red tape stifles growth
Beyond direct financial costs, small business owners are struggling with a sudden increase in bureaucratic red tape. The administration eliminated the de minimis exception, which previously allowed low-value shipments to enter the U.S. without duties or extensive paperwork. This policy change has forced businesses to prepay new tariff rates and complete complex customs forms for millions of shipments that were formerly exempt.
Jyoti Jaiswal, founder of OMSutra, a small business selling sustainable fashion and home goods, told CAP the changes have forced her to consolidate shipments and block more capital upfront. Jaiswal noted her company now spends 10 to 15 hours on tariff-related administrative work per shipment, up from eight to 10 hours previously, preventing her from passing costs on to consumers without losing competitiveness.
Similarly, Legrand Lindor, CEO of LMI Textiles, told CAP his medical supply company went from spending zero time on tariff paperwork to spending four to five hours per transaction. Facing a 20% increase in product costs—roughly $80,000 in additional spending—Lindor was forced to scrap plans to open a new warehouse in 2025.
The rising costs appear to be cooling the labor market for small firms. Data from payroll provider ADP shows that businesses with fewer than 50 employees laid off 120,000 workers in November 2025, the highest number of small-business layoffs in five years.
While the administration claimed foreign nations would pay these costs, the report emphasizes tariffs are taxes paid by American importers. Goldman Sachs calculated that of August 2025, businesses had absorbed 51% of the cost of tariffs, though they had passed 37% onto consumers through higher prices. A survey by Small Business Majority from late 2025 indicated 74% of small-business owners are now worried about their business surviving the next 12 months.
Compounding financial pressures
The tariff crisis coincides with other financial headwinds. The report highlights the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits in 2026 threatens to double premiums for millions of entrepreneurs and small-business employees.
With the holiday season typically accounting for at least one-quarter of annual revenue for retailers, the convergence of high tariffs and administrative confusion has delivered what the report describes as “a decidedly unhappy holiday season” for the nation’s 236,000 small-business importers. Without a change in policy, these businesses face the prospect of escalating costs and reduced investment heading into the new year.
For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
The American media landscape has officially crossed the Rubicon, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence’s annual Economics of Basic Cable report from its Kagan research unit. It’s a grim read.
The U.S. cable network industry has formally entered the “decline stage of its life cycle,” a transition defined by falling revenues, shrinking viewership, and an unprecedented restructuring of legacy assets. While the sector faces a tough financial trajectory, the defining event is the high-stakes bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), where streaming giant Netflix. and traditional powerhouse Paramount Skydance present two starkly different paths for the future of cable television.
The inflection point identified in the 2025 report is not a sudden crash, but rather a structural dismantling of the cable bundle that dominated entertainment for decades. The WBD negotiations encapsulate this shift. While Paramount Skydance aims to acquire the company in its entirety, Netflix is bidding solely for WBD’s film studio and streaming assets. Should Netflix prevail, WBD’s cable assets would be split off, effectively stranding the linear networks as the industry leader cannibalizes the content engine for its digital platform.
“These decisions signify a shift in the media industry as companies abandon cable networks in favor of streaming services,” wrote S&P’s Scott Robson, who also noted that the “burgeoning free ad-supported television (FAST) industry also continues to evolve as owners of library video content increasingly look for monetization outlets outside of basic cable syndication.”
Since the “cord-cutting” movement ushered in by Netflix gathered steam, Robson noted that linear network TV has been under pressure—subscriptions peaked all the way back in 2012. Looking back at 2025 now, he concluded, there’s no comeback in sight.
Mapping out the decline ahead
This potential fracturing of WBD mirrors broader industry movements. Comcast is set to finalize the spinoff of its cable networks—excluding Bravo—into a standalone entity named “Versant” on January 2, 2026. These strategic exits signal that major media conglomerates are now willing to “abandon cable networks in favor of streaming services,” a trend accelerated by the August 2025 launches of the ESPN Unlimited and FOX One streaming platforms, according to S&P.
The financial data underpinning this migration is stark. In 2024, gross advertising revenue for cable networks fell 5.9% to $20.2 billion, the lowest level recorded since 2007. Robson’s team also estimated that affiliate fee revenue, or what TV operators pay to carry cable operators, fell nearly 3% to roughly $38.7 billion. Perhaps most telling is the subscriber metric: the average cable network saw its subscriber base erode by 7.1% to 31.4 million homes.
However, S&P emphasized that this “decline stage” forecasts a long, slow bleedout rather than a precipitous fall. “After digesting all the major events that took place in 2025, it is clear that the industry has reached a turning point,” Robson wrote. “That being said, our outlook does not call for a major collapse but rather a continued slow decline as the transition to streaming develops.”
S&P noted that despite the overarching downward trend, the rate of pay TV subscription decline appeared to slow in 2025, with the industry actually registering slight subscriber growth in the third quarter.
Operators are attempting to manage this descent by clinging to the industry’s last reliable life raft: live sports. The year 2026 looms large, featuring both the Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. Comcast has even relaunched NBCSN, packaging it into a sports-centric bundle on YouTube TV to capture viewers who haven’t yet migrated to its Peacock streaming service.
A separate S&P analysis concluded that sports may no longer be a moat for the declining linear TV business. “Live sports may not be the anchor that once kept consumers from cutting the video cord,” S&P’s Keith Nissen wrote.
Nissen cited an S&P survey that found 90% of households dropping traditional pay TV for sports over the past year were sports fans, and nearly two-thirds of them spent five or more hours per week watching sports. “This serves as evidence that access to live sports is no longer a differentiator between traditional and virtual multichannel services.”
Robson warned that the friction between rising costs and falling value has intensified, with 2025 marred by carriage disputes, including blackouts of Walt Disney and TelevisaUnivision networks on YouTube TV, as distributors pushed back against rising rates for diminishing audiences.
As 2026 approaches, the industry outlook is one where underperforming networks face relegation to expensive tiers or outright closure.
The situation is akin to an estate sale for a once-grand mansion. The owners (media conglomerates) are systematically selling off the furniture (cable networks) and moving the most valuable heirlooms (premium content and sports rights) into a modern apartment across town (streaming), leaving the old house to slowly empty out, room by room.
Editor’s note: The author worked for Netflix from June 2024 through July 2025.
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