1. Traditional resumes have been the foundation of hiring for decades. What made you question this model, and what do you believe organizations are missing when they rely primarily on credentials rather than demonstrated skills?
My perspective comes from seeing hiring happen up close not in theory, but in practice. Before founding Velric, I had enough proximity to real hiring decisions to understand how they were actually being made. What struck me wasn’t incompetence. It was pressure. When hundreds or thousands of applications arrive, people reach for shortcuts. The resume becomes the filter by default.
Mahir Laul, Founder and CEO, Velric.ai
The problem is that a resume isn’t proof of capability. It’s a curated summary of experiences, credentials, and self-reported claims. In a world where AI can generate a polished application in minutes and optimize it for every job description, organizations need stronger, more meaningful signals than ever before.
What most companies are missing is evidence. Can this person actually do the job? Can they think critically, solve problems under pressure, and perform in real-world conditions? Those are the questions that determine success. The future of hiring isn’t about what someone says they can do. It’s about what they can demonstrably show.
2. AI is transforming how talent is discovered, assessed, and developed. How do you see the relationship between human potential and AI-driven evaluation evolving in the future workplace?
I don’t believe AI will replace people. I believe it will amplify them and raise the bar for everyone in the process.
Throughout history, technology has redefined the nature of work without eliminating the need for talent. AI can automate tasks, accelerate learning, and dramatically increase individual productivity. But competition doesn’t disappear. If anything, it intensifies.
The professionals who thrive in the AI era will be those who combine powerful tools with distinctly human qualities judgment, creativity, adaptability, communication, and genuine understanding. AI can generate answers. It cannot replicate wisdom, intuition, or the kind of contextual reasoning that truly experienced people bring.
Where AI becomes genuinely transformative is in evaluation. It allows us to assess people more consistently, more equitably, and at a scale that was previously impossible. But the goal should never be to remove humans from the process. The goal is to surface human potential more effectively and then let humans take it from there.
3. Many organizations struggle to identify candidates who can truly perform in real-world situations. How can skills-based hiring help bridge the gap between potential and proven capability?
Skills-based hiring shifts the focus from assumption to evidence from what someone claims to what they can actually do.
For decades, employers have leaned on proxies for talent: degrees, job titles, brand-name employers on a CV. These signals offer context, but they don’t reliably predict performance. I’ve seen people with exceptional credentials struggle when faced with ambiguity and real-world complexity. I’ve also seen people without traditional pedigree consistently outperform expectations because they had developed genuine, applicable skill through experience and execution.
The most effective way to evaluate talent is to observe people doing work that closely mirrors the actual role. Set them a challenge. Let them problem-solve. Let them demonstrate how they think. When hiring becomes performance-based rather than credential-based, organizations make sharper decisions and candidates finally get a fair opportunity to prove what they’re worth.
4. As a founder building in the AI era, what has been the biggest lesson you’ve learned about challenging established systems and driving adoption for a fundamentally new approach?
The biggest lesson: being right is not enough.
Most people, when pressed, will acknowledge that hiring is broken. The harder challenge is helping organizations change how they actually behave. Companies have spent decades building processes around resumes, structured interviews, and credential-based filtering. Even when a demonstrably better alternative exists, adoption doesn’t happen overnight. Old habits are deeply institutionalized.
What I’ve learned is that innovation succeeds when it solves a problem people already feel not a problem you’re asking them to anticipate. You can’t simply tell someone the future is coming. You have to meet them where their frustration already lives and show them a better way through it.
Building Velric has reinforced something I believe deeply: lasting change moves slowly at first, and then very fast. The organizations that embrace skills-based hiring early won’t just make better hires they’ll build a structural advantage in attracting, identifying, and retaining talent.
5. Looking ahead, what changes do you believe educational institutions, employers, and professionals need to make to prepare for a future where continuous learning and demonstrated outcomes matter more than traditional career signals?
Education, hiring, and professional development all need to become far more outcome-oriented and the time to start is now.
For a long time, education has been optimized for knowledge transfer. The challenge is that knowledge is now abundant and instantly accessible. AI can answer questions, explain concepts, and summarize entire fields in seconds. The value of education can no longer be measured by access to information alone.
What matters in this new landscape is application. Can someone use knowledge to create real value? Can they solve problems that don’t have pre-packaged answers? Can they collaborate, adapt, and grow as industries evolve beneath them?
Students should spend more time building, creating, and gaining experience that translates directly into the real world. Employers should weight demonstrated capability over credentials and invest in environments where that capability can continue to develop. Educational institutions must move beyond theory and toward practical, skills-driven learning that prepares people for work as it actually exists, not as it existed twenty years ago.
Ten years from now, I believe the most important professional currency won’t be where you studied or what degree you hold. It will be your proven ability to deliver results. That’s the future Velric is helping build a future where opportunity is earned through skill, not inherited through pedigree.
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