How AI redefined my career path

How AI redefined my career path

By Lisa de Ruiter, Co-Founder & CTO at GloPros

We are living through one of the most significant technological shifts of our time. AI is no longer a buzzword reserved for research labs and tech conferences. It is actively reshaping how we hire, how we build teams, and how we guide careers. Having worked at the intersection of AI and talent acquisition for years, I want to share some reflections on what this means for professionals, leaders, and teams navigating this new reality.

How AI influenced my career (before it was cool)

Almost four years ago, I graduated with a Master's in Data Science, majoring in AI. Back then, I dove deep into neural networks, machine learning theory, and the ethics of automation. This was long before anyone had heard of ChatGPT, OpenAI, or even Sam Altman. I remember choosing my courses, unsure whether to major in neural networks or artificial intelligence. My professor looked at me and said: "There's no choice. The next big thing in technology will be AI." He was right.

Fast forward to my pitch in June 2025 at European Women in Tech at the RAI in Amsterdam on how to build a CV that stands out in an AI-driven hiring process, and I had a realization: much of what I learned is already partly outdated. That is how fast AI is moving.

How AI can influence your career — if you don't let it outpace you

With over 10 years of experience as a recruiter, I have reviewed thousands of resumes and later helped build a product that matches resumes to vacancies using AI. Along the way, I have learned some key lessons I want to share with anyone navigating today's hiring process.

My pitch on June 25th was not just a talk about AI. It was a wake-up call: will your CV even make it past the first round? The reality is that nearly 70% of large companies now use AI to pre-screen resumes. And one truth became very clear: if your resume is not optimized for AI, it may never reach human eyes. During my pitch, I shared practical tips on how to build a CV that is ready, tips that can also help you during the hiring process, which you can find on our GloPros page.

No one is an AI expert — just a fast learner

Even though I lead our internal AI adoption and work closely with our tech team building AI tools, one thing stays true: in AI, learning is the only constant. What worked three months ago may already be outdated, from top LLMs to tools like Lovable and Replit. The real key? Curiosity. When you combine AI with your industry expertise, you unlock its true potential, not just for innovation, but for increasing your efficiency, expanding your ideas, and turning AI into your most powerful strategic partner.

Bringing your team along: how we did it at GloPros

In conversations with founders and team leads lately, one challenge keeps coming up: how do you get your team to actually start leveraging AI in a meaningful way?

The truth is, adopting AI across a team does not require a complete overhaul. It requires structure, ownership, and a mindset shift. Here is what worked for us at GloPros:

Start small. Try low-risk, high-impact use cases. We started a few years back with small projects like summarizing team meetings, drafting job descriptions, or compiling market research.

Appoint an AI Champion within your company or department. Choose someone within your team, someone naturally curious and proactive, who can explore tools, document what works, and demo results to others. Why the emphasis on within your team? Because true change does not come from outsourcing innovation to external AI consultants, at least not at first. Real transformation starts from the inside, with people who understand your culture, your workflows, and your goals. AI should be embedded into your team's DNA, not handed off to outsiders who do not live your day-to-day.

Timebox your AI experiment. A focused one-week pilot lowers the barrier to entry, accelerates learning, and builds quick momentum, all without overwhelming your team. At the end of the week, take time to reflect: what worked? What did not? Is it worth scaling? By not attaching KPIs or specific targets to it, you remove the pressure and create space for fresh, creative ideas to emerge.

Celebrate experimentation. Do not wait for perfect results. Celebrate the learning curve. It builds safety and curiosity within your team. And if you are lucky, even the skeptics might start to lower their guard.

This approach allowed us to integrate AI not just into our product, but into the way our team works, learns, and grows. Today, it is core to how we build fairer, more inclusive, and skill-driven hiring experiences at GloPros.

Would you like to learn more about AI but don't know where to start?

These resources are a great starting point for learning about AI and staying up to date with the latest trends:

• Hugging Face LLM Leaderboard — Always good to keep yourself up to date on which models are leading the LLM race. Plus, it makes for a great party fun fact.
• Papers with Code — Stay ahead of trends, discover new tools, and learn from code implementations directly tied to academic papers.
• Stanford's AI Index — Use it to inform strategic decisions, understand macro trends, and gain data-backed context for where AI is heading.
• OpenAI Research Blog — OpenAI has their own blog too, and I must admit: it is quite addictive.

Would you like to start building with AI but can't write code?

There is absolutely no shame in not being able to write code. Even Steve Jobs once admitted he could not write a single line, and it never held him back. Not knowing how to code does not put you behind. In fact, with the AI development tools available today, like Cursor, I think we are moving toward a world where we are transforming technology and coding as we know it.

If you are looking to start using AI tools, here are two that have been especially valuable to me, not just from a technical angle, but from a product owner perspective. It has truly never been easier to turn ideas into action, even without a technical background. At GloPros, we have been using tools like Replit and Lovable to bring ideas to life. Whether you are building a new feature, an internal tool, or even a full product, these platforms helped me turn many ideas into MVPs my team could actually build on.

The future of AI in our workforce

Even with skepticism in certain industries and teams, I believe we all need to prepare for a future where AI is not optional. It is integral to how we work and lead. As AI moves faster than ever, one thing is clear: the future does not wait.

To be honest, I do not know what the future of work will look like just a few years from now, or whether today's roles will still exist in the form we know them. But that is a conversation worth having, and one I will explore in a future article. What I do foresee is that the workforce of the future favors the curious, the learners, the experimenters.

A quote that speaks to me personally:

"You won't be replaced by AI. But you will be replaced by someone who knows how to use it."

The good news? It has never been easier to start implementing AI within your company, your team, and your own daily tasks. All it takes is curiosity and the willingness to innovate, to think about how AI can bring your knowledge and your career to the next level.

Written by Lisa de Ruiter, Co-Founder & CTO at GloPros, with a background in Data Science and AI, and over 10 years of experience in global talent acquisition.