We can speak about Artificial Intelligence in two registers: one distant and cold, like a software update that seems to threaten the very essence of humanity, and one deeply rooted in the present. In this second perspective, AI ceases to be a mere conference topic and becomes a gravitational force that, once integrated, recalibrates everything we knew about work, education and success.
I recently invited Mirabela Ionescu, HR Director at Nagarro, a professional with nearly two decades of expertise in Human Resources and Recruitment, to have a frank discussion about how technological impact is viewed through the lens of business leaders within multinational organizations that have already implemented AI-based tools, about the identity crisis in the job market and job titles that risk disappearing in the not-so-distant future, while others appear overnight, such as Prompt Engineering or AI Ethicist, as well as the most pressing question of this dialogue: how do we prepare our children for a world we are only beginning to decipher? The answer might not be “programmer,” but rather a mix of empathy, creativity and radical curiosity.
I invite you to follow a dialogue about survival and evolution in the 21st century.
How AI and “Fluidic Intelligence” Are Changing Recruitment Discourse
Roots and Wings: In a decade and a half as a professional in recruitment, as well as human resources in general, you’ve seen several trends in the job market. Could you tell me how companies today are adapting their recruitment speech to offer young people a sense of security, beyond a job title that might not exist 5 years from now?
Mirabela Ionescu: Looking at recent years, adapting recruitment messaging has become an ongoing necessity. The pandemic, AI, legislative changes related to taxes and benefits, salary transparency, as well as political and economic instability have forced us to question what security truly means in a career. Fields and skills that were in high demand until last year aren’t necessarily top priorities anymore, and the most impactful trend remains AI, which can quickly transform our job titles or the work we do.
At Nagarro, this has translated into two concrete practices that have helped us develop a more grounded recruitment approach, less about promises and more about reality.
First, for over 20 years we’ve been running learning programs and internships to integrate early-career professionals, rather than relying on simple job postings. They make the real transition from theory to practice, work on concrete projects, and collaborate with mentors before taking on a permanent role. What seems relevant here is that prospective colleagues see the actual work, experience the organizational culture, and get to know the people they’ll work with before deciding to join the team and vice versa. It’s not about polished recruitment messaging, but about a real experience.
The second example relates to the company’s vision regarding AI (“fluidic intelligence”) which puts people at the center of decisions. Through training and development programs that support this vision, colleagues have access to learning resources that complement the knowledge they came in with and allow them to understand technology and develop their skills hands-on, through real projects. What I’ve observed is that the recruitment message thus becomes more than a title: it becomes a promise of continuous learning and ongoing relevance.
Beyond Automation: Why Empathy and Critical Thinking Are the New ‘Hard Skills‘ of the Future
Roots and Wings: Many fields are undergoing radical transformation because of AI: marketing, accounting, IT, and many others. And if technical execution can largely be taken over entirely by algorithms, could you tell me what three non-negotiable competencies a young person must possess to remain relevant in these sectors?
Mirabela Ionescu: I asked exactly this question to technical specialists, professors, AI researchers, and leaders I work with, because I felt I needed to better understand what’s happening. From these conversations, three key competency pairs keep coming up:
AI doesn’t negotiate when tensions rise in the team, doesn’t sense when someone is on the verge of burnout, doesn’t build trust after a crisis
Critical thinking and creative problem-solving. And here I don’t mean buzzwords. In practice, it means being able to look at AI-generated output and ask yourself: what’s missing here? What assumptions did the algorithm make? What didn’t it take into account? I’ve already seen situations where someone blindly implemented an automatic recommendation or published articles created with chatbots that led to wrong or incorrect results. The ability to question your own tools becomes essential.
Collaboration and emotional intelligence. AI doesn’t negotiate when tensions rise in the team, doesn’t sense when someone is on the verge of burnout, doesn’t build trust after a crisis. I’ve worked with very technical teams where the difference between success and failure was people’s ability to understand each other, not the quality of the code.
Continuous learning and adaptability. Not as a vague aspiration, but as concrete practice. The tool you use today might be irrelevant in 18 months. What matters is whether you can adapt quickly, unlearn what’s obsolete, and leverage what’s still valuable when the context changes.
AI – An Assistant That Frees Up Time, Not a Replacement
Roots and Wings: If a few years ago we witnessed the emphasis on efficiency and speed becoming KPIs within multinational companies, now we could say that AI can successfully deliver on these metrics. What does the future look like that many thought leaders say belongs to “humanity”? What does this mean in practical terms?
Mirabela Ionescu: This question could open a long debate, but I’ll try to simplify how I see things based on my experience.
AI can indeed achieve or even surpass objectives related to efficiency and speed, but only under human guidance. What I observe is that our role doesn’t disappear, but changes. We no longer compete with AI’s speed or precision. Instead, we decide what questions to ask, what meaning to give to data, what direction to choose from the multiple options that AI generates.
In human resources, for example, AI can quickly analyze hundreds of resumes or identify patterns in employee feedback. But someone must decide whether those patterns are relevant to the company’s specific context, understand cultural nuances, sense when a “statistically correct” answer would be wrong for the real people in the organization.
The “humanity” part means, for me, focusing on what AI cannot do: sensing emotional weight in a discussion, having intuition that something’s not right even if the data shows otherwise, connecting people in ways that truly matter. AI becomes an assistant that frees up time for these things, not a replacement.
From Code to Psychology: Why the New Generation Chooses to Understand the Human Soul in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Roots and Wings: From the perspective of a specialist who sees the real needs of the market, what should we teach children to do differently today so that at 20 years old they don’t become redundant and in continuous competition with technology?
Mirabela Ionescu: Honestly, I don’t think I have a definitive answer to this question. At the rate technology and market needs are changing, anything I say today could be partially outdated in five years.
What I observe is that changes are happening faster than we anticipated. If until two years ago everyone was pushing young people toward IT, in 2025 statistics from Romania show that high school graduates chose IT programs in second place, while Psychology moved up to first place. I don’t know if it’s a trend or an anomaly, but it’s interesting.
My daughter’s generation (Gen Alpha) is growing up with technology as something natural. They use devices before they can walk or read fluently. At the same time, I see in her and others in her generation an emotional intelligence that we Millennials discovered much later. Maybe because Millennial parents are more emotionally present, maybe because we talk more about emotions and mental health.
From what I see in the market now, my intuition is that we can’t force a specific set of competencies, but we must provide rich environments for experimentation, failure, exploration, as well as setting boundaries around technology, where young people develop both digital skills and emotional or social ones, which ultimately make them adaptable regardless of what trends or market needs emerge in 20 years.
When Numbers Fall Silent, Values Speak: How We Recognize Character and Empathy in a World of KPIs
Roots and Wings: The multinational company environment is becoming hyper-technologized, where decisions can sometimes be dictated by cold data. How will HR measure qualities like empathy, ethical judgment, and character – essentially everything that constitutes the new “hard skills”?
Mirabela Ionescu: From my experience, these competencies cannot be evaluated through traditional KPIs or algorithms. They become visible through real behaviors, in specific, contextual moments that shape a company’s culture.
I see empathy in how a colleague responds when someone on the team is going through a personal crisis or how they offer feedback in a moment of vulnerability. Ethical judgment appears in decisions made when data offers a “logically correct” solution that would negatively affect people. Character is seen in consistency, when someone takes responsibility even when things go wrong, not just when they receive recognition.
Your question perfectly captures the paradox we face in HR: we have clear policies and concrete data on one side, and tact, empathy, and context on the other; things without which policies remain just paperwork.
I think measuring these competencies will involve a mix of tools: 360° feedback, practical scenarios, shadowing, and direct human observation. In coaching conversations or crisis situations, I see these qualities most clearly. In an AI-dominated environment, the difference is made by people who interpret data but make decisions guided by values and human judgment, not just what the dashboard says.
When AI Does Everything, Value Lies in the Quality of Thinking, Questions, and Human Decisions
Roots and Wings: If we accepted the hypothesis that current youth training is stagnating relative to the needs for skills adapted to technological evolution, what learning model should companies implement internally: do we transform into schools teaching human skills or remain mere users of pre-trained (but potentially unprepared) labor?
Mirabela Ionescu: I’d like to bring a more optimistic and slightly different perspective here compared to the hypothesis that current youth training is stagnating. It’s true that there are educational systems that don’t keep pace with technology, but at the same time, we see more and more positive examples in Romania. For example, innovative teachers and school principals are being recognized nationally for educational leadership and transformative projects, such as those honored at the 2025 AVE Romania “Principals of the Year” awards gala for their innovation and community impact.
At the same time, there are solid research and development initiatives in education and technology. For example, the Romanian Artificial Intelligence Hub, coordinated by Politehnica University of Bucharest along with other universities, represents a concrete investment in building digital and AI competencies for students and young professionals.
Also, for years now, but especially recently, young Romanians have been standing out in international competitions and in the global startup ecosystem. A recent example is the startup .lumen, founded by young Romanians, which received the CES 2026 award for Accessibility, with AI glasses for visually impaired people, a significant recognition of Romanian innovation on the global technology stage.
I was recently talking with an AI researcher who made a relevant point: “Many students now have access to AI for homework, which is completely normal. But the bar is raised because access to AI is so easy. So editing errors fixable with one prompt, are no longer tolerated and we can focus more on the scientific rigor of the assignment, the strength of the conclusions and most importantly, the value the student’s thinking brings to the outcome.”
All of this suggests that, although there are challenges, there’s also real momentum toward innovation, technical competencies, and educational leadership. Just as we choose the companies where we build our careers, I think we can and must be more thoughtful about the study programs we choose. Education is no longer a uniform block, but a diverse ecosystem with very good options in both formal and informal settings, with information more accessible than ever. In this context, the role of companies isn’t necessarily to become “vocational schools” that fix deficiencies, but to build intelligent bridges between education, technology, and practice. To raise standards. Because in a world where AI is available to everyone, the real difference won’t be made by access to technology, but by the quality of thinking, questions, and human decisions.
Roots in Introspection and Wings in Communication
Roots and Wings: If Sofia were to come to you in 10 years and ask what you would advise her to become, what advice would you give her and what field would you direct her toward?
Mirabela Ionescu: I’ve thought about this quite often. Sofia is now 5 years old and, honestly, I don’t know what the world will look like when she’s 15. But I do have an intentional direction. I want to offer her varied experiences, access to different cultures, different ways of thinking and feeling, and see what resonates with her.
In 10 years, she’ll be choosing high school. Maybe a Romanian one, humanities or sciences track, maybe one with a different educational approach, maybe in another country. If she came to me then and asked what to choose, we’d probably research several relevant fields together at that time.
But I’ll leave this here in writing, so I can come back to it in 10 years: I’m guiding her toward communication. I see around me, in any field – tech, business, human resources – how communication skills often outweight pure knowledge. You can be technically brilliant, but if you don’t know how to explain, influence, truly listen, or adapt your message to your audience, you remain limited. Conversely, someone with excellent communication skills can build bridges between fields, translate complexity into clarity, and mobilize people.
I see Sofia already gravitating toward foreign languages, introspection, meaning and depth, a humanistic direction combined with communication. Not because it’s “trendy,” but because in a world dominated by technology, where everyone will have access to the same AI tools, the difference will be made by those who know how to communicate, understand people and context, and build narratives that matter.
Note by Mirabela Ionescu: All responses in this interview reflect strictly my personal perspective, based on work experience in multinationals and in the educational environment, in the context of Romanian and international markets. I don’t claim these are universal truths, but observations and reflections from my professional experience.