Knowing how to use AI – new recruitment criteria for Vietnamese technology companies

Minh Quan (27 years old, Hanoi) entered the interview for a programmer position at a financial technology startup with confidence. Nearly four years of experience helped him smoothly answer a series of professional questions. But at the end of the session, a short question made him pause: “How do you use AI in your work?”.

Quan replied that he uses ChatGPT to look up and support coding, but not often because he wants to do it himself to understand more thoroughly. After the interview, he received a rejection email with the reason “not suitable for the way the team works”, because the company prioritizes candidates who know how to exploit AI to the fullest. “It’s not that I lack skills, but because I don’t fit the new culture,” Quan said.

In the spreading AI wave, many technology businesses are starting to adjust the way they evaluate candidates, not only based on their professional capabilities, but also on how they utilize tools to work.

Ms. Nguyen Hong Hanh, Human Resources Director of G-Group, said AI is “promoted and encouraged for widespread use” in the company. In some positions, especially technology and HR, AI has almost become the “default tool”.

In other areas, artificial intelligence is used flexibly according to job characteristics. For example, the legal team uses AI to summarize documents, review contracts, and the office uses it to prepare notices, minutes, and summarize work. Meanwhile, the sales department is used to research customers, compose emails, and provide care through the automatic switchboard system.

The new way of working also entails changes in recruitment. Ms. Hanh said they do not have hard regulations, but for positions related to technology, the factor of “knowing how to use AI” is often assessed during the interview process. Candidates will receive high scores if they know how to utilize AI to solve real-life problems, set clear requirements, verify results and understand the limitations of the tool.

“If two candidates have similar professional backgrounds, the one who knows how to utilize AI effectively will have a clear advantage,” she said. On the contrary, relying too much on AI is also not good, it can be underestimated if you do not understand the nature of the problem, do not verify the information or cannot handle it yourself without support tools.

Meanwhile, Ms. Tran Xuan Ngoc Thao, Director of Human Resources and Communications at VNG, said that AI skills are not a mandatory requirement, but candidates will be asked questions related to how to approach and apply AI in real work.

“What we look for in a candidate is mindset – the way of looking at problems, the level of willingness to learn and the ability to adapt, not the mastery of a specific tool,” she said.

She said that from 2025, the company will begin providing AI accounts to some individuals or groups in need. The policy has been effective, when a software project that took three people to complete in 1.5 months can now be completed in less than 20 hours.

According to this Human Resources Director, AI makes generating ideas easier and more popular. When ideas are no longer a scarcity, the ability to execute – the speed of turning ideas into actual products – is the real competitive advantage. A candidate who knows how to leverage AI to do more, faster and more accurately not only demonstrates good use of a tool, but also proves they are suitable for the new way of operating.

According to data from recruitment platform TopCV, IT businesses confirm that AI is having a strong impact on them, changing this industry, from the way work is organized to creating products. The percentage of businesses clearly feeling the impact is 42.86% in the software outsourcing group (IT Outsourcing), 40.9% in the service group (IT Service) and 37.5% in the information technology consulting group (IT Consulting).

This trend is not only happening in Vietnam, as many businesses around the world have included the use of AI in recruitment criteria and job descriptions (JD).

According to early 2026 data from LinkedIn, the number of job postings mentioning AI skills increased by 70% compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, research conducted by Cornell University (USA) this year with more than 1,700 employers in the US and UK showed that candidates with better AI application skills have an 8-15% higher chance of being invited to an interview than people with equivalent professional backgrounds.

AI-related recruitment demand has also increased rapidly in recent years. A report by labor market data analysis company Lightcast noted that the number of job postings mentioning generative AI increased from a few dozen positions in 2021 to nearly 10,000 in 2025. In addition, the ability to use AI tools also appears in job descriptions, even for non-technical positions.

Some organizations like McKinsey include AI directly in recruitment assessments, asking candidates to use tools to handle specific situations. In that context, “knowing how to use AI” is no longer an additional criterion, but becomes a factor that clearly reveals the differences between candidates right during the interview process.

From the side of workers in Vietnam, the level of awareness and willingness to adapt to AI also tends to increase. Only 14% claimed to have never used AI, even this rate was only 6% in the IT – software group. The technology world uses AI mainly to look up in-depth knowledge, write technical documents and support programming. 96.8% of IT workers have a clear orientation about their role in the new environment, according to a TopCV survey. Meanwhile, the non-tech group leverages AI for creative tasks such as content writing and data analysis.