Bridging the Competency Canyon: A Case for Measuring Technical Proficiency in the Age of AI

By Mike Gentile, CEO of CISOSHARE, CyberForward Academy and TalentSplit

Let’s be honest: our system for measuring “digital readiness” is older than the floppy disk. Grades, degrees, and certifications still run the show, even though half the jobs we’re preparing people for no longer exist.

At the same time, AI is swallowing entry-level roles faster than a kid who just found out snacks are free at an open house. A recent Stanford University study found that employment for workers ages 22 to 25 has declined by 13% in the past three years alone (since ChatGPT was released). 

While the big players can buy their way out of the skills gap, smaller organizations are left trying to meet new cybersecurity and compliance standards with a workforce that’s under-trained and over-tested.

So, there’s a canyon between the skills we say we’re building and the ones we actually need. Let’s talk about this problem and how we can approach it, particularly in the world of IT.

Grades Don’t Build Firewalls

One of our biggest problems is that traditional credentials measure what people can memorize, not what they can do. You can ace a certification exam on incident response and still freeze when an actual alert pops up on your screen.

In cybersecurity alone, there are over 300 certifications. Many of them test theory, not application. Even worse, they do not work together in an organized framework.

Schools and training programs keep turning out students who look great on paper but falter in the field. Employers hire based on those paper stats, only to find their “entry-level” roles can’t actually be filled by entry-level talent.

Meanwhile, senior professionals (the ones who can actually bridge that gap) are retiring. The bench behind them is looking pretty empty at the moment.

This represents a talent shortage alongside a mismatch of measurement. We’re still using tools from the last century to gauge readiness for 21st-century work. Memorizing ports and protocols might have cut it in 2005, but it doesn’t prove someone can adapt to live threats, cloud environments, or AI-driven attack vectors.

If we keep grading like it’s still the textbook era, we’ll keep producing graduates who can recite best practices but can’t execute them. That’s the real firewall: measurable competence. Right now, too few people (and too few programs) are building it.

The Education-to-Employment Pipeline Is Cracked

According to the National Skills Coalition and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, 92% of jobs now require digital skills, yet a third of workers lack even basic proficiency. Salesforce’s global survey adds that 76% of employees feel unprepared for the digital future.

We’ve got a pipeline that looks good in PowerPoints but leaks everywhere in practice. Students graduate with degrees, companies invest in training, and still, both sides discover too late that the skills built don’t match the jobs waiting.

That’s why the next evolution in workforce development isn’t another course or certification. Instead, it’s a new way to measure and validate real technical proficiency.

The Case for a Technical Proficiency Score

Imagine a system that quantifies digital readiness the way a credit score tracks financial health. I’m talking about a “Technical Proficiency Score” that measures practical, demonstrated skills, not seat time.

It could work across schools, nonprofits, and organizations of any size. The score would evolve with new technologies and offer a shared language for workforce development, which is something both educators and employers can actually use.

We’ve already tested versions of this idea through CyberForward Academy, a program built to prepare high-school, college, and mid-career learners for real cybersecurity work. When we measure what people can apply, not just what they’ve learned, their confidence and employability skyrocket.

Further, developing technical proficiency takes time. Years even. It is critical to have a consistent scoring framework that is able to consistently measure and guide over time.

This kind of score is all about direction. It helps teachers design relevant curriculum, helps employers identify hidden potential, and helps communities invest in programs that actually move the needle. Most importantly, it helps developing talent effectively develop.

Why This Matters Right Now

Every job today is a tech job. So everyone needs to improve their technical proficiency. From developing talent to every organization that employs them. 

Every organization, from a local nonprofit to a Fortune 500, depends on a workforce that’s digitally fluent and security-aware. Without a common way to measure readiness, we’ll keep wasting money on training that doesn’t stick and degrees that don’t deliver.

If we can standardize how we define technical proficiency, we can finally make workforce development measurable, repeatable, and equitable. That’s how we close the canyon: one skill, one data point, one real-world success story at a time.

In this age of AI, it’s not about who’s got the longest list of certifications. It’s about who can actually do the work.

About the Author

Mike Gentile is the CEO and founder of CISOSHARE, a leading provider of cybersecurity program development services, the creator of CyberForward Academy, an education initiative focused on growing real-world digital talent, and TalentSplit, which transitions learners into workers. With more than two decades of experience in security leadership, Mike has advised Fortune 500 companies, public-sector organizations, and educational institutions on building scalable, measurable security programs. 

As a credentialed Career and Technical Education (CTE) teacher, he remains active in the classroom, combining executive insight with a hands-on understanding of how people actually learn, work, and build readiness in today’s digital economy.