May 12, 2026
For almost a year now, my son and I have been doing low-carb and keto. Reading labels. Cutting sugar. Walking past the “slop and sludge” aisles, as we call them at the grocery store.
What started as a health reset has recently turned into more of a worldview.
Big Food has been selling us inflated nutrition labels, marketing dressed as wisdom, and product names that mean nothing. The packaging looks healthy. The ingredient list tells the truth.
The same scam is running in the workforce technology space.
At SkillsTX, we gave it a name. Skill Slop.
The HR tech industry brags about libraries of 50,000 or more skills. We’re closing in on 2 million different industry credentials. Sounds impressive. Until you look closely. Those are not skills. They are keyword fragments. Software product names. Industry buzzwords. Job titles wearing a trench coat.
None of it tells you what a human can actually do.
Big Learning has been feeding leaders the same inflated nutrition labels Big Food has been feeding our kids. The packaging says capability. The ingredient list says assumption.
The result is a workforce running on slop:
- Hires made on resume theater
- L&D budgets blown on training that fixes phantom gaps
- Transformations are stalling because leaders cannot prove the workforce can execute
- AI rollouts are colliding with talent nobody verified
The boardroom question for 2026 is the same one I ask before every meal.
What is actually in this?
Do we know what our people can do? Is there supporting evidence? Or are we hoping the label is right and believing that “natural ingredients” are indeed that… natural?
There is a cure, and it is not another platform selling more slop. SFIA (the Skills Framework for the Information Age) and the SFIA Foundation provide a globally recognized, peer-reviewed standard for defining skills and measuring what’s more important, proficiency and competence.
SkillsTX makes that standard operational with evidence, governance, and audit-ready proof. Our new TXpertIQ is an AI with a job: it turns skill claims into proof and proof into defensible decisions.
Same playbook as the kitchen.
Cut the sludge. Read the label. Demand the truth.
This is why my work travels with two ideas that refuse to leave each other alone.
#OwnYourSkills means stop letting a job title, a resume, or someone else’s marketing department speak for your capability. Own the evidence. Carry the proof.
#PassionForPotential means refusing to settle for the watered-down version of yourself that fits in someone else’s category. Your body knows when it is being fed slop. So does your career.
The era of skill slop is ending. The era of indisputable capability is here.
Trust without evidence is just optimism.
Read the label. On your food. On your career. On your workforce.
The slop aisle is closed.
#DitchTheResume #75YOU #ChasmSherpa #SkillsTX #SFIA #SkillsBasedOrganization #FutureOfWork #HRTech #DigitalSkills #WorkforcePlanning
