AI Literacy as a Hiring Signal in Project Management Recruitment

Generative Artificial Intelligence is increasingly impacting project work, yet whether AI literacy is becominga screening criterion for project managers remains an open empirical question. This is important in Human ResourceManagement, where project-based organisations select staff using competence frameworks that combine technical,managerial, and behavioural criteria. To fill this gap, we examine labour-market demand using a mixed-methodsapproach that includes web scraping, computational text mining, and qualitative content analysis. The dataset includes530 Project Management vacancies posted on the job-recruiting digital platform Indeed across Italy, the UnitedKingdom, and the United States. Quantitative analyses identify requested skills, education, certifications, and tools, whilequalitative coding examines advertisements that explicitly mention Artificial Intelligence or Generative ArtificialIntelligence to understand how these capabilities are represented. AI-related signals are present, but inconsistentlyspecified and rarely treated as clear entry thresholds; instead, they typically appear as expectations for working withinorganisational systems or AI-enabled interfaces. We position job advertisements as recruitment signals that shape theformalisation of emerging technologies in selection practice.