Why Taste Is the New Resume

The New Creds: Why Taste Is the New Resume

In 2010, you needed the right degree.

In 2015, you needed the right job titles.

In 2020, you needed the right connections.

But in 2025?

You need the right taste.

Not the kind you use to appreciate fine wine or detect hints of elderberry in your pour-over coffee.

The kind that makes people look at your work and think: "Damn. They get it."

As AI democratizes technical execution and floods the world with infinite content, we're witnessing a fascinating cultural shift…

Taste /tāst/—the ability to curate, to discern quality, to establish vision—has become the ultimate professional currency.

The Great Credential Collapse

Let's be honest: traditional credentials are in freefall.

That MBA from a prestigious university? AI can now pass the same exams.

Those technical certifications? Language models are acing them too.

That impressive job title at a big company? Everyone saw the layoffs and knows you might have just been lucky.

We're experiencing what I like to call "credential inflation"—when everyone has impressive qualifications, those qualifications stop being impressive.

The result is a growing skepticism about traditional markers of talent:

• 37% of hiring managers say degrees matter less than they did five years ago

• 64% of professionals believe that job titles at known companies are increasingly poor indicators of ability

• Nearly 9 in 10 Gen Z workers feel traditional credentials fail to capture what makes someone truly valuable

As one CMO recently told me:

"I've hired people from Google, Meta, and Apple who couldn't execute to save their lives. And I've hired people with no brand names on their resume who transformed our entire operation. The logos just don't tell you what you need to know anymore."

Why Taste Matters More Now

This credential collapse is happening alongside another powerful trend: the rise of AI-powered creation tools.

When everyone has access to the same AI capabilities:

• Anyone can generate decent copy

• Anyone can produce passable designs

• Anyone can build functional workflows

• Anyone can create serviceable strategies

Technical execution is being rapidly democratized. The gap between the professional and the amateur is shrinking daily.

So what can't AI easily replicate or democratize?

Taste.

Taste exists in the space between data points.

It's informed by cultural context, lived experience, and a certain ineffable sensibility that no algorithm has yet mastered.

It's the difference between:

• Generic content and a distinctive point of view

• Following trends and setting them

• Collecting references and synthesizing new directions

• Competent execution and inspired vision

In a world where technical skills are increasingly augmented by AI, taste becomes the ultimate differentiator.

What Exactly Is Taste (and Why Is It So Valuable)?

Taste isn't just subjective preference. In a professional context, it's a complex, developed capability that encompasses:

1. Curation Expertise

The ability to separate signal from noise—to identify what matters and what doesn't in an ocean of possibilities.

In practice, this looks like:

• Selecting the right 3 features out of 30 possible options

• Identifying which trends have staying power versus momentary appeal

• Recognizing patterns before they become obvious to everyone else

• Knowing what to leave out as much as what to include

As one design director put it: "Anyone can create more. It takes taste to create less."

2. Contextual Intelligence

Understanding how elements work together within broader systems and cultural contexts.

This manifests as:

• Knowing how design choices reflect and influence brand perception

• Sensing how content will land in different cultural moments

• Understanding how business decisions align with or contradict societal shifts

• Recognizing the invisible connections between seemingly disparate trends

3. Vision Articulation

The capacity to establish and communicate a clear aesthetic and strategic direction.

In action, this means:

• Creating mood boards and reference collections that feel cohesive yet unexpected

• Establishing principles that guide decisions without constraining creativity

• Communicating abstract concepts in ways that inspire and align teams

• Making subjective choices with confidence and conviction

4. Judgment Consistency

Making reliably good choices across varied contexts and challenges.

This shows up as:

• Maintaining quality standards even under pressure

• Making decisions that stand the test of time

• Creating work that feels distinctively "yours" without becoming formulaic

• Building a body of work with a recognizable sensibility

The professionals who demonstrate these capabilities aren't just executing tasks—they're establishing vision. And in an AI-augmented world, vision beats execution every time.

The New Portfolio: Taste Signifiers

As taste becomes the new professional currency, how we demonstrate it is evolving too.

The new markers of professional credibility often look like:

1. Curated Feeds and Collections

Your Instagram, Pinterest boards, Spotify playlists, and even bookshelf have become professional artifacts that signal your sensibility.

"I've literally hired people based on their Spotify Wrapped,"

a creative director at a major agency told me recently.

"It tells me more about their capacity for discovery and their cultural awareness than any resume could."

2. Reference Fluency

The ability to draw connections between disparate influences—from architecture to anthropology, fashion to philosophy—demonstrates contextual intelligence that algorithms can't match.

This isn't about name-dropping. It's about showing how you synthesize influences into original perspective.

3. Editorial Projects

Newsletters, zines, playlists, micro-sites—personal editorial projects that demonstrate your point of view have become powerful professional calling cards.

They answer the question: "What stands out to you in a world of infinite content?"

4. Distinctive Decision Patterns

The consistent choices you make across projects reveal a coherent sensibility that becomes your professional signature.

This could be anything from the typography systems you gravitate toward to the structural patterns in your strategic frameworks.

5. Community Curation

The events you host, the discussions you moderate, the talent you champion—how you bring people together demonstrates taste that extends beyond aesthetic to values and vision.

Real-World Taste Arbiters

This isn't just theoretical. We're already seeing the rise of taste-first professionals who are redefining success in the AI era:

Case Study: The Content Strategist Who Cut Everything

A content strategist joined a SaaS company that was publishing 30+ pieces of content monthly—all technically sound, SEO-optimized, and utterly forgettable.

Her first move wasn't to create more.

It was to delete over 60% of the existing content and focus the entire strategy on just two distinctive viewpoints the company could authentically own.

What do you think happened?

Traffic dropped initially, then doubled within six months. More importantly, qualified leads increased by 340%.

Her explanation was simple:

"In a world where everyone can create infinite content, restraint is the ultimate marker of taste. We eliminated the noise so our actual perspective could be heard."

Case Study: The No-Portfolio Designer

A designer being recruited by a leading tech company refused to share a traditional portfolio. Instead, he sent:

• A custom Spotify playlist explaining his design philosophy through music

• A collection of architectural photography he'd taken showing his perspective on space and form

• A simple microsite featuring three questions he asks every client

The design director who hired him explained:

"Any decent designer can show you pretty pictures they've made. I was more interested in how he sees the world. That's what we're actually hiring—a way of seeing."

Case Study: The Curator-Turned-CEO

A woman with no traditional business background built a $40M company based entirely on her curatorial sensibility. She started by creating collections of overlooked mid-century furniture, then expanded to home goods, apparel, and ultimately lifestyle experiences.

When asked what qualified her to run a company of that scale, she responded:

"Taste is just pattern recognition applied to culture. Pattern recognition is the foundation of good business decisions. I'm not a good CEO despite prioritizing curation. I'm a good CEO because of it."

How AI Is Accelerating the Taste Economy

Counterintuitively, AI isn't diminishing the value of taste—it's amplifying it in three key ways:

1. The Sameness Problem

As AI generates increasingly competent but fundamentally similar outputs, distinctive human curation becomes more valuable, not less.

When everyone has access to the same generative tools, the ability to select, refine, and contextualize those outputs becomes the differentiator.

2. The Overwhelm Factor

AI doesn't just create content—it accelerates consumption. We're drowning in more information, entertainment, and stimuli than ever before.

In this environment, those who can curate signal from noise provide immense value—helping others navigate overwhelming choice.

3. The Authenticity Premium

As synthetic content proliferates, audiences increasingly crave the unmistakably human elements that AI struggles to replicate—point of view, cultural context, emotional resonance, and taste.

These elements command a growing premium in both the attention economy and the job market.

Developing Taste in an AI-Dominant World

So if taste is the new professional currency, how do we develop it?

Unlike traditional credentials, taste can't be acquired through a straightforward curriculum. But it can be cultivated through deliberate practice:

1. Consume Intentionally

Move beyond algorithmic recommendations:

• Follow the references behind the references

• Explore adjacent disciplines to your primary field

• Study historical context, not just current trends

• Seek out perspectives from diverse cultural backgrounds

The breadth and depth of your inputs directly influences the distinctiveness of your taste.

2. Practice Explicit Curation

Don't just consume—actively curate:

• Create collections with clear points of view

• Articulate why certain works matter to you

• Develop personal taxonomies and classification systems

• Practice inclusion and exclusion decisions with intention

The act of selection is a muscle that strengthens with deliberate exercise.

3. Study Successful Tastemakers

Across every field, certain individuals consistently demonstrate superior taste:

• Analyze their decision patterns over time

• Note how they frame and contextualize their choices

• Observe how they balance innovation and timelessness

• Consider how they respond to criticism and validation

Taste can be reverse-engineered through careful study of its masters.

4. Develop Principles, Not Rules

Taste isn't about rigid formulas, but about coherent sensibilities:

• Articulate flexible principles that guide your decisions

• Test those principles across varied contexts

• Refine them based on results and feedback

• Allow them to evolve while maintaining continuity

Principles create consistency without constraining evolution.

5. Embrace Constraints

Counterintuitively, taste flourishes within limitations:

• Set artificial constraints on projects (time, resources, elements)

• Work within established forms while adding distinctive touches

• Embrace the challenge of doing more with less

• Find freedom in frameworks rather than unlimited options

Constraint forces discernment—the essence of taste.

The Taste-Forward Organization

This shift isn't just changing individual careers. It's transforming how forward-thinking organizations operate.

Companies building for the taste economy are:

1. Elevating Curation to Leadership Level

Creating dedicated roles for those with exceptional taste:

• Chief Curation Officers overseeing product, content, and experience

• Editorial Directors shaping brand voice and content strategy

• Experience Curators designing customer journeys and touchpoints

• Trend Forecasters mapping cultural shifts and opportunity spaces

These roles prioritize contextual intelligence and vision articulation over traditional management skills.

2. Valuing References as Intellectual Property

Treating reference collections and taste artifacts as valuable company assets:

• Building proprietary curation databases

• Developing distinctive taxonomies and classification systems

• Creating internal editorial platforms for context-sharing

• Establishing curation guidelines alongside brand guidelines

3. Balancing AI Efficiency with Human Discernment

Using a strategic division of labor:

• AI for pattern identification, variation generation, and execution

• Human curators for selection, refinement, and contextual decision-making

• Continuous feedback loops between algorithmic and human systems

• Clear parameters for when taste should override data

This collaborative approach leverages AI for scale while preserving human discernment for direction.

The 'Taste Revolution ' Is Just Beginning

We're in the early stages of a fundamental shift in how professional value is created and recognized.

As AI continues to democratize technical execution, taste will only grow more valuable—not just in traditionally "creative" fields, but across business, technology, and culture.

The future belongs not to those with the most impressive credentials or the most advanced technical skills, but to those with the most developed, distinctive, and deployable taste.

In a world where anyone can create anything, knowing what's worth creating—and why—is the ultimate competitive advantage.

Your degree got you the interview. Your experience got you the job.

But your taste?

That's what will make you irreplaceable.

TL;DR

📉 Traditional credentials (degrees, job titles, technical skills) are rapidly being democratized and devalued

🔍 As AI makes technical execution available to everyone, taste—the ability to curate, discern quality, and establish vision—has become the ultimate professional differentiator

✅ Professional taste encompasses curation expertise, contextual intelligence, vision articulation, and judgment consistency

✅ The new portfolio includes taste signifiers: curated collections, reference fluency, editorial projects, distinctive decision patterns, and community curation

✅ AI is accelerating the taste economy by creating a sameness problem, increasing content overwhelm, and driving an authenticity premium

✅ Taste can be developed through intentional consumption, explicit curation practice, studying tastemakers, developing principles, and embracing constraints

✅ Forward-thinking organizations are elevating curation to leadership level, valuing references as IP, and balancing AI efficiency with human discernment

In a world where AI can create anything, knowing what's worth creating—and why—is the new competitive advantage.

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