Recruiting Future

What actually makes a workplace excellent? Attracting talent gets all the headlines, but retention is where the real competitive advantage lives. Top performers are constantly being approached by competitors, salary expectations keep rising, and AI is shifting the skills companies need faster than they can hire for them. Internal development and mobility are becoming just as critical as external hiring. The question is how you build a workplace where people genuinely want to stay and grow. My guests on Episode 775 of Recruiting Future are Annika in der Beek, Chief People Officer, and Giovanni Di Felice, Director of Talent Acquisition at Statista. They share the science-backed framework behind what makes an excellent employer and explain how hiring and retention are becoming inseparable parts of the same strategy. We discuss: • Hiring challenges in AI and tech • Encouraging candidates to use AI • Why retention has become critical • Measuring what makes an excellent employer • Autonomy, competence, and relatedness at work • The power of honest feedback • Internal mobility and career development • Talent acquisition as a strategic business partner Listen by searching Recruiting Future wherever you get your podcasts #JoinTheConversation

What if candidates are innovating faster than your hiring team? Talent acquisition teams are dealing with surging application volumes, and AI is a major factor. Candidates are using it to apply faster, at greater scale, and with more targeted information than ever before. The instinct has been to treat this as noise, something to filter out or push back on. That response misses the long-term implications entirely. Candidates now have access to the same technology as corporate hiring teams, and platforms are emerging specifically to help them use it strategically. The innovation this unlocks on the candidate side could drive more change in recruiting than anything employers are currently investing in. My guest on Episode 774 of Recruiting Future is Sam Wright, Head of Career Strategy at Huntr, a data-backed job search platform. Sam shares what candidates are really doing with AI and what the data reveals about where this is heading. We discuss: • The job market from a candidate's perspective • How the job search is changing • Declaring a truce in the AI arms race • Candidate-driven disruption and innovation in hiring • Ethics and responsibility • The importance of human judgement • What the future looks like Listen by searching Recruiting Future wherever you get your podcasts #JoinTheConversation

Is your employer brand now invisible? Recruitment marketing has been built around search engine visibility for years. Optimize your career site, rank well, get found. But LLMs surface information in a fundamentally different way, and content that performs well in Google often doesn't translate. Organizations that have invested heavily in employer brand discovery may be largely invisible in this new landscape. The rules of candidate search are being rewritten. My guest on Episode 773 of Recruiting Future is Graham Thornton, President of Consulting and Growth at Talivity. Graham explains how candidate discovery is shifting, why existing SEO thinking doesn't apply, and what organizations need to do differently. We discuss: • How AI is disrupting recruitment marketing • The new uneven playing field for employer visibility • Why content structure and specificity matter more than ever • How third-party content is influencing LLM-based discovery • The way job seekers are changing their search behavior • New approaches to measuring ROI Listen by searching Recruiting Future wherever you get your podcasts #JoinTheConversation

AI is forcing hard choices about work, skills, and leadership. AI transformation is accelerating. Move too fast without a clear framework and organisations risk damaging culture, trust, and capability. Move too slowly while waiting for certainty and competitors gain ground. Talent leaders are caught in the middle, expected to drive change while protecting the workforce. There is no simple playbook, and the pressure is intensifying. So what does a disciplined, structured response to AI disruption actually look like? Where should HR and talent functions lead, and where should they challenge? Matt's guest on Episode 772 of Recruiting Future is Jagrity Singh, a transformation leader who integrates AI-driven talent strategies with process excellence. In our conversation, she introduces a practical model for understanding where work sits on the spectrum between fully human and fully automated, and explains why organisations that succeed will be those that learn to ride the wave rather than resist it. We discuss: • Differences in AI approaches across Europe, the Middle East, and North America • The impact of AI on jobs and how employers should respond • Why AI is a people challenge, not just a technology one • The role of CHROs in orchestrating human and AI workforces • Strategic workforce planning • Deciding what should and should not be automated • Advice for talent leaders navigating disruption • What the future may look like 🎧 Listen by searching Recruiting Future wherever you get your podcasts

Hiring is meant to find the right person. Too often, the process filters them out instead. Most hiring systems are built with good intentions. Job descriptions are designed to clarify expectations. Competency frameworks aim to define leadership. Assessment tools promise objectivity. In practice, many of these tools narrow the funnel long before employers realise it. Candidates are screened out for skills they could quickly learn. Leadership models reflect generic philosophies rather than what works inside a specific organisation. Some assessments lack scientific validation, while others identify average profiles when the role demands something very different. The result is missed talent and misaligned hires who spend months, sometimes years, trying to succeed against expectations that were never clearly defined. So how should organisations rethink how they assess and select talent? My guest on Episode 770 of Recruiting Future is Dr Stephanie Puckett, founder of SynergyMind Consulting. Drawing on two decades in organisational psychology, Stephanie explains where hiring processes quietly break down and what happens when science is replaced by assumption. We discuss: • The most common mistakes employers make in hiring • How talent pools are unintentionally restricted • Skill and competency transfer • The risk of using tools without scientific validation • The critical role of talent acquisition teams • Data science versus psychology • Confirmation bias inside large datasets • The importance of realistic job previews • How hiring may evolve over the next two to three years 🎧 Listen by searching Recruiting Future wherever you get your podcasts #JoinTheConversation

Recruiting processes were designed around human capacity. What happens when AI removes that constraint? Recruiting has always been shaped by time and resource limits. Resumes are short because recruiters only have so long to review them. Shortlists are small because hiring managers can only meet a handful of candidates. The whole funnel narrows because no recruiting team can always fully evaluate everyone who applies These constraints have defined hiring for decades. AI agents now have the ability to screen hundreds of candidates in hours, operate beyond business hours, and return structured, evidence-based insights for recruiters to assess. Early data from large scale AI interviewing is already challenging assumptions about how processes should work. At the same time, when algorithms influence who progresses, questions of fairness, ethics, and regulatory accountability become unavoidable. This creates a genuine inflection point. If time and capacity are no longer the bottlenecks, how should recruiting be redesigned? What needs to change, and what must remain firmly human? My guest on Episode 771 of Recruiting Future is Sachit Kamat, Chief Product Officer at Eightfold. In our conversation, Sachit shares early results from AI interviewing at scale and explains why talent leaders need to rethink hiring architecture rather than simply automate existing workflows. We discuss: • Lifting traditional capacity limitations in recruiting • The impact of AI interviewing on the candidate experience • What humans do better than technology • Designing processes built for agent scale • Meaningfully improving the candidate journey • Regulation, responsibility, and governance • First steps toward transformation • Whether time to hire could realistically fall below one hour • What the future of recruiting may look like 🎧 Listen by searching Recruiting Future wherever you get your podcasts #JoinTheConversation

Automation is accelerating and so is the legal scrutiny that comes with it. Talent teams are under real pressure. Budgets are tight. Headcount is stretched. The mandate to move faster has pushed many organisations to automate quickly, often without redesigning the processes being automated. What used to be seen as routine workflow steps are now being examined as consequential decisions. Regulators and legal teams are paying attention. At the same time, AI has the potential to drive long overdue transformation in talent acquisition. It can force clarity, discipline, and better design. The opportunity is real, but so is the risk. So how do leaders navigate constraints without retreating into risk avoidance? My guest on Episode 769 of Recruiting Future is Kyle Lagunas, Founder of Kyle and Co. In our conversation, Kyle explores what defensibility actually means in practice, why talent teams need to move from risk avoidance to risk readiness, and how AI can act as a catalyst for better operating models. We discuss: • Credibility under constraint • The difference between being risk averse and risk ready • What defensibility really looks like • Balancing AI execution with human judgement • Designing human in the loop properly • Whether we hold machines to higher standards than people • The need for rigour in pilot programmes • Building AI literacy across the function • What the future may look like 🎧 Listen by searching Recruiting Future wherever you get your podcasts #JoinTheConversation

When AI transforms how work gets done, how do you make sure a global workforce has the right skills? Audit and assurance are facing a talent crisis. Fewer graduates are choosing the profession, and perceptions of the work haven’t kept pace with how it’s actually changing. Meanwhile, AI is transforming the nature of audit. Repetitive tasks are being automated, new service lines are emerging, and the profession now needs very different skills. Purpose, flexibility, and agility are rising expectations, but many traditional career paths aren’t keeping up. So how do you reskill more than 100,000 people while also making the profession more attractive to the next generation? My guest on Episode 767 of Recruiting Future is Sandra Oliver, Global Assurance Talent Leader at EY. In our conversation, Sandra shares how EY is reskilling its global workforce at scale, building career stories that resonate with Gen Z, and reframing audit as a launchpad for future business leaders. We discuss: • Attracting Gen Z to the audit profession • How AI is changing day-to-day audit work • Upskilling 130,000 professionals in AI • Bridging generational divides in technology adoption • Reverse mentoring between junior and senior staff • Purpose and meaningful work as drivers of retention • How audit careers may evolve over the next five years 🎧 Listen by searching Recruiting Future wherever you get your podcasts #JoinTheConversation

TA is evolving. But are we measuring what actually matters? The talent market is full of contradictions. Hiring is happening, but it’s cautious. Candidates want more clarity. Employers are taking longer to make decisions. AI is everywhere in the conversation, but still nowhere near full adoption. Through it all, TA is changing. The best teams are thinking about skills, internal mobility, and workforce planning, not just filling roles. However, many are still reporting on time to hire and cost per hire, metrics that track activity rather than impact. So how should TA functions prove their value? What should be measured if the goal is real business influence? My guest on Episode 766 of Recruiting Future is Bharat Siyani, VP of People and Culture at Elmo Software. In our conversation, Bharat outlines what impact really looks like, which metrics actually matter, and how TA can position itself as a strategic partner in the business. We discuss: • The contradictions in today’s talent market • Finding the signal in the noise • Understanding nuance in recruiting decisions • What AI should do versus what humans must own • Moving beyond efficiency metrics • Measuring value, outcomes, and long-term fit • Tech hiring in a volatile landscape • Skills, context, and redefining roles • TA’s role in shaping the workforce • What the TA team of the future might look like 🎧 Listen by searching Recruiting Future wherever you get your podcasts #JoinTheConversation

The job board model is breaking. Can it be fixed before it collapses? Job boards have connected candidates and employers for over thirty years. But the relationship that made them work is starting to fall apart. Candidates are applying to roles that may already be filled or have been taken off the market. Employers are drowning in identical, AI-generated applications they can't properly assess. Job boards, caught in the middle, are still operating on business models that reward volume over quality. The result is a growing trust gap on both sides. When neither party believes the process is fair or effective, the whole system begins to unravel. So what would it take for job boards to rebuild that trust and stay relevant? My guest on Episode 765 of Recruiting Future is Lou Goodman, a job board strategist who recently partnered with Jobiqo on a major new report on the future of the industry. In our conversation, Lou explains why job boards are stuck in familiar patterns, what they can learn from other platforms, and whether this is a moment of evolution or extinction. We discuss: • Why job boards still matter in today's market • The trust crisis threatening the ecosystem • How AI is amplifying weaknesses rather than solving them • Why fairness matters more than outcomes • The shift from quantity to quality • Where job boards can genuinely add value • How short-term fixes become long-term patterns • Lessons from other two-sided platforms • What the future might look like 🎧 Listen by searching Recruiting Future wherever you get your podcasts #JoinTheConversation