The Recruiting Brainfood Podcast

HOW TO HIRE IN SOUTH AFRICA IN 2026   Friends, I am back in South Africa, in one of my favourite cities for one of my favourite conferences, Recruiters Unite!   As has become tradition, we're going to do a Brainfood Live on the day the event, to speak to local South African recruiters and discuss the main challenges in hiring in South Africa in 2026. We hope to share knowledge between local recruiters and increase awareness for outsiders on how things roll here in the Rainbow Nation!   A few things we'll cover: Macro hiring outlook for 2026 Understanding South Africa’s labour law framework Employment Equity & B-BBEE in practice Permanent vs contract vs EOR models Compensation benchmarks & pay transparency trends Scarce skills and critical talent pipelines Remote and hybrid hiring dynamics Managing unionised environments Immigration and cross-border hiring Retention in a high-mobility market All this and more, as we dive into the nuance of hiring in one of the most dynamic and complicated countries in Africa.   We're on Tuesday 3rd March, 12pm GMT / 2pm SAST Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)     Ep364 is sponsored by Recruiters Unite   It's the event of the year for recruiters in South Africa. Get together with 400 local recruiters and a handful of brilliant experts from overseas and share knowledge as to how recruitment is working today and how it will work tomorrow.   Tickets here

THE AI IN HIRING REPORT 2026   AI now shapes how candidates are discovered, evaluated, progressed, and hired. What began as productivity tooling has become a decision-making layer across the hiring funnel, influencing speed, fairness, quality, and outcomes at scale. As adoption accelerates, the focus has shifted from novelty to impact: what AI is actually doing inside hiring workflows, where it adds value, and where risk is emerging. This session brings those realities into the open, grounded in fresh data from Greenhouse’s 2026 report on the state of AI in recruitment.   The report investigates AI use across the full hiring funnel, including: • Attraction & employer branding – how AI shapes job ads, messaging, and candidate reach • Sourcing – automation, matching, and talent rediscovery inside ATS platforms • Screening & shortlisting – CV parsing, skills inference, and early-stage decision support • Assessment & interviewing – structured interviews, note-taking, and signal consistency • Candidate experience – communication, feedback loops, and process transparency • Hiring decisions - how are candidates evaluated and how offers are personalised and shaped.   All this and more on Brainfood Live On Air.   We're on Friday 27th February, 2pm GMT. Follow the channel here (recommended) and click on the green button (save my spot) to reserve a place!   Ep363 is sponsored by Greenhouse   Want to dive deeper into the results of the Greenhouse AI In Hiring Survey? Discover how hundreds of candidates, recruiters, and hiring managers feel about working with AI in 2026. Read the key findings and actionable insights by downloading here:

FROM TALENT ACQUISITION TO TALENT OPERATIONS is a forward-looking show for TA leaders who can feel the function changing - but need clarity on what it is becoming.     We’ll examine the rise of talent operations as a distinct capability, driven by automation across scheduling, screening, compliance, and workflow management. As logistics are increasingly handled by platforms and AI, the skills that matter inside TA are changing fast. Data literacy is no longer optional. Leaders must understand demand forecasting, funnel diagnostics, quality signals, and cost-to-hire at a systems level—not just at req level.   At the same time, employer branding is making a return to centre stage. In a market shaped by transparency, social proof, and candidate choice, brand and messaging once again shape hiring outcomes. Talent intelligence becomes the strategic core: mapping skills, supply, pay, location, and future demand to inform decisions across the business.   Meanwhile, execution is fragmenting. More organisations are moving actual recruiting delivery to on-demand models—combining RPO, freelance recruiters, and specialist vendors—while internal teams focus on orchestration, insight, and governance.   This livestream will unpack what world-class talent operations looks like in practice, how leading teams are reorganising today, and what capabilities TA leaders must build next.   Viewers will learn how to transition from recruiter-led execution to an operational, intelligence-driven TA model built for scale, flexibility, and impact.   We're with Jamie Leonard, Founder of Recruitment Events Co, Jennifer Candee, Global Head of TA Transformation (IMI), Trine Rulffs, on Friday 20th February, 2pm GMT. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Ep362 is sponsored by Greenhouse   91% of recruiters and hiring managers have spotted or suspected candidate deception in the hiring process. Enter Greenhouse Real Talent™. Cut through spam and misrepresentation in your pipeline, verify a candidate's identity, and quickly identify which applicants are most aligned with your role. Learn more and book a demo today:

REDUCTION IN FORCE: HOW TO LEAD DURING CRISIS!   This show focuses on the practical reality of TA downsizing, told by leaders who have already been through it. Not theory. Not platitudes. Real decisions, real mistakes, and hard-won lessons. We explore how leaders decide when reductions are unavoidable, who to let go, and how to do it in a way that is fair, defensible, and humane—while still protecting the business.   The discussion covers: • Early warning signs that TA capacity is misaligned with demand • Objective vs subjective decision-making in role reductions • Legal and process risks specific to TA teams • Communicating layoffs with clarity, dignity, and credibility • Supporting managers who deliver the message • Handling survivor guilt and rebuilding trust post-reduction • What leaders wish they had done differently   Grounded in recent workforce data and employment best practice, this episode gives TA leaders a clear-eyed framework for making difficult calls without losing their values—or their teams.   Learn how to approach TA layoffs with structure, empathy, and confidence, while minimising risk and preserving long-term organisational trust.   We're with Andrea Marston, Head of Talent Acquisition (Nutanix), Yakub Zolinsky, VP of People (XYZReality), Julia Levy, Global Head of TA (ex-Commscope, Fiserv) & friends on Friday 13th February, 2pm GMT. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Ep361 is sponsored by Maki   At Maki, we help organisations like BNP Paribas, PwC, Booking.com, Nestlé, and H&M transform hiring with AI agents for screening, interviewing, and assessment.   By combining automation, behavioural science, and data, Maki enables talent teams to hire faster, fairer, and smarter.   Our global partnership with H&M saved 250 000 recruiter hours, cut time-to-hire by 4×, and reduced turnover by 22 %, delivering $85 M ROI.   Beyond automation, we’re building a continuous reinforcement system where every recruiter judgment and employee outcome makes our AI agents smarter; creating a unique data moat in HR.   Learn more: makipeople.com

THE STATE OF TALENT INTELLIGENCE 2026   As we barrel through the year 2026, labour markets are being redefined by emerging technologies, shifting skills demand, and data-driven workforce strategies. Organisations worldwide are adopting sophisticated talent intelligence tools to forecast skills gaps, optimise hiring, and build resilient workforces — but staying ahead requires deeper insight and expert foresight. Drawing on the latest research and real-world experience from leading platforms like TalentNeuron, Lightcast, Horsefly, Gartner and Korn Ferry, The State of Talent Intelligence 2026 will provide practical, actionable perspective on where the industry is headed and how you can lead in your organisation.   Our expert panel will dive into the trends transforming talent strategies, from the rapid evolution of AI skill demand and skills-based hiring to the integration of internal and external workforce analytics for strategic planning.   The evolving role of talent intelligence platforms and how continuous labour market data is powering strategic workforce planning and skills forecasting. AI skills demand and compensation shifts, including insights showing AI-related roles commanding premium salaries in a competitive market. Transitioning from job titles to skills-based hiring as organisations seek quality and fit over traditional credential-based approaches. Balancing automation with human strategic insight as AI reshapes recruiting workflows and recruiter roles. Data analytics driving talent decisions, from predictive labour market insight to internal mobility optimisation. Employer branding and candidate experience in the age of intelligent hiring, aligning organisational value with talent expectations. Future workforce challenges and opportunities, including leadership pipelines, hybrid work models, and evolving HR capabilities for 2026.   We're on Friday 6th February, 2pm GMT. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Ep360 is sponsored by Joveo   As the global leader in AI-powered, high-performance recruitment marketing, Joveo is transforming talent attraction and recruitment media buying for the world’s largest employers, staffing firms, RPOs, and media agencies. The Joveo platform enables businesses to attract, source, engage, and hire the best candidates on time and within budget.   Powering millions of jobs every day, Joveo’s AI-led recruitment marketing platform uses advanced data science and machine learning to dynamically manage and optimize talent sourcing and applications across all online channels, while providing real-time insights at every step of the job seeker journey, from click to hire.   For more information about Joveo’s award-winning platform and solutions, visit www.joveo.com.

WHAT RESPONSIBLE AI MEANS FOR RECRUITERS?   What is Responsible AI for Talent Acquisition Teams? is a practical, straight-talking podcast for recruiters who are already using AI—and now need to make sure they’re using it properly.   AI is no longer a future experiment in hiring. It’s embedded in sourcing, screening, assessment, and workforce planning. The real question facing TA leaders today is not whether to use AI, but how to use it in a way that stands up to governance scrutiny, fairness expectations, and growing legal risk. Regulators, candidates, and internal stakeholders are all paying closer attention—and the margin for error is shrinking.   This podcast explores the reality behind “responsible AI” in talent acquisition, cutting through vague principles and focusing on what recruiters actually need to know. We’ll examine why so many organisations still lack formal AI governance, why confidence in bias reduction remains low, and what that means for teams deploying AI at scale. Drawing on 2024–2025 data and real-world TA use cases, the discussion will unpack the tension between automation, efficiency, and human accountability.   Key areas covered include: • What responsible AI really means in a TA context • Governance frameworks recruiters should understand—even if legal owns them • Bias, fairness, and explainability in screening and assessment tools • Legal and regulatory risk, including emerging obligations under the EU AI Act and employment law • The role of recruiters as AI operators, not just end users • How to balance speed, cost savings, and candidate trust • What “human-in-the-loop” looks like in practice   Listeners will learn how to evaluate their current AI stack, ask better questions of vendors, reduce risk exposure, and build hiring processes that are efficient, defensible, and fair.     We're with Martyn Redstone, Head of Responsible AI & Industry Engagement (Warden.AI) & friends on Wednesday 4th February, 12pm GMT. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)     Ep359 is sponsored by Oleeo   AI is now used by 62% of companies for hiring, but rapid efficiency shouldn't come at the expense of fairness. Oleeo and Aptitude Research’s new report highlights a major gap: only 20% of employers have fully established AI governance frameworks, which can lead to unintended bias. To keep things fair and compliant, 85% of recruiters demand final decision-making authority.   Download 'Setting the Standard for Responsible AI: A Guide For Modern Recruiters' today to build a transparent, human-led strategy that uses AI responsibly.

6 x AI USAGE FRAMEWORKS FOR TALENT ACQUISITION   Closing the gap between proclaimed capability of AI vs the practical impact of AI is set to become one of the main stories of 2026, as function leaders in every department scramble to deliver against the expectations of an increasingly impatient C-level.   Are there any frameworks or maturity models which can help?   Brainfooder Soeren Winter has identified 6 AI Usage Frameworks most commonly cited in change management discourse and we're going to apply them Talent Acquisition and see what we can learn. Vital show for anyone interested in accelerating AI adoption, maximising the opportunity window for gains from AI, whilst ensuring the humans in the team, remain in and some cases, above, the loop.     We're on Friday 30th January 2pm GMT / 3pm CET. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Episode 358 is sponsored by Juicebox   PeopleGPT is the leading outbound recruiting platform built on Generative AI. Find talent across 30+ data sources, get interactive Talent Insights, and reach out with personalized AI email campaigns.   Key features include: PeopleGPT (Search): the world’s first people search engine that uses natural language. Describe who you’re searching for and find the perfect match from over 30 data sources. Talent Insights: Visualize your talent pool with 15+ interactive charts. Refine your search and dive deep into stats based on location, employers, job titles, skills, and more. Email Outreach: Maximize candidate engagement with AI-powered email campaigns. Personalize messaging at scale using AI commands, and boost response rates by 40%.   Get 15% off your Juicebox subscription with code: BRAINFOOD15   Trusted by 400+ companies including Scale AI, Mindbloom, and Patreon. Free trial available. Try Juicebox today

WHY YOU NEED RECOPS TO ACCELERATE AI IN TA   Recruiters are the busiest people in white collar work because there is often no way to accurately forecast resource demands - you never know how long a requirement is going to take to fill or how many hours of time it is going to take to get it done. People are variable and in recruitment, there are people who will impact the state of any project, who are fully outside a recruiters sphere of influence.   This is why AI adoption in Talent Acquisition struggles to move beyond isolated pilots. The operators - the recruiters with headcount targets - are too busy to switch to new ways of working, even those that promise significant efficiency gains. That is apart from one type of TA structure - where Talent Operations has a specialised function in making every other member of the team more efficient.   We're going bold with this one folks - we believe that RecOps is the force multiplier for AI adoption and you need this specialist function in order to migrate to the new way of working. Evidence from RecOps pro's in panel.     We're on Friday 23rd January 2pm GMT / 3pm CET. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Episode 357 is sponsored by Ashby   Drive faster, more confident hiring decisions with native AI-Notetaker   Ashby’s AI Notetaker brings structured meeting data together with emails, notes, feedback, and more. It shortens time to feedback and provides rich candidate context, helping your team align quickly and make faster, more confident hiring decisions.   Spend less time typing and more time hiring with interview notes that practically write themselves.

TOO COMPLEX FOR AI? HOW POLICE SCOTLAND SOLVED THE UNSOLVABLE HIRING PUZZLE   Most recruiters think their organisation is too "unique" or "complex" to trust AI. Then there is Police Scotland. Operating across 13 regions, managing 22,000+ staff, and balancing the hyper-sensitive vetting requirements, their hiring process is as high-stakes as it gets. Yet, they didn't just implement AI—they used it to automate 90% of candidate enquiries and launch a 24/7 support system in just weeks.   Join us for Episode 356 as we deconstruct the PoliceScotland Model with Lorna Allison (ex-Police Inspector & HR Systems Manager). We’re going deep on how to overcome the three biggest barriers to AI adoption: The Trust Gap: How to use AI in a highly regulated environment where public accountability is everything. The Admin Wall: How they removed the burden of repetitive tasks to let recruiters focus on high-value human assessment. The Inclusion Mandate: Why a "judgment-free" AI bot actually improved their pipeline diversity and candidate experience. The Reality: If you can solve for the complexity of the Police, you can solve for anything.   Wed 21st January 12pm GMT. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Episode 356 is sponsored by Oleeo   AI is now used by 62% of companies for hiring, but rapid efficiency shouldn't come at the expense of fairness. Oleeo and Aptitude Research’s new report highlights a major gap: only 20% of employers have fully established AI governance frameworks, which can lead to unintended bias. To keep things fair and compliant, 85% of recruiters demand final decision-making authority.   Download 'Setting the Standard for Responsible AI: A Guide For Modern Recruiters' today to build a transparent, human-led strategy that uses AI responsibly.

TALENT STRATEGY: WHAT, WHY, HOW AND WHEN   Does your company have a talent strategy?   It's probably the right thing to say that you do, but how much do we know about what a Talent Strategy is really? I asked this question within the Brainfood community and received some outstanding observations, so much so that we have to elevate this to a full discussion on Brainfood Live.   “Talent strategy is how the business ensures it has the capability to execute its strategy and win” - says Lisa Scales, Director of Talent at the Royal Mail.   What does this compose of?   Succession planning. re-deployment investigations, competence mapping and calculating the gap between Core & Strategic competencies, developing a plan for how to close the gap, overseeing the global Talent Acquisition function says Ana Moller,   Where does it live?   On a Github Repo says Mark Deubels (!). But the point is that it should be living document subject contribution by others in the business, presided over by TA / HR   Lets talk Talent Strategy - not only why you need one, but what it actually is, how it is built, what makes it an effective orientating vision and how it informs the recruiting tactics which recruits will ultimately adopt.   We're on Friday 16th January, 2pm GMT. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Episode 355 is sponsored by Maki   At Maki, we help organisations like BNP Paribas, PwC, Booking.com, Nestlé, and H&M transform hiring with AI agents for screening, interviewing, and assessment.   By combining automation, behavioural science, and data, Maki enables talent teams to hire faster, fairer, and smarter.   Our global partnership with H&M saved 250 000 recruiter hours, cut time-to-hire by 4×, and reduced turnover by 22 %, delivering $85 M ROI.   Beyond automation, we’re building a continuous reinforcement system where every recruiter judgment and employee outcome makes our AI agents smarter; creating a unique data moat in HR.   Learn more: makipeople.com

VIBE SOURCING 101: LEARN TO SOURCE FROM THE WEB & YOUR ATS WITH METAVIEW AI AGENT   We are going to look back at 2025 as the year it all changed for sourcing. AI Agents entered the market and immediately began to demonstrate talent acquisition teams could become massively more efficient by leverage the increasable ability of AI Agents to ingest huge amounts of candidate data and instantly return viable results from natural language prompts.   But we can already see that some recruiters are better than others when it comes to collaborating with AI Agents to source candidates. What are those recruiters doing, why do they get better results, what are the behaviours required to get the best out of your AI Agent?   We're going to deep dive how to source with AI Agents, revealing the techniques, the skills and the mentality which will reveal the best recruiters of tomorrow.   It's a mid week special - so we're on Wednesday 14th January, 4pm GMT / 11am ET. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Ep354 is sponsored by Metaview   Are you ready to supercharge your recruiting teams performance?   Metaview’s AI Sourcing will feel like a cheat code. It’s the first autonomous AI coworker that goes off and does the search for you and brings back spot-on candidates based on your exact brief.   Here’s what recruiters have been saying about it:   “I don’t know how you did it, but Metaview’s AI Sourcing is absurdly good.”   Michael, Partner @ Super Recruiter   “Metaview’s AI Sourcing really helps with niche roles. It surfaces profiles I wouldn’t have found.”   Dea, TA Manager @ Miro   “So impressed by how Metaview’s AI Sourcing turns a natural language prompt into great profiles.”   Leslie, Recruiter @ Cockroach Labs   Metaview gives high-performance teams a genuine unfair advantage in hiring. Join teams like ElevenLabs, Deel, and Pleo — along with 4,000+ others — and try it for free today.

HIRING BENCHMARKS FOR THE 16 MOST COMMON OCCUPATIONS IN THE USA   We all want to be 'data driven' but most of the time the only data we have access to are those which we have recorded of ourselves and our own activity. This is vitally important for tracking your progress over time, but not the complete picture when it comes to how you are doing against the market and against the competition.   In partnership with our friends Joveo, we are pulling together behaviour data from job candidates on the 16 most common job roles in the USA - book keeper, truck driver, construction worker, nurse practitioner, teacher - and finding out what the state of the Labour market is: what is the size of the labour pool, what is the average number of job applications per role in these sectors, what are the most important sources of hire, what is the CPA for the employer of each of these roles, what is the geographic distribution of the talent and so on.   Essential viewing for any US recruiter for some of the most employed positions in the country.   We're on Friday 9th January, 2pm GMT / 9am ET. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)   Ep353 is sponsored by Joveo   As the global leader in AI-powered, high-performance recruitment marketing, Joveo is transforming talent attraction and recruitment media buying for the world’s largest employers, staffing firms, RPOs, and media agencies. The Joveo platform enables businesses to attract, source, engage, and hire the best candidates on time and within budget.   Powering millions of jobs every day, Joveo’s AI-led recruitment marketing platform uses advanced data science and machine learning to dynamically manage and optimize talent sourcing and applications across all online channels, while providing real-time insights at every step of the job seeker journey, from click to hire.   For more information about Joveo’s award-winning platform and solutions, visit www.joveo.com.

Informing Happy Hiring: Signals from Willo's Hiring Intelligence Report 2026   This year, Willo didn’t just watch hiring change, they measured it.   In this episode of Brainfood Live on Air, we’ll explore what the data from Willo’s Hiring Intelligence Report 2026 reveals about how hiring teams are actually operating in the AI-era, how this compares to previous years, and what that means as we look ahead. What will we be talking about? What’s really happening to CV-centric hiring Where AI is being introduced into hiring workflows, and where it isn’t How automation is influencing candidate screening and assessment Why final hiring decisions remain human-led How fairness and consistency are being approached in practice The role of asynchronous interviews in modern hiring What hiring leaders are prioritizing as they look toward 2026 All this and more on Brainfood Live on Air.   We’ll be joined by Euan Cameron, CEO at Willo and Tanya van Soest, Head of Content at Willo on January 7, 2026   Register by clicking the green button (“save my spot”) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be notified when we go live.

REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2025 - Economy & AI   Final part of our 4 part series on the Review of the Year. The two dominant mega themes of this year has undoubtedly been the global economy and the rise of AI. The two are becoming intertwined, especially with the AI investment boom drawing down investments from other parts of the US economy, whilst Trump Trade War 2.0 hobbles global economic growth, likely inadvertently accelerating the adoption of AI...   - Global economic growth 2025 - Jobs Growth / Loss - Sectoral growth / decline - Staffing agency figures - ONS data on unemployed / underemployed - Employment Rights Bill - Immigration - UK vs Europe - UK vs US - UK vs Global Mean - Contact / FTE - Wage growth / decline - Entry level hiring - AI Economy - Adoption patterns and impact on employment - Sectors most exposed, greatest risk / greatest opportunity? - Forecast for 2026 - UK, Europe, US, Globe - Recommendations for TA, Staffing Agencies, Hiring Managers   All this and more on brainfood live on air.   We're with Neil Carberry, MD (Recruitment & Employment Confederation), Belinda Johnson, Founder, (Worklab) & Rt Hon Chloe Smith on Friday 19th December, 2pm GMT.   Register by click on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be noticed when we go live.     Ep349 is sponsored by Recruiting Brainfood   Thank you all for your support in 2025. We cannot do these conversations without the support of our amazing sponsors, our fantastic panelists but most of all, you the viewing public. Thank you and see you next year!

REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2025 - Sourcing, Employer Branding & RecOps   Third of our 4 part series reviewing the major events and trends of the year in Sourcing, Employer Branding & RecOps What has happened this year that we got on talk about?   - End of an Era? Irina Shamaeva - SOSU review - Is Sourcing dead or shifting toward automation of candidate discovery? - Demand for sourcing training being replaced by demand for AI training - Employer branding - how is AI being used to support this? - How is AI being ab-used to inadvertently damage this? - How do we understand 'AI first' through the lens of EB? - What happened to 'Mission focused' btw, was it anti-DEIB in disguise? - What is the percentage of AI ten content on career pages, going up or down? - Have any organisations consciously thought about their AI principles through an EB lens? - RecOps ...what have been the priorities for recruitment operations? - Have we seen AI operations leads in RecOps? - How has AI changed the RecOps role...replaced or expanded? - Forecasts for 2026 - sourcing, eb and recops   All this and more on brainfood live on air.   We're with Alla Pavlova, Recruiter (Riot Games), Chloe Morrison, RecOps (datadog), Steve Ward, Employer Brand Strategist (Blackbridge Communications) & Jeremy Lyons, Founder (RecOps Collective) on Friday 12th December, 2pm GMT   Register by click on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be noticed when we go live.     Ep348 is sponsored by our friends Ashby   Drive faster, more confident hiring decisions with native AI-Notetaking   Ashby’s AI Notetaker brings structured meeting data together with emails, notes, feedback, and more. It shortens time to feedback and provides rich candidate context, helping your team align quickly and make faster, more confident hiring decisions.   Spend less time typing and more time hiring with interview notes that practically write themselves.

FRAUD PROOF AI? - ENDORSED LIVE DEMO   We will look back at 2025 as the year when candidate fraud escalated into amongst the top priorities of employers looking who were still looking to hire but also now needing to securitise their companies from risk.   Huge credit goes to technology vendors for responding to the demand - and we're seeing a lot of interesting techniques deployed to identify potential fraud risk. I'm delighted to welcome back one of those vendors at Live Demo to show us how his platform - Endorsed - is going to help recruiters find the right talent whilst mitigating risk of putting bad actors into the hiring process.   Its the man himself, David Head, CEO of Endorsed, at Live Demo! and we're on Weds 10th December, 9am PT / 12pm ET / 5pm GMT.   Follow the channel here (recommended) and register for the event now (save my spot) to get notified when we go live.     Episode 351 is sponsored by Endorsed   Endorsed.com is the AI recruiting agent platform for rapidly building talent-dense teams.   Rapidly growing companies like Quince, Eight Sleep, and Prokeep rely on Endorsed to surface hidden stars, combat candidate fraud, and streamline sourcing and applicant review workflows. Endorsed increases quality-of-hire, reduces time-to-fill by up to 75%, and boosts recruiter role capacity by up to 2x.   Get 10% off your subscription with the code BRAINFOOD   See Endorsed instantly triple your number of gold medal candidates on your real role by booking a demo.

REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2025 - CX, Assessment & DEIB   Second of our 4 part series reviewing the major events and trends of the year in CX, Assessment and DEIB. What has happened this year that we got on talk about??   - Mobley vs Workday, let's get an update on this, the quintessential CX challenge! - CX resentment rate...where are we tracking on this? - What do we know about AI and CX, can we see positive impact of AI on CX? - ID verification, this is both an CX and Assessment issue. In fact, it may also be a DEIB issu - How to deal with overcapacity of job applications into traditional hiring funnels? - How to do this whilst maintaining, improving CX? - Candidate agency - can enablement of great participation in shaping the experience improve both efficiency and CX? - What is the state of DEIB...rhetorical question... - How does the new inclusion work, can we still think about 'protected groups'? - Divergence between US and UK / EU - Yet migration of cultural influence from US to UK / EU - What do we think of AI Interviewing? - What do we think of other forms of AI powered Assessment? - Forecasts for 2026 on CX, Assessment and DEIB?   We're with Morgan Lobb, Founder (Vercida), Maddy Roberts, Head of TA Solutions (Aon), Euan Cameron, Founder, (Willo) & friends & friends on Friday 5th December, 2pm GMT   Register by click on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be noticed when we go live.     Ep 347 is sponsored by our friends Willo   Hiring should be human, but too often it doesn’t feel that way.Recruiting isn’t slowing down; it’s more competitive and more global than ever. Yet too many teams are still buried in CVs, optimising for speed instead of connection.   That’s why teams are switching to Willo - the #1 candidate screening platform built for a world where connection matters more than credentials. With thousands of customers worldwide, Willo helps you meet talent faster, fairer, and smarter.Our 2026 Hiring Trends Survey is open until the end of October, and we’d love your take. What’s keeping you up at night (or getting you excited) about the future of hiring?   Share your voice or book a demo to see why hiring feels different with Willo.

REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2025 - TALENT TECHNOLOGY   Can you believe that we're at the end of another year in Brainfood?   As is tradition, we're going to do a 4 part series to conclude the year - and I will be a 4 part series where we review the major events and trends which have occurred on all the topics which matter to us. To kick off the series, let's talk about the the talent tech landscape - what is going on the tools we rely on every day?   - Investment landscape in Worktech - Sector breakdown...where is the VC going? - Rise of AI sourcing tools - Big deals, the M&A's - what does this mean? - Linkedin Hiring Assistant - Open AI jobs - Monster / Career Builder Obit - Mercor... - Indeed, what is going on? - Verticalised AI Agents, what are the implications for core platforms? - ATS / HRIS combo - didn't happen? - ATS / CRM - did happen? - Job Candidate use of AI vs AI Assessment - Rise of Verification / Background Checking - What else is under-the-radar that we need to talk about?   We're with Alexander Chukovski, HR Tech Consultant, George LaRocque, Founder (WorkTech), Louise Triance, Founder (UK Recruiter) & friends on Friday 28th November, 2pm GMT   Register by click on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be noticed when we go live.     Ep 346 is sponsored by our friends Greenhouse   Feeling buried under a backlog of disconnected tools, spammy applicants, and stalled workflows? This latest guide from Greenhouse shares how their innovative platform brings simplicity and control back to recruiting.   Discover how to: Centralize sourcing, scheduling, and reporting seamlessly Gain end-to-end visibility into pipeline health Cut through noise with fraud detection and smart automation Download to see how your team can hire with confidence 👉 [Read the full article]

RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING ....WITH AI AGENTS?   We may look back at 2025 has a pivotal year in online job advertising. Economic chaos, investment uncertainty, rise of AI, has made employers change how they think about headcount and are increasingly scrutinising the ROI of traditional job distribution. The flood of irrelevant applications has more or less killed the ppc model - what other iterations do we expect to see over the next 12 months?   We're going to be speaking with the C-level team at VONQ to better understand state of market.   - Recruitment Advertising 2025 - What are the available job advertising models? - Which ones seem to be on the rise / on the decline? - Niche vs Generalised Job Board advertising and relationship with business models - AI-enabled Job Applications, how big an impact on job advertising? - How does this force job advertising vendors to adapt? - What are the mitigation strategies? - AI Agents, verticalised vs generalised - What can they do - How does this impact candidate acquisition? - What does Recruitment Advertising look like over the next 12 months?     We're with Ritu Mohanka, CEO & Bill Fischer, CTO, (VONQ) & friends on Friday 21st November, 2pm GMT. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be noticed when we go live.     Ep345 is sponsored by VONQ   Transform recruitment advertising by leveraging AI-driven technology, deep ATS integrations, and expertise to deliver high-quality candidates to the shortlist while elevating employer brands. Our solution is now available via over 100 Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and Human Capital Management (HCM) platforms, accessible to over 80% of the US and EU talent acquisition teams.   We have a +5000 global media channels network and back our solutions with reliable automation, data-driven recommendations, recruitment marketing expertise, programmatic advertising, and meaningful reporting.   Need to get more qualified, relevant and motivated job candidates at the top of the funnel? Get in touch with VONQ here

Diversity & Inclusion in an Era of Emerging AI and Cyberthreats   The rise of candidate fraud has been a huge topic in recruitment in 2025, so much so that employers have had to take extreme steps to protect their businesses, from asking candidates to physically move on command in front of screen to come in person to attend interview on premise, to go through ID verification procedures which would have previously been reserved for high security roles.   What does all this mean for diversity and inclusion? That the question we're going to ask in today's Brainfood Live   - State of Candidate Fraud - What are the potential concerns for D&I - On premise, requires car - More rigid work patterns is bad for primary care givers - ID verification techniques depend on photo ID - Bank records / Criminal records / Credit records - Economically deprived are most likely to have disadvantage in ID verification processes - Gender: name change for women married / divorce - Trans: ID change, no longer recognised in some states? - Ambiguity on legislation, concern over future direction - How do we ensure that ID verification and candidate fraud mitigation steps do not over step into identity profiling and prejudice?   All this and more on brainfood live on air.   We're with Kyle Barry, CISO (Clear), Torin Ellis, Principal Analyst (The Torin Ellis Brand) & Daniel Chait, CEO (Greenhouse) on Friday 14th November, 2pm GMT.   Register by click on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be noticed when we go live.     Episode 350 is sponsored by Greenhouse   It’s tough out there for today’s recruiting teams.   The rise of AI, slashed recruiting budgets and lean teams have made candidate funnels more chaotic than ever. Take back control of your candidate pipeline with new Greenhouse features that help put an end to application overload, messy data, and disconnected tools.   Check out everything new at Greenhouse here!