Recruiting Future with Matt Alder - What's Next For Talent Acquisition, HR & Hiring? — Podcast

Decoding the C-Suite: Part 5 The Market 18.08.2026 27min

This is the final episode of Decoding the C-Suite, a five part miniseries from Recruiting Future about how leadership really thinks about AI, recorded with the leadership team at SmartRecruiters seven months into their acquisition by SAP. Three years into the AI boom, the marketing noise has never been louder. Everything is AI-powered and every vendor makes the same claims. In the final episode, Steve Hardy, who leads marketing at SmartRecruiters, is unusually candid about all of it: why he tells his own sales team to stop demoing, what he calls AI washing, why buyers should start with business priorities rather than features, and what actually builds trust with buyers and candidates alike. The series closes with the question that ran through every conversation: what does good leadership look like in an AI-driven world?

Decoding the C-Suite: Part 4 - The Product 18.08.2026 25min

This is episode four of Decoding the C-Suite, a five part miniseries from Recruiting Future about how leadership really thinks about AI, recorded with the leadership team at SmartRecruiters seven months into their acquisition by SAP. AI is moving faster than any buyer can absorb, and that creates a genuine design problem: build for the boldest customers and you lose everyone else, build for the cautious and you fall behind. Shefali Netke, VP of Product Design at SmartRecruiters, lives in that tension every day. She explains how to design for a spectrum of readiness rather than an average user, why she refuses to keep designing for the old world, how her team builds AI fluency, and what it takes to merge two design cultures into one team.

Decoding the C-Suite: Part 1 - The Thesis 18.08.2026 25min

The organisations genuinely driving AI change in talent all have one thing in common: alignment with the C-suite. Decoding the C-Suite is a five part miniseries from Recruiting Future exploring how leadership really thinks about AI. Recorded over one day with the leadership team at SmartRecruiters, seven months into their acquisition by SAP, the series unpacks AI through five lenses: the thesis, the people, the money, the product and the market. If you want to understand the conversations happening around your own leadership table, and how to win them, this series is for you. In the opening episode, the tables are turned as SmartRecruiters' Allyn Bailey interviews Matt on the future of talent acquisition. Matt shares his honest assessment of the outdated stories the industry keeps telling itself, why mental models matter more than systems, how candidates are already breaking recruiting, and a prediction about AI agents talking to AI agents that he's prepared to be held to. It sets the agenda for the four leadership conversations that follow.

Decoding the C-Suite: Part 3 - The Money 18.08.2026 24min

This is episode three of Decoding the C-Suite, a five part miniseries from Recruiting Future about how leadership really thinks about AI, recorded with the leadership team at SmartRecruiters seven months into their acquisition by SAP. If you've ever struggled to get AI investment signed off, this episode is for you. Tom DiDesidero, CFO at SmartRecruiters, explains exactly what he wants to see in a business case, why he backs short, measurable pilots over big commitments, and how to bring evidence rather than instinct. He also lifts the lid on the real economics of AI, from unpredictable inference costs to gross margins far below anything the SaaS world is used to, and makes a prediction about how the AI and SaaS worlds inevitably come together.

Decoding the C-Suite: Part 2 - The People 18.08.2026 23min

This is episode two of Decoding the C-Suite, a five part miniseries from Recruiting Future about how leadership really thinks about AI, recorded with the leadership team at SmartRecruiters seven months into their acquisition by SAP. The headlines about AI and the workforce are relentlessly grim: surveillance, layoffs, roles disappearing. Lehua Stonebraker, who leads the people function at SmartRecruiters, starts from a different place: naming the fear rather than managing around it. In this episode she explains how to build psychological safety when employees are scared to admit they use AI, why she believes the org chart is gone, how engagement went up during an acquisition, and a vision of a connected employee lifecycle that finally uses everything an organisation learns about its people.

Ep 817: The Human Bias Fueling Talent Shortages 13.08.2026 18min

Cybersecurity is one of the hardest markets to hire in, and a lot of the difficulty comes from how companies approach the process. Candidates are still being filtered on degrees, previous employers, and years of experience- signals that are particularly weak in a field where the best work is confidential, and skills need updating constantly. Good people are getting screened out, and what looks like a talent shortage can often be a matching problem. So, what changes when companies stop filtering on the usual proxies and start hiring on what candidates can actually do? My guest this week is Laurent Halimi, CEO and founder of Cyberr.ai, a professional network for cybersecurity professionals. In our conversation, Laurent explains why the skills shortage in cybersecurity is only half the truth, where the bias in hiring really comes from, and what it takes to judge candidates on skills that you can actually verify. In the interview, we discuss: How AI is changing what cybersecurity professionals do and the new roles it is creating A real skill gap at the senior level and a matching problem everywhere else The certification race and why it is losing relevance Why hiring in cybersecurity is different from other technical fields Trust, stale skills, and work that stays invisible Where the bias in hiring algorithms really comes from Practical steps for judging candidates on verifiable skills Anonymous applications and giving candidates control of their profiles Will skills finally beat pedigree, and what does the future look like? Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

Ep 816: Hiring For Judgment In The AI Era 11.08.2026 23min

There is growing consensus that AI is eroding the experience pathways organizations depend on to develop human judgment. Entry-level roles are shrinking, hands-on work is being automated, and fewer people are building the experience their businesses need. This is a well-documented challenge. What remains far less clear is what the talent strategy response should look like. Most skills systems today are built to track whether someone can execute a task, not how well they make decisions under ambiguity. If judgment is becoming the most important capability in the organization, recruiting, learning, and assessment all need recalibrating around it. So what does that recalibration look like in practice? My guest this week is Craig Friedman, author of Enterprise Skills Unlocked and Talent Transformation Leader at St. Charles Consulting Group. In our conversation, he explains why current skills infrastructure misses the capability that matters most, what work looks like when execution is automated, and how organizations can start building judgment into their talent strategy. In the interview, we discuss: What does enterprise AI adoption currently look like The long-term consequences of cutting entry-level jobs What does work look like when the automatable tasks are taken away? Why judgment is more important as a skill than ever before The difference between judgment and critical thinking Where does judgment fit into the skills infrastructure? How can TA teams hire for judgment? What does the future look like? Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

Ep 815: Do You Know How Work Gets Done? 07.08.2026 20min

AI adoption is accelerating, but for most organisations it is still ad hoc. Tools are bought reactively, budgets keep growing, and few leaders can say with confidence what is being used, what is working, or what return they are getting. Some companies are already going further, cutting roles on the assumption that machines can simply take over tasks from people. What rarely gets examined is what those decisions do to the people who remain, the culture they work in, and the customers they serve. So what do organisations need to understand about how work happens before they let AI reshape it? My guest this week is Sam Naficy, Chairman and CEO of Prodoscore, a data analytics company that studies employee engagement, productivity, and collaboration in large enterprises. In our conversation, Sam shares what his data reveals about AI use and productivity, the cultural consequences of automating roles, and why visibility into work has to come before automation. In the interview, we discuss: Why most organisations are still in the early stages of AI adoption The growing gap between AI spending and visibility into what is being used What the data shows about heavy AI users and productivity Why some employees adopt AI faster than others The unforeseen impact of automation on workplace culture What happens to the teams that remain when their AI replaces their colleagues Stress-testing workforce changes before making them The line between visibility and surveillance What does the future of work look like?

Ep 814: The Science Of Storytelling In Employer Branding 06.08.2026 27min

Storytelling might be the most overused word in employer branding. Every company claims to tell stories, yet most of the content being produced sounds the same from one company to the next, and AI is about to make the problem significantly worse by flooding every channel with even more identikit messaging. At the same time, the science behind how stories work on the human brain is well established, comprehensive, and much harder to apply than most people realise. The employers who understand it are creating content that connects on an emotional level, while everyone else is just adding to the noise. So what separates real storytelling from content that just claims to be a story? My guest this week is Susanna Rantanen, founder of Employer Branding Agency Emine and author of the book Story-Driven Employer Branding. In our conversation, she shares why so much storytelling isn't storytelling at all, what the science tells us about how stories persuade, and how employers can use them to attract and retain the right people. In the interview, we discuss: The biggest current challenges in Employer Branding Why branding is a long-term play, not a short-term campaign The internal audience employers overlook Attracting the right people via meaning, relevance, and emotion Why most Employer Brand storytelling isn't storytelling at all The science of how stories work on the human brain How does proper storytelling work in practice The current and future impact of AI What does the future of employer branding look like?

Ep 813: The Strategic Case For Sourcing 05.08.2026 22min

AI has disrupted the dynamics of hiring. Candidates can now apply to hundreds of roles in a single click, while legal and regulatory constraints limit how far recruiters can use AI to review what comes in. The result is a flood of applications that keeps growing because so little of it gets properly reviewed. With the inbound recruiting channel under this much pressure, sourcing offers a different equation; it's a channel where employers set the quality bar themselves, and AI has fundamentally changed what it can deliver. The implications reach beyond pipeline quality. New approaches to sourcing could transform the candidate experience and open career paths that traditional hiring would never have surfaced. So what does it take to make sourcing a genuine strategic priority? My guest this week is David Paffenholz, Co-Founder and CEO of Juicebox. In our conversation David explains what is driving the inbound challenges, how AI is transforming what sourcing can do, why every role could get the executive search treatment, and what this could all mean for candidates and their careers. In the interview, we discuss: The paradox of record application volumes and persistent skill shortages Why candidates are using AI more effectively than employers How bulk applying is creating a self-reinforcing loop that is breaking inbound The business case for making sourcing a strategic priority Exponentially improving the candidate experience Treating every role like an executive search Human judgment and the changing role of the recruiter How skills-based matching could unlock career mobility and evidence that it is already happening What does the future look like? Juicebox https://juicebox.ai/ David on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-paffenholz/

Ep 812: Who Trains The Human In The Loop? 29.07.2026 34min

For the last few years, most corporate conversations about AI have been about efficiency, automating tasks, and reducing headcount. That conversation is now starting to change, with more attention on what constant AI use is doing to the human capabilities organizations depend on. Judgment sits at the center of this. It develops through years of hands-on experience, often in exactly the kind of junior work AI is now taking over. With many employers also hiring fewer entry-level people, developing the leaders of the future is becoming a serious challenge. So how do organizations use AI to amplify human capability rather than erode it? My guest this week is Johan Roos, Professor in Strategy at Hult International Business School and author of the new book Human Magic: Leading with Wisdom in an Age of Algorithms. In our conversation, Johan shares why the AI conversation is changing, the human capabilities that now matter most, and the practical choices employers face in developing judgment for the future. In the interview, we discuss: The dual mood of AI anxiety and excitement Moving the AI conversation beyond efficiency Amplification versus erosion of human capability The five human capabilities that matter most Why judgment comes from experience The risks of cutting entry-level hiring Thinking in tasks, not people Building an agentic workforce without cutting jobs Early warning indicators of talent risk Bionic collaboration and what the future looks like https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/recruiting-future-podcast/id963756980?mt=2&ls=1 https://open.spotify.com/show/4u3Gl0l4pGBtIHOJZjLTrx?si=49641466567e44d6 https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjohanroos/ A full transcript will appear here shortly.

Ep 811: The Hiring Problems Technology Can't Fix 28.07.2026 28min

TA leaders are under real pressure to keep up with AI, new tools, and what they think other employers are doing. In that rush, a lot of functions are spending heavily on new technology without first understanding whether their existing processes are working, only to find the real problem was something no platform could have fixed. Getting this right means doing the internal work first, auditing what's already in place, and being honest about organizational readiness. So what does it take to turn the lens inward before looking outward? My guest this week is Jalpa Trivedi, an experienced Global Head of TA who has built and centralized TA functions across more than 30 countries. In our conversation, she shares why the internal audit matters more than the technology choice, how to build TA foundations that hold across different markets, and how to approach AI adoption with the governance it requires. In the interview, we discuss: The questions TA leaders aren't asking about their own function. Investing in technology that solves the wrong problem -The 80/20 approach to centralizing TA across markets -Building an EVP on evidence, not assumptions -What persuades leadership to back a TA investment -Why the biggest AI risk isn't falling behind -Five data privacy questions to ask before signing with an AI vendor -Where the dividing line falls between AI and human judgment -What does the future look like? A full transcript will appear here shortly. Follow This Podcast on Apple Podcasts Follow this Podcast on Spotify

Ep 810: End-to-End Hiring Intelligence 24.07.2026 23min

AI has been applied to almost every step of the hiring process. Sourcing, screening, assessments, interviews; each has its own tools, and many of them are effective. For many organizations, though, the gains from optimizing individual stages are flattening out. Hiring quality is shaped by the entire journey, not by any single step, and most hiring technology was never built to connect those steps. The focus is shifting toward connecting the whole process so that each stage learns from the others and improves over time. So what does it take to move from optimizing separate steps to building connected intelligence across the hiring process? My guest this week is Ben Chino, Co-founder and CPO of Maki. In our conversation, Ben explains why improving hiring one step at a time has hit its limits, what end-to-end hiring intelligence looks like in practice, and what it means for recruiters and candidates. In the interview, we discuss: Why optimizing individual hiring steps with AI has hit diminishing returns The difference between a system of record and a system of intelligence How a connected hiring process improves decision-making at every stage Where the ATS fits in the next generation of hiring technology Why human judgment in hiring is less consistent than most people think Freeing recruiters for better judgment and more time with candidates Turning 800,000 applications into a real candidate experience Why adopting AI in hiring is an organizational change challenge, not a technology decision What does the future of hiring look like? https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-chino/

Ep 809: The Data Foundation For AI In Hiring 17.07.2026 30min

Agentic AI is only as useful as the data it can access, and getting that foundation right is proving to be the harder half of the work. Years of mergers, acquisitions, and local decision-making have left many talent operations running on data and processes that were never meant to work together, and no amount of AI on top will fix what lies beneath. Some organizations are now rethinking their technology strategy in light of that problem. So what does getting AI-ready actually involve, and what does it change about the decisions you make? My guest this week is Lia Manafova, Talent Technology Strategy Lead at Sanofi, a global pharmaceutical company hiring at scale across more than 70 countries. In our conversation, Lia explains why the data foundation must come first, what an anchor product strategy looks like in practice, and what she has learned about making technology stick. In the interview, we discuss: Why AI readiness starts with data, not AI Building a bridge between the business and the digital team The challenge of constant transformation and change fatigue What is an anchor product strategy? How the Workday, Paradox and HiredScore acquisitions changed the options Best-of-breed or a single source of truth? Keeping recruiters in one system rather than three Piloting with the people who will use it every day The case for keeping the semi-automated option Building an ROI story the business understands What does the future look like?

Ep 808: The Starting Point For TA Innovation 15.07.2026 28min

Innovation in recruiting is hard. TA leaders are experts at running their operations, but improving them in a structured way is a different discipline, and the AI revolution has made it one that no one can avoid. Before any function can innovate, though, it has to know where it is starting from, and that is where benchmarking becomes critical. Recent research from the Recruiting Excellence Foundation, which has assessed the maturity of hundreds of TA teams worldwide, reveals that TA teams are struggling to move from operational to strategic. So how should TA leaders get started? My guest this week is Toni de Graaf, Co-Founder of the Recruiting Excellence Foundation. In our conversation, Toni shares what the global benchmark reveals, why so many teams are stuck in operational mode, and how to prioritize the improvements that matter most. In the interview, we discuss: Benchmarking TA maturity across the globe The most surprising insight from the results The two areas where TA teams struggle most The difference between an operational and a strategic function The impact of AI AI and broken processes Resource, capacity and value Knowing your starting point What does the future look like? Take the recruiting excellence assessment

Round Up June 2026 11.07.2026 30min

If you've not listened to Round Up before, it's a short review of the episodes that I've published in the last month to make sure you don't miss out on the valuable insights that my guests are sharing. This month Round Up returns to its live format, and this is a recording of my live conversation with Ben Chino, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Maki People, about five of the episodes published in May and June 2026 Episodes featured in this Round Up: Ep 790: Rethinking Work In The Age Of AI Ep 791: Making Agentic AI Work For HR & Talent Ep 797: Hiring The Humans Behind The Robots Ep 799: Growing the Talent You Can't Hire Ep 800: Will AI Break Recruiting? Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

Ep 807: Trust, Transparency And The AI Interview 10.07.2026 31min

Application volumes are climbing fast, and AI has made it far easier for candidates to produce a strong-looking resume. For talent teams trying to give every candidate a fair hearing, the traditional model of recruiting is starting to break down. Some employers are now handing the first conversation to an AI voice agent, and that raises some obvious concerns. Does automating the first step strip out the human connection that recruiting depends on? The teams doing this well are finding the answer isn't what a lot of recruiters expect, and that getting it right depends as much on how openly it's done as on the technology itself. So what does it look like in practice? My guests this week are Jean-Baptiste Anne, Global Director of Talent Acquisition at Mirakl, and Anneliese Muscari, their Head of AMER and Global Go To Market talent acquisition. In our conversation, they share why they made the change, how candidates have responded, and what it means for the future of the recruiter role In the interview, we discuss: Managing unprecedented application volume The growing limitations of resumes How do you give every applicant a fair chance and a great candidate experience? Handing the first conversation to an AI voice agent Moving from skepticism to trust Publishing AI guidelines for candidates How candidates have responded Keeping humans in charge of every decision What does the future look like? Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

Ep 806: The Real Trends In Talent Acquisition 09.07.2026 34min

Over the last year, I have been using AI to develop a searchable archive of the content in every episode of Recruiting Future, 3 million words from over a decade of unscripted conversations with practitioners and thought leaders across talent acquisition. James Whitelock, host of The Marketing Rules Podcast, has been doing the same thing with his own archive of more than 200 episodes over seven years.  Between us, we now have over a thousand real conversations we can interrogate for trends, and the picture that emerges is an industry caught in familiar tensions: fighting to prove its strategic value, grappling with AI that moves faster than it can be adopted, and trying to figure out which parts of hiring should stay fundamentally human.  So what do years of real conversations reveal about where talent acquisition actually stands?   In my conversation with James, we compare what our respective archives reveal about TA's shifting identity, the real pace of AI's change, and the tensions the industry keeps returning to. In the interview, we discuss: Using AI to turn podcast archives into industry intelligence TA's journey from growth engine to cost center and back again How the AI conversation has shifted over time Adaptability as the critical skill for TA Is TA becoming a marketing function? Standing out when AI content all sounds the same Ring-fencing the parts of hiring that should stay human Bias in humans and bias in AI What does the future look like? Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

Ep 805: Hiring's Signal Problem 06.07.2026 28min

The talent market is sending mixed signals. Employers insist they can't find the people they need, while experienced, capable candidates say they are applying into a void and hearing nothing back. Both are describing the same market, so something in the middle is failing. A lot of recruiting technology was built to handle volume, to move large numbers of applicants through a process quickly. What it struggles to do is read signal, to interpret whether someone actually has the judgment and context to solve the problem a business has. So how do we fix this problem, and will AI give us the solution? My guest this week is James Gardner, a talent acquisition and transformation leader who has spent over twenty years building and scaling talent functions. In our conversation, he shares what his own data-driven job search revealed about the market, why volume systems and signal systems pull in opposite directions, and how AI could either fix the problem or make it considerably worse. In the interview, we discuss: What's really happening on both sides of the talent market Why the market isn't short of talent; it's short of signal. Running a job search as a data funnel Why silence, not rejection, is the real problem Why volume systems and signal systems contradict each other Where AI screening still can't read potential Applying AI to a broken process just makes it fail faster. Moving TA from a service function to a commercial lever Owning the outcome, not just the shortlist. What does the future look like? Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify

Ep 804: The Talent Pool Employers Need 02.07.2026 29min

As AI reshapes how work gets done, the most valuable thing a person can bring to their job isn’t recent task experience; it is the depth of judgment, sector knowledge, and decision-making that takes years to build. That is precisely what AI augments rather than replaces. However, in a cautious hiring market, recency is being given overinflated importance, and a large pool of deeply experienced professionals is being filtered out because they have a gap on their resume. These are people with the experience and maturity, and strong appetite for engaging with new technology that the AI era needs. So why are employers overlooking this talent, and how should TA leaders rethink their hiring strategies to fix this My guest this week is Hazel Little, CEO of Career Returners. In our conversation, Hazel explains what the data reveals about the returner experience in 2026, why deep experience and judgment matter more than recency in an AI-augmented workplace, and shares some practical advice on making hiring more effective. In the interview, we discuss: How the landscape for career returners has worsened in the last year The unique benefits returners can bring to organizations. Why there is still so much stigma around career breaks and resume gaps How the hiring process amplifies the confidence gap The importance of potential over experience in a fast-changing world of work Why the human judgment needed to work with AI comes from experience The skills shortage hiding in plain sight Building potential rather than buying experience Screening and the hiring manager mindset What TA needs to do differently to harness this valuable talent pool. Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.