The Recruiting Brainfood Podcast

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

Erin Matthew, a talent intelligence researcher focused on forecasting and scenario modeling. David Wilkins, product leader building labor-market data tools. Yaz Dalal, growth chief behind AI recruitment marketing and Ask Jovio. They discuss AI-driven skills demand and premium pay. They explore task-level workforce mapping, triangulating data sources, democratizing talent intelligence, and blending TI with strategic workforce planning.

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

Will Ducey, Recruiting operations pro at Ashby who builds systems to help teams hire better. Jeremy Lyons, RecOps Collective co-founder who advises on scaling hiring processes. They discuss why RecOps is critical to roll out AI in talent acquisition. Short, punchy takes on RecOps origins, when to hire one, practical projects, and how RecOps embeds AI into everyday recruiting workflows.

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.