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

Hiring should be about finding the right person. Too often, though, the tools and methods organizations use actually work against them. Job postings filter candidates out for lacking skills they could easily and quickly learn. Competency checklists based on someone else's philosophy of what leadership looks like rather than what actually works inside their organization. Assessment tools that aren't scientifically validated or that screen for average profiles when the role needs something entirely different. The funnel narrows before employers even realize it. And when a poor fit does get through, the individual can spend months or years struggling against expectations that were never clearly defined. So how should organizations rethink the way they assess and select talent? My guest this week is Dr. Stephanie Puckett, founder of SynergyMind Consulting. In our conversation, she draws on 20 years of experience in organizational psychology to reveal where hiring processes quietly break down and the implications for both employers and employees when they do. In the interview, we discuss: The most common mistakes employers make in hiring Unintentional restriction of talent pools Skill and competency transfer The danger of using tools with no scientific validation The critical role of talent acquisition teams Data science versus psychology Finding confirmation bias in big datasets The importance of realistic job previews How will hiring develop in the next 2 to 3 years Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

Kyle Lagunas, industry analyst and founder of Kyle & Co., researches HR tech, AI trends and risk readiness. He explains why talent teams must shift from risk avoidance to risk readiness. He breaks down defensibility, human-in-the-loop design, rigorous pilots and measurement. He explores cultural and regulatory barriers and how AI can force long-overdue transformation.

Jennifer Yugo, organizational psychologist and managing director of Corvirtus, champions evidence-based hiring. She contrasts resume matching with predicting on-the-job performance. She explains defining real success via behaviors, how to validate hiring processes, limits of many AI tools, and what talent leaders should ask vendors as hiring tech faces greater scrutiny.

The assurance and audit profession is facing a talent crisis. Fewer graduates are choosing it as a career, and the perception of what auditors actually do hasn't kept pace with reality. At the same time, AI is fundamentally reshaping the work itself, automating repetitive tasks and opening up entirely new service areas around cyber risk and sustainability. The profession needs different skills, different mindsets, and a completely different value proposition for the next generation of talent. So how do you transform a workforce of over a hundred thousand people while simultaneously making the profession attractive to a generation that wants purpose, flexibility, and career agility? My guest this week is Sandra Oliver, Global Assurance Talent Leader at EY. In our conversation, she shares how EY is reskilling auditors at scale, bridging generational divides around technology adoption, and repositioning audit careers as a launchpad for business leadership. In the interview, we discuss: Attracting Gen Z to the audit profession AI's impact on day-to-day audit work Upskilling 130,000 professionals in AI Bridging the generational technology gap Reverse mentoring between junior and senior staff. Purpose and meaningful work as talent drivers How will audit careers evolve over the next five years? Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

Barrett Siani, VP of People and Culture at Elmo Software, leads talent, performance and workforce planning across UK brands. He discusses contradictions in today’s talent market. He explores where AI should automate versus where humans must judge nuance. He outlines new TA metrics like quality, mobility and business outcomes and previews a future focused on skills, internal mobility and ethics.

Lou Goodman, marketing strategist and former head of global B2B at Monster, shares her job board expertise. She outlines the trust crisis in hiring and explains how AI is amplifying existing flaws. She explores why boards keep repeating old patterns and what practical shifts—like prioritizing quality, transparency and better matching—could help them survive.

Mervyn Dinnen, analyst, podcaster and co-author who comments on talent acquisition trends, joins a live January roundup. They review AI in workforce planning and reskilling. They discuss richer candidate profiles, career-site personalization gaps, co-creating TA tools with vendors, human-AI matching, improving candidate experience, and organizing firms for distributed AI innovation.

Steve Wunker, innovation consultant and author of AI and the Octopus Organization, explains why companies announce AI visions but deliver only small pilots. He describes the octopus organization metaphor, distributed innovation and AI-enabled teams. He also covers what holds transformation back, examples of success like HelloFresh, and how talent and culture must change to rewire firms for AI.

Bas van de Haterd, co-founder of the TA Audit Institute who audits large employers for bias and discrimination. He explains measuring age, gender and ethnicity together across ~250 organisations. Short, surprising findings about age bias, mixed gender and ethnicity signals, and where bias may actually live in hiring processes. Practical ideas on targeted audits and where to look next.

The constant noise around AI has created a strange situation in talent acquisition. On one side, relentless hype has made many TA leaders deeply skeptical, reluctant to invest in technology that feels oversold. On the other side, some employers have pushed through the fog and are getting genuine, measurable results from AI agents in their hiring processes. The gap between these two groups is widening fast. So how do you separate what actually works from what's just marketing? What does effective AI agent implementation really look like in practice, and what value is it driving for the employers embracing it My guest this week is Max Legardez Coquin, Founder and CEO at Maki. I saw Maki’s technology in action at UNLEASH last year and was genuinely impressed by what they're delivering for a variety of enterprise employers. In our conversation, Max explains how using AI to develop a scientific approach to hiring is driving tangible value in terms of quality, speed, efficiency, and a vastly improved candidate experience. In the interview, we discuss: Making recruiting a science Capturing signals to make better hiring decisions AI agents, the case studies that show they are working What do candidates think about this level of automation? Using compound intelligence to drive predictive hiring Advice to TA Leaders on recruiting transformation Will adoption rates increase this year? What does the future look like? Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.