Round Up August 2026

0:03There's been more of scientific discovery, more of technical advancement and material progress in your lifetime and mine than in all the ages of history.

0:17Hi everyone and welcome to this month's edition of Roundup. Once more, we are back live, which is always the way that I love to do these. We didn't have a Roundup last month, so this Roundup, we're going to be looking at episodes on the podcast from July and August and lots of interesting episodes to cover. If you've not watched Roundup before, it's basically a summary of the most interesting episodes that have been on the Recruiting Future podcast in the last couple of months, in this case, looking at the kind of insights that we can learn from the guests and really giving you a little bit of a cheat sheet to understand which episodes you might want to dig into and listen to in full.

0:58I'm not only delighted to be back live, I'm delighted to have Rona back as my co-host. Rona, how are you? I am doing great. I'm so happy to be back doing this. We haven't co-hosted in a while, so I was excited when you asked. Yeah, absolutely. It's always brilliant to share the mic with you. We've got two different mics, and I've got a color. You've inspired me to get color on my microphone. So for those of you listening in audio, I now have a green microphone cover to match the Recruiting Future branding, as well as a new lightbox at the back there. For people who, there might be a few people who've not come across you and your work before, I can't believe it, but if there are, could you just give a quick intro to what you do?

1:37Yeah, sure. I am Rona Pierce. I am a former recruiter and I now host the Workfluencer podcast. Every week, my guest and I, we explore how the creator economy is reshaping workplaces, how we build professional authority and how companies connect with their audiences. And that's what I do all day, every day. I also have a content agency called Workfluencer Media, where I help companies do and produce employee-generated content campaigns for them. Absolutely. And I can highly recommend your podcast. People should definitely check it out and listen to it. So let's get into Roundup. We're looking at six episodes, as I say, that published during July and August.

2:18And there's just some really interesting things here I can't wait to discuss. So first up, episode 803, which is called AI Native Recruiting, and it's an interview with Tracy, who is Global Head of Talent at Zapier. Really interesting company, always interesting to talk to them. They have a really, really proactive approach when it comes to AI and how that works in terms of recruiting and organizational development. And so it's always a little bit of a kind of a leading edge conversation to learn from them and what they're doing. So, Rona, dive straight in. Tell us what you thought of this interview.

2:54What stood out for you? Zapier continues to be really leading the charge in AI adoption within their organization, in their product, of course, but also in their hiring. It really, really stood out to me how they were saying like the distinction between using AI to make the same hiring process faster and actually questioning whether like, is this process, does this process still make sense? And like we all know, automating the same broken interview process is really not transformational. And it's actually what most companies are doing. I really loved the idea of moving from interviews to auditions and how that could produce much stronger signals as long as you're not having people do a bunch of unpaid projects or adding unnecessary work for candidates.

3:49But really how they're thinking of using AI and how they're using it in their process. us. Again, Zapier has been leading the charge on this and I think will continue to be the company to look at and learn from when it comes to AI and hiring. Yeah, I completely agree. And it was a great conversation because also she was really open about their plans for the future. You know, this is a journey that they're on and how they're developing. A couple of things that really kind of stood out for me was in a lot of the interview, we're talking about AI screening and how actually they were pretty skeptical about it to start with.

4:29But what they found was they were talking to more people. They were finding applications that they would probably have missed or probably wouldn't have seen had they not used the AI screener. And I think that's a really interesting kind of thread of conversation that kind of comes up actually sort of later with some of the other episodes that we're looking at. But I thought that was really interesting. I think the other thing as well is she talks about their AI fluency model and how they actually assess people for, or the type of skills that they assess people for when it comes to AI. And I think that a lot of employers are talking about wanting AI skills and AI ready people and AI native people and all this sort of stuff.

5:10But actually there's very little about what that actually means beyond technical skills for people in technical roles. And here Tracy kind of lays out the things that they look for that are not technical when it comes to, you know, AI fluency. And I just think that's an area that lots of people can learn from because there aren't really very many good descriptions about what AI skills are, are there? Yeah, no, we're all learning this. We're all making it up as we go. And I love how they have laid it out. The thing that I really, really love about them is they're not judging people's current AI knowledge.

5:47Because I mean, And let's face it, what you know today is obsolete tomorrow, the way how quickly this is going. It's actually someone's ability to learn. And I think that's where a lot more companies should be focusing on because that's really what you need in order to be able to keep up and stay up with AI is the ability to learn and like know what to do as far as like moving forward with AI. So I think really a lot of companies are focusing on the current and that's not where they need to be focusing. Yeah, I mean, the tools go out of date so quickly. I'm kind of in there all day, every day, and I struggle to keep up.

6:27And I find, you know, I find that something else has come out that I've not heard of and more capabilities there. It's just insane. But yeah, but those kind of core, those core skills, that ability, particularly around the way that you think, are just so important. So I think there's a huge amount that people can take from listening to that episode. I'm going to move on to episode 807 because, again, it's a talent acquisition team implementing AI. There's some interesting commonality between the two and some other things that this really unearths. So this one's called Trust, Transparency, and the AI Interview.

7:00It's a discussion with JB and Annalise from Miracle, from the global talent acquisition team. And again, we're talking about their implementation of AI screening, voice agent in this particular case. And again, they were skeptical about doing this. And I think that's another important point, but have been really, really pleased with what's come out of it. I think the thing that really stands out about this with me is how they build trust with candidates. because I think one of the biggest issues that we're facing at the moment is candidates do not trust the recruiting process and they certainly don't trust AI in the recruiting process and there's lots of you know lots of good reasons for that but actually what we're seeing with these companies who've got these great AI strategies it improves the candidate experience and it's you know it's kind of it's been a really positive thing they get great feedback from candidates and And really how you kind of build that trust is really important.

8:07And again, something that I've not seen discussed very often. And in Miracle's case, what they do is they really make transparency the foundation of all this. They publish AI guidelines. They tell candidates how they'd like them to use AI. They talk about how they use AI. They're very, very clear about the framing and what this is and what this isn't. And I think that's just such a fundamentally important thing. What would you think? Yeah, absolutely loved this one. Again, something that I've been talking about, I wrote a pretty long article, considered what I usually write about how if done the right way, and I think Miracle is doing it the right way, AI can actually help improve the candidate experience.

8:50For so, so many years, candidates have been complaining about like, oh, we spend all this time applying and we never even get a chance to be heard. And just the way they're using AI and everything. Yeah, you have more volume of applications. We all know this is an issue, right? But now you with a no one really wants to hand or most recruiters don't want to hand over that first conversation to the candidate. So I understand how they were uncomfortable because I mean, when I first heard about it, so was I. But thinking about it, if you do it correctly, if you lay things out, if you tell people what to expect, how you're using it.

9:31And more importantly, if you keep humans responsible for making the decisions, that's really how you're building that trust. So I think they're doing an amazing job and there's so much to learn from companies who are skeptical. But this is a pretty great case study on how AI is actually improving candidate experience, contrary to what most people are saying that it's making it worse. It actually, if done correctly, can improve it. I think you make an interesting point there, because in both of these cases as well, there is such a strong role for human recruiters in this, which is different from the role that they may have done in the past, but actually higher quality conversations, talking to candidates they probably wouldn't have spoken to and having time to really have those kind of proper interactions and build that engagement.

10:25So really interesting couple of case studies to, you know, sort of two different setups, but very kind of similar results that are coming out for it. And I'm seeing that a lot from the stories that are appearing on the podcast. There's a lot of commonality about the companies that are doing this well and what they what they what they find. So I think there are lots of lessons that that people can that people can learn there. I want to move on to the next one. and we're looking at episode 809, the data foundation for AI in hiring. It's a conversation with Leah, who is the talent technology strategy lead for Xenofi.

11:00Now, this is really interesting because this is the second, if not the third conversation I've had like this with a large enterprise when it comes to AI and agentic. And it's a conversation I'm not hearing from anyone else. I'm not hearing it from vendors. I'm not hearing it at conferences, but it really is the truth about what's going on. So what this is about is about data. And it's actually saying that, if you want to have proper agentic AI agents running across your employee life cycle, you need to understand how your data structures and where your data sits if you're going to get the real full advantages of these tools.

11:43And that is not an easy or a straightforward process. Now, this is large enterprises that we're talking about here. So smaller companies, this might be different. And the conversation then gets into the whole nuance around this of like, do you have one tool or do you have multiple tools? And how does the tech stack kind of work in this new agentic AI world? And I think that if you've not come across this concept before or not heard people talking about it, this is definitely worth checking out because I think that all large enterprises are either having this issue, solving this issue, or will come across this issue very soon.

12:17Raina, what's your take on it? You know, data is my love language. I'm one of the few people that really, really geeks out and focuses on these things. That's my former life as a recruiter. I did a lot of like rec ops and stuff like that. So yes, 100, 100 million percent agree on this. Most people aren't talking about this because this isn't the sexy part of AI transformation. And this is also the hardest part to clean up in most organizations because we have a ton of legacy data scattered all over. Most of it lives on someone's computer, not centralized, no matter the size of the organization.

13:00but this is something we definitely have to pay attention because for it to be successful, any type of AI adoption in your process, you really have to think about the data. You have to know where it is. You have to know what you use it for, where it's coming from, what's the source of truth. And without those conversations and that real work that you have to do before, Anything you put on top of it is not going to be successful. So this is a really, really important conversation. And anyone who's starting the process or is already in the process of adding AI into their hiring and their recruiting process really needs to listen to this episode and have these conversations internally and start looking at the data before going and talking to anybody.

13:54vendors or anything else. And I also think vendors really need to be more mindful of this when it comes to the implementations that they're selling. It's just a win-win for everyone if this is paid attention to before we get to the sexy parts of the products. Yeah, I agree. And I think there's two other things that came out of this conversation as well that are probably worth flagging up. First of all, we also talk about implementation. So she talks about how she's kind of taken the recruiters along the journey, you know, along on that journey. But also the kind of the view of the future. This is a common theme that I'm seeing more and more that, you know, we're moving to a world where there is no user interface on the software because the software comes to you and your, you know, your AI window or whatever that is.

14:45and there's been some kind of big moves in tech. I think Salesforce was it last week who were kind of sort of acknowledging that this is going to be the case. So I think we're going to see some really, really significant landscape shifts in enterprise tech. Probably will happen as quickly as people think it will because this conversation about having to get all the data in the right place and that taking time holds things back. But I think that the entire business software landscape is going to look very different in a couple of years time definitely cool okay so um three kind of really interesting case studies there um moving on to the next three so the next one we're looking at is episode 812 who trains the human in the loop which is a really really important question so let me kind of explain the context and you can tell me what you think um interview with johan Roos, who is a professor, business school, he's recently written a book called Human Magic, all about the role of humans in an AI world and what aspects of humans are, you know, complement AI and what the future looks like.

15:55But really, what we were talking about in this conversation is judgment and judgment being built through experience. And in a world where people are now cutting entry-level jobs because AI can do that work, how do people build up judgment? And we sort of get into that and we talk about it, but it's just, again, it's a concept that it's not a concept that people won't recognize, but it's something that just isn't being discussed. You know, what does the leadership pipeline look like in a few years time if you've, you know, you've not hired people at entry level or people don't have the chance to build up judgment by making mistakes by working on the kind of work that you see at entry level.

16:39And is judgment only gained by experience? There's some really, really interesting stuff around this I think is important to talk about. So judgment, what do you think? I mean, it's something that worries me because when we're talking about succession planning, which everyone likes to talk about, we're talking about it at the middle of the career. We're seeing the middle of the, okay, what happens? What are we doing? How are we building these leaders? But now with AI taking, like you said, the entry-level jobs and the things that helped you build that judgment and knowing how to do that jump from middle to leadership and stuff like that, this is a real, real problem that we have to fix and we really have to fix it now.

17:31And that's why I love that you are having these conversations because eliminating junior, like you said, it's like, is experience the only way that you do it? Do we need to reimagine? Do we need to think of new ways for people to build this judgment? I don't think we know that. So I think we need to have this balance of we can't fully eliminate every junior role just because AI could do it. We need to be thinking more about the future than we are. And we really cannot be sleeping on those apprenticeships, those entry, those internships, and just growing people in your organization. Because it's not just the learning of a specific skill and judgment, but also of your specific organization that is being lost by not having that entry-level growth from entry to leadership in your company.

18:35And we also touched on the education system in terms of having to be, you know, much more vocational, really getting people ready for the world of work as it exists now, as opposed to as it existed 50 years ago. It's just like, how do you, if, you know, If entry-level jobs are being cut or they're changing, AI is changing things, how does the education system respond to that? And I know that, again, is a topic that we've talked about a lot. What is it that people are learning about work to prepare them for this very, very crazy sort of uncertain world that we now find ourselves in? I think we as a society have really underestimated how important it is to, one, rethink education and, two, these entry-level roles because it's going to happen a lot quicker.

19:32We're talking about this like, oh, in the future, Bob, we're not going to have the people prepared. Like the future is here because it's going to happen a lot faster than we think. And we really need to make those changes. So I'm excited to see more people talk about this and more importantly, what people are going to do. I want to move on to the next one, 816, because, again, it's about judgment. And it's almost a continuation of the previous conversation. So this one's called Hiring for Judgment in the AI era. Conversation with Craig Freeman, who is the skills and talent transformation leader at St.

20:11Charles Consulting Group. He's written a great book called Enterprise Skills Unlocked. I think it's the third time I've had him on the podcast, actually, because really, really, really interesting thinking around skills, what actually works in enterprises, very practical, very pragmatic. so a lot of this conversation covers the same area as the previous one so um you know entry level hiring all that kind of stuff but also it goes a little bit deeper because it's saying that actually if people are using ai to do things um you know not just at the entry level then human judgment is potentially being eroded because we don't have um you know the opportunities to exercise it as it as it were and what he talks about here are the practicalities around that So looking at judgment as a skill and how that can really sit within a skills infrastructure within an organization and should be prioritized.

21:05So in some ways, the kind of solution to some of the issues in the previous episode, although it doesn't talk about entry level hiring, but again, you know, putting that real big emphasis on judgment. What did you think of this one? I really like the idea of like identifying the critical judgments within each role and building like assessments and development opportunities around that. I think that's a really good step towards, again, what we were speaking about before. Or like, yeah, maybe everyone isn't going to get that hands-on experience. But when we understand like, okay, this is what is needed for the judgment.

21:47And like, you're building, you're hiring for that. You're assessing that. And not only assessing it during hiring, but the people that you hire then develop them based on these things. I think this is a really good step in where we need to be going. Yeah. And a lot of the conversation talks about how you actually hire people and assess this as a skill. And he had an interesting view as well about that question about, well, how do we get judgment if we can't get the experience? And we were talking about things like AI simulations to actually teach people judgment and looking at building talent marketplaces that were matching on judgment and development rather than other skills.

22:33So, yeah, it's kind of really, it's really interesting, sort of deep dive into what this means right now for organizations. So those two episodes definitely complement each other. So well worth listening to both of them. It's worth listening to all of these episodes, which is why we picked them to talk about. Moving on to our final episode for this roundup, 821, Why Every Employer Brand Sounds the Same. an interview with the legendary James Ellis, who I'm sure many of you will be familiar with his work and his content. Unbelievably, it was 10 years since I last had him on the podcast. So I'm not quite sure how that happens, but it was great to catch up with him and the work that he's doing about employer branding.

23:21Tell us what you thought about this one. What's your sort of take on employer branding these days? And I'll kind of talk a bit more about the conversation afterwards. You know, this is my jam. And James is someone that I respect, I've learned from, and a friend and all of that. And we have very, very similar stances when it comes to content in general and employer branding. I think this one really strongly aligns with how I think safe messaging makes companies invisible. Yeah, you can say that you care about people, value innovation, blah, blah, all of that. What does that mean? We're like, there's so much content out there.

24:03Everyone is looking exactly the same. And I think people really need to lean on, companies really need to lean on sharing the truth. I always say it, every single company has some BS that you don't like, right? You have to find the people that are okay with that level of BS. And the only way you're going to do it is if you actually share that instead of trying to sugarcoat it and make everything look nice, quote unquote. Like you really need to talent attraction. It really needs to be targeted. It really needs to be honest. And people are seeing through your sameness. So this is really a time to lean into your differentiators, whether you think they're good or not.

24:53And talk about that in your employer branding. I think it's really important. And what James has done here is he did an exercise where he kind of scraped the career sites of the Fortune 100 and basically sort of proved that all of their employer brands and all their employer brand positioning just sounds identical. And, you know, it's not even an employer brand. Everything sounds identical at the moment Because everything's written by AI and, you know, everything is all about quantity rather than quality. And standing out is very difficult. But actually, what he leans into here is like, find out what's different, truly different about your organization and use that to stand out.

25:32And some great examples of companies that have done that and the things that they've found. And really also being transparent and honest. It's like, you know, it's not every company. No company is perfect in every single way. So this is all about transparency. It was all about standing out. And it's a really, really, really, it's a really great interview and, you know, really, really worth listening to in terms of what's going on in employer branding right now. And I think the other thing as well is he really kind of indicated that the, not necessarily the Fortune 100 companies, but the companies are next level down, really have an opportunity to stand out and compete for talent with those big companies because they all sound the same.

26:13So there's a chance to be different. And in some ways, it's kind of always been the case with employer branding, but I think it's particularly amplified with AI at the moment, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think for a long time, we've always been, as someone who does this day in and day out, speak to companies about how to brand, do employer branding and employee generated content, we've been conditioned to hide the differences. We want to look like the rest of the companies out there. And that's absolutely not what we have to be doing because now everyone's just going to AI, creating content, writing the website copy, all of that.

26:55It's literally all sounding the same. This is a time to really forget and kick that old habit of hiding our differentiators and lean on those. And I can't say that more. And James is on the same campaign mission to do this. It's really, really an opportunity for the companies that do this to beat out the big companies when it comes to talent. I'm going to put you on the spot now. So six episodes, which one was your favorite? This is too hard. Definitely the employer branding one, because that's like my thing. But I really think people need to listen to the one about data and getting your house in order.

27:44before putting AI on top of everything, because I think that's a real problem that needs to be solved. Yeah, and as the podcast host, I'm not allowed to pick favorites. That would be unfair. But I think that these six episodes are a really, really good selection. If you're not listening to any of them, I would check it out. If you're not listening to the podcast for a little while, this is a great kind of read back to them, essentially. So, yes, thank you, Rona, for joining me again. As I say, always a pleasure to have you on the show. And thank you to everyone who's been watching and listening to the recording later.

28:22Roundup will be back next month. And I look forward to seeing you all then. In the meantime, loads of great content going up on Recruiting Future. Check it out by following Recruiting Future wherever you listen to your podcasts. if you want to look at the archive head over to recruiting future.com and you can find all the episodes and all the transcripts over there so thank you very much rona and thank you very much everyone for listening this is my show

29:09Thank you.