Recruiting Brainfood - Issue 432

How many recruiters are there in the world, DeepSeek Hiring Culture, Funnel chart on hiring factory workers, People being new brands and a World Employment Report on Renewable Energy Economy...

This week’s brainfood is supported by our friends Greenhouse

Hiring in 2025: AI, Market Shifts and Revolutionizing the Candidate Journey

This is a perfect example of what happens when two smart people with real domain knowledge get into conversation. Jon Stross, (President of Greenhouse), and Steve Goldberg, (HR Process and Tech Leader at 5 x Fortune 500 companies) talk Hiring in 2025, breaking down the details of measuring AI effectiveness, resetting the conversation on Quality of Hire, the consistent thread that connects great candidate to employee experience and what the future looks like when both job applicant and recruiters become AI-enabled.

Free to watch - I recommend you do. Register and watch on-demand here

SPONSORS

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Friends,

First of all, a big shout out to all my new subscribers from Copenhagen! It was wonderful to spend some time with you last week - I’m only sorry that we didn’t have more time to chat. Cheers to Ulrik, Maria Louise and all the crew at NOCA for inviting me to attend. This is a great event folks - put it on your go-to list next year.

Speaking of which, it was my first event of the year, so we have to recheck the Big List of Recruiting & HR Events to attend in 2025. Make sure you bookmark this and get yourself going to some of these. Don’t be shy about pitching yourself in to do a talk also - event organisers are always keen to hear from new voices.

Bangalore friends - I am sorry I have been so disorganised(!). If the visa gods are with us, I will be with you on Tuesday, but if not I have a back up flight arriving Thursday (don’t worry Victor, I will go directly to the event from the airport!). I will be in town until Sunday so we have time even if arrive later than planned.

Mega APAC trip starts here. Follow on Instagram if you want to see videos of Brainfood on tour 👊

Thanks to: Eugène Van Den Hemel, Peter Treloar, Joey NK Koksal, Martyn Redstone, Kevin Green, Dave Hazelhurst, Bobby Nunn, Deya Demerdzhieva, Prem Kumar, Brandon Jeffs, Casper Massink, Marc Woodford and Colin Donnery - your public support is what keeps this show on the road. Thank you 🙏

Can you help? Share this newsletter with your friends in the industry and have them subscribe. Cheers!

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What Do Brainfooders Think ?

The majority of recruitment teams remain in single location, at home HQ, but 47% of us have some team members distributed in other locations. This is all about ratio’s, lets do this again in 12 months time and see how the bars change. Thanks for voting everyone.

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Brainfood Live On Air - Ep289 - Req Load: How Much Is Too Much Per Recruiter in the Era of AI, Friday 24th January, 2pm GMT

How many requirements should a single recruiter be running at any one time? The typical answers (with standard caveats etc) is around 10-12 at any one time. But if AI does indeed increase recruiter productivity x10, what does that mean for the number of reqs a recruiter can handle? And we should we just accept an increase in req load, even if would could? A conversation we all need to have folks - make sure you register here

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The Brainfood

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1. How Many Recruiters Are There in the World?

Nice piece of research from brainfooder Jan Tegze, who took on the challenge of trying to figure out just how many recruiters there are in the world. Some fascinating findings here, in particular the growth of the function in Asia and LATAM, along with the slow down in North America and Europe. Ultimately positive notes, which we need at a time when doomerism seems all around.

ECONOMY

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2. 85 Problems with AI Recruitment today: A Principal Recruiter's Reality Check of Josh Bersin's AI Revolution

There was a great piece of meta-analysis which suggested that people who speak most loudly on AI disintermediation can be divided into three broad categories: techno-optimists, techno-pessimists and techno-skeptics. I think brainfooder Andreea Lungulescu makes a compelling case for the techno-skeptic position, tackling no less a big beast than Josh Bersin’s evangelical position on AI. Brilliant post - have a read.

RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS

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3. Dropbox Engineering Career Framework

2 years ago an engineering career framework like this would’ve got 1000 clicks. Nowadays with hiring for tech on the downturn, the discourse has moved on from career pathing, something which is hard to commit to when departments are getting smaller, rather than larger. Still, this is a useful resource from a leading tech company on how to do levels in engineer.

CULTURE

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4. DeepSeek Hiring Culture

Deep dive into the hiring culture of an unusual startup from China which promises to crash the price of AI. Delivering a model of top 5 performance for an astonishing training cost of $5.6 million (vs hundreds of millions of its nearest competitors), DeepSeek’s hiring culture may turn out to be key to its success; no defined job roles, elite intellectual talent from a diverse range of disciplines and a R&D first, commerce second approach to solving problems. Fascinating interview with founder Liang Wenfeng here and try it yourself for free here

AI

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5. First Job Board for Autonomous Agents

We’re going to hear a lot about Agentic AI in 2025. All of the major ATS’s are building towards this viable vision of an active hiring assistant which generate workflows, rather than just execute on instruction. It’s the transition of AI being a cool tool to being a capable colleague. Learn about Agents in this Google paper (featured a few weeks ago here) and check out this dodgy looking website for what kind of work demands we might expect from early agents. Lots to ponder folks…

WORKFORCE AUTOMATION

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6. My Experience as a Hiring Manager in 2024 in a Union Manufacturing Facility

Simple post, which consisted of said hiring manager presenting hiring data in a funnel chart, sparking a long thread of comments from Redditors puzzled at the meaning of it all. Casual applications seem to be high in this field, with 29% not answering phone despite sending in the application - some evidence here that the friction to apply is too low? Note also the high rate of ‘show up to interview’ / offered job. To use working class vernacular, blue collar recruiting is ‘proper recruitment’. PS: need to do more Brainfood Live on this space - let me know if you wanna guest on this.

ASSESSMENT

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7. People Are The New Brands

Funny how personal branding is coming back full circle - all the advice that was relevant on the advent of Web 2.0 now becomes relevant again in the era of AI (true Web 3.0). I’m telling you, being conspicuously and publicly human is going to be a competitive advantage as GenAI detritus begins to overwhelm our channels of communication. Have a read of this - relevant to everyone. H/T to brainfooder Michael Blakely for the share.

PERSONAL BRANDING

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8. World Energy Employment 2024

Transition to renewable energy sources is one of the great trends underway today. The rewards at national level will be energy security and reliability, as well as the opportunity to build the energy infrastructure of the future. That means jobs folks, maybe many more jobs than currently exist in fossil fuel economy. World Energy Employment report here will give us some clue as to where the recruiting opportunities might be.

ECONOMY

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9. Five Contrarian Ideas About GenAI in the Workplace

Brilliant post on what GenAI is going in the workplace. Unafraid to present contradictions, this post outlines some of the leading arguments which are / will drive the discourse on AI & the Future of Work. Two of the five most interesting to me: the unequal value AI provides to skilled vs unskilled, and distinction between ‘buy-in’ v ‘belieft’. Must read mind bender of a post.

FUTURE OF WORK

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10. For German 'Sick Leave Detective', Business is Booming

Persistent high energy costs is crippling to German automotive manufacturing, but its not the only problem afflicting one of the most important industries in Europe - overly pervasive worker protections might also be a contributing factor. Turns out that German workers (German brainfooders, pls confirm!) that no doctors note is required for taking sickie, leading to a rise of one job type that is growing - the sick leave detective.

CULTURE

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The Podcasts

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11. What Would Be The Global Impact of Trump’s Economic Policies?

Tomorrow begins a new era. Donald Trump is back in the White House and the eyes of the world will be on the mercurial, contradictory and unpredictable 47th President of the United States. What’s going to happen? Nobody knows, but we need to speculate because the we’re all going to be impacted by it.

ECONOMY

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12. Will Things Be Better or WORSE in 100 Years Time?

This remains one of my favourite YT channels. The delivery from presenter lends an authentic touch to the chat, though the research and speculation here are top notch. Ultimately, optimistic tones as the dangers of tech innovation have historically proven to be overstated…

SOCIETY

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13. Salesforce Founder Gives the Truth on AI Agents w/ Marc Benioff

When really significant big tech founders like Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Benioff start making comments that they are ‘no longer hiring software engineers’ because AI Agents can now do the job, its worth paying attention. The rate of innovation in this space is spinning far faster than anyone anticipated. Peter Diamandis with another great interview - must listen. H/T to brainfooder Bas van de Haterd for the share.

WORKFORCE AUTOMATION

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End Note

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We have to talk about Donald Trump. The only thing we can predict from Trump 2.0 is change so the poll for this week is whether we think this change is going to net positive for recruiters and HR at the end of the day. And, if you would like to comment and say why you think the way you do, please feel safe to do so.

That’s it - thanks for reading

Have a great week everybody

Hung