Recruiting Brainfood - Issue 451
Tons on Recruitment Operations, especially as AI seems to be transforming organisations around us, hyper drive on US culture war hostile de-globalisation hitting AI TA and..Mary Meeker is back
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Friends,
So it starts to get hectic from now.
Firstly, there may be an amusing video for you all tomorrow. Going to post it on Instagram so follow me there if you want to see it 🤣
Secondly, continuing our AI in Staffing Agency theme this Weds - Beyond Automation at 4pm BST. Register here
Finally, I’m out to Amsterdam for 3 days from Tuesday, so looking forward to seeing as many of you as I can. If you’re in Amsterdam on Thursday evening, join me for this meetup at Zoku at 6pm CEST, where we will show / tell / implement real AI powered workflows for recruiting. Free to attend but you got to apply - do it here
Thanks to: Eugene van de Hemel, Joey NK Koksal, Geraldine Butler-Wright, Bill Boorman, Romuald Restout, Martyn Redstone, Grant Clough, Kevin Green, Steven Davis, John Rose, Katharine Robinson, Robert Hicks, James Osborne, Neil Ray, Dave Hazelhurst, Rob Walker, Iwan Gulenko and Cliff Jurkiewicz for your support on all things brainfood - keeping this show on the road with your shout outs - cheers!
Can you help? Share this newsletter with your friends in industry and have them subscribe
What Do Brainfooders Think?
This could be the lowest voter turn out we’ve ever had 🤣 and I particularly welcome the 31% who didn’t have a clue. Going to do it - watch out this Friday, something should come through…
Brainfood Live On Air - Ep311 - VC in WorkTech: Where is the Money Going? Friday 6th June, 2pm BST / 9am ET
2025 is the year of AI / Automation - and we’re seeing budget diverted from payroll and into automation tech. What are the categories in recruiting which seem to be growing fastest? Which are declining? What can this tell us about how businesses are thinking about the future shape of organisation? All this and more with industry legends George Laroque and Madeline Laurano. Register here
The Brainfood
1. Mary Meeker 2025 - Trends in Artificial Intelligence
She’s back. Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends annual presentations were once the most anticipated events in the calendar, which abruptly stopped when she left Kleiner Perkins to start her own venture capital firm, Bond Capital. Here she is with a return - a typical 340 page monster deck on everything you need to know about technology / AI trends. Must download, must read. Thanks Chris Cruz for the share in the online community
AI
2. McKinsey 2025: New Operating Model for People Management
We’ve been trying for a long time to increase ‘talent fluidity’ - will AI enable to us to do it? McKinsey thinks so, as it projects 2/3 of people orientated tasks will be significantly augmented or automated entirely, releasing humans to do higher value work. It’s a happy story but one which I wonder is too embedded in the context of professional services where internal rotations are the norm and a priority, whilst not asking the question why departmental structures have rigidity in the first place. Perhaps there is a good reason for this….?
RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS
3. Key Labour Trends in Europe May 2025
I was a big fan of Job Board Doctor during the Jeffrey Dickey-Chasin’s era but new custodian Julie-Ann Sowash has levelled up the content. Superb summary guest post here on the state of the European labour market - key message? ‘The economy’ is like the climate - a dizzying complex system with cycles and counter cycles. PS: if you want more forensic analysis on State of the Labour market, join me and Adzuna later this month - register here.
ECONOMY
4. DEI wasn't the Problem, It was the Apology
It’s fair to say DEI is getting a hammering in the United States, with corporates discarding their commitments in the face of clear signalling from US Gov. We have to try not to read this superb post from Jess von Bank as an obituary, but as a moment of reflection on a movement which was founded on principles that is easy to share. a commitment toward - an economic system rooted in the idea that everyone deserves a fair shot regardless of identity or circumstance. Important we all read this. H/T to brainfooder Bill Boorman for the share in the online community.
D&I
5. Box 2025 State of AI in Enterprise Report
Reports like this really need to link back to the survey + raw data responses. Box aren’t doing anything outside of industry convention but obviously impossible to verify the findings here, so we’re left with trust me bro stats. Still, some interesting tidbits to take from this, especially on the frameworks used to describe maturity, as well as the categorisation of Agentic AI (Generalist, Vertical, Custom).
AI
6. A Deep Peek into DeepSeek AI’s Talent and Implications for US Innovation
With the US ‘aggressively revoking’ the visas of the 250,000+ Chinese students, this report from the Hoover Institute on the talent pool available to the Chinese eco-system proves timely. If there is to be a nationalist race to AGI, doesn’t it make sense to acquire the best talent, rather than ‘returning to the sender’? The now decommissioned Macropolo AI talent tracker tells the story of one of America’s strongest cards - being able to attract elite talent - which now I guess must go in reverse.
TALENT INTELLIGENCE
7. No Excuses Workday. Find All the Applicants Over 40 Who Applied In Your Systems Since 2020.
Mobley vs Workday is legal case which everyone in this newsletter has to keep an eye on. What is at stake is no less than defining the role technology has in the assessment human job candidates. My sympathies are with Workday - mainly on the lines Carmen Hudson argued here - but I suspect Derek Mobley has a case. At a time when job seeker discontent is becoming politically relevant, I can see the final judgment going Mobley’s way. You can do worse than to consult brainfooder Andrew Gadomski on what you should do - starting guide for you right here. Also make sure you watch Lydia Wu’s breakdown on video below 👇
ASSESSMENT
8. My Big TA Conspiracy Theory
…and perhaps like all conspiracy theories, there are kernels of truth to be discerned in them. Brainfooder Jamie Leonard with a courageous post on the how as AI is focused on process automation, so process heavy functions become the target. Another important data point on the shrinking of TA teams, following the Talent Labs 2024 survey report from last year. The CTA is straight forward - AI-self enable, build network value, build personal profile. Do the latter two at least by going to Recfest - Knebworth and Nashville.
RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS
9. Vibe Coding? Try ‘Mind Coding’
You can rely on Brainfood to keep you at the frontier of tech development …and then take you all the way to other side. Vibe coding? That’s for kids because we’re already at the point of strapping on brain wave monitors and manifesting software by thinking about it.
FUTURE OF WORK
10. Tech and Talent: Why Moderna's Big Move Should Have All of Us Talking
Merging HR + IT? That this is no longer obvious madness should say it all about the moment we’re at. Moderna’s Tracy Franklin will find herself as the most requested public speaker following the announcement that they are merging human and technology resources into a single ‘business enablement’ function. Helps to have OpenAI building AI Agents for you, but this frontier example may well be a future destination for many organisations. Have a read of this post from Chris Hoyt and decent fireside chat with Franklin here
RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS
The Podcasts
11. The End of American Economic Supremacy with Mark Blyth
Comedians interviewing Economists may be the best way to absorb complex information, especially when the two protagonists are as entertaining as Adam Conover and Mark Blyth. Learnt a new term: '“information invariant asset”. Great listening if you want to an education and a laugh - I think we could do with both.
ECONOMY
12. A Deep Dive into Workday's AI Discrimination Lawsuit for HR from HR (Part 1) & (Part 2)
I’m late to discussing Lydia Wu and that is very much my bad. Outstanding analysis of the Mobley vs Workday case, in on going series which may become one of the best channels we have on monitoring this case. Technically precise but accessible for the laity - Part 1 and Part 2 - have a watch. NB: I’m sticking with my analysis of the situation (see above), superficial though it may be!
ASSESSMENT
13. What Amazon’s AI Leader Thinks About the Future of Your Job
Rory Richardson, Director at Amazon Web Services, in conversation with Geoff Nielson. Fantastic conversation with very useful timestamps on key moments in the conversation. Rory falls comfortably in the AI Optimist camp, where AI will enable developers, not replace them, so a great conversation to listen to if you need a pick-me-up 🤣
FUTURE OF WORK
End Note
I’m a basic user of AI, I think lowest tier amongst us. I’m not ashamed of this, but am aware that I’m almost certainly missing productivity gains. Got me thinking about where we are at as a community, so I have come up with my own maturity level frame work:
Level 1 - basic user, ChatGPT for message composition, document summary, content writing
Level 2 - automated some workflow with AI
Level 3 - deployed an AI agent which is is actually striving to achieve objectives without direct instruction on any particular part
Level 4 - system of agents working together autonomously managing and building an entire function
Where are you personally at with AI usage?
That’s it - thanks for reading
Have a great week everyone
Hung
I’m on level 3 only because I have time to dive it to the subject deeper.
I encourage TA leaders to give their team 2~4 hours a week to learn, create, test automation and AI.
In the very start these 2~4 hours will be an investment…. After a few weeks it will pay itself back!
I’m Level 3 because of a partnership with tech co that has worked to get us to this level.