Recruiting Brainfood - Issue 455
State of Consumer AI 2025, ONS Population Projection for England, Becoming an AI First company, Mark Zuckerberg ace recruiter and some outstanding sci-fi from Mr Steve Levy...
This week’s brainfood is supported by our friends Greenhouse
Attending RecFest UK on July 10? Come visit Greenhouse at Stand 29!
Plus, don’t miss speaker session, “Future-proof your TA reporting with strategic data storytelling", where Greenhouse Senior Director of Product Management, Robby Perdue and Director of Talent Acquisition at Scandit, Douglas Craig will share practical strategies for aligning hiring metrics to business goals, highlight next-gen KPIs like predictive time-to-fill, and show you how to translate complex data into compelling insights that resonate with the C-suite. Walk away ready to influence decisions and lead with data in 2025 and beyond!
SPONSORS
Friends,
RecFest 2025 is nearly here. It is always a highlight of the year and this year will be no different. Thanks to all who supported by LinkedIn post last week on the Green Lanyard Campaign - 10,000 video views, nearly 100 reposts, and nearly 100 free tickets given away. If you are out of work TA / HR and want to attend Recfest, then apply for a free ticket here. Build your network, increase your profile, have a great time - see you there!
São Paolo Tuesday 1st July. Doing a meetup for subscribers and other friends in TA / HR at the Bar Astor Vila Madalena - I will there from 6pm, so come along and say hello. If you want in on the WhatsApp group, reply to this email with your number and I will add you!
Thanks to: Gareth Flynn, Dinesh Hemdev, Bill Boorman, Joey NK Koksal, Bas van de Haterd, Dave Ralph, Ivan Harrison, Manjuri Sinha, Marieke van Iperen, Meghan Hennessy, Davi Bufalo, Patrick Gouy, Aisha Lysejko, Camila Passos, Joanne Djebara, Mina Golesorkhi, Sarah Lane, Matt Anderson, Ali Wallace, Kasturi Deval, Milena Pieroni, Belinda Johnson, Cecilia Pinaffi, Jarrett Rice, Eduardo Muniz and Paul McCardle - thank you for your public support of all things brainfood! It is essential for keeping this show on the road. Obrigado!
Can you help? Share this newsletter with your network on LinkedIn and have your recruiter / HR friends subscribe - on the free plan! 👊
What Do Brainfooders Think?
I think this even split? We’re going to do this series, so please let me know if any of your C-level execs might want to be in the hot seat and teach the community what it is like doing the role 👊
Brainfood Live On Air - Ep315 - How to Assess Candidates for AI-Literacy?, Friday 4th July, 2pm BST
It’s the 4th July so a national holiday for our American friends, but the RoW is going to continue 🤣. One of the ways company’s can become AI-enabled is hiring in already AI-literate candidates. But how do we do this? We’re going to talk Zapier’s 4 level scale, interview questions to assess for AI-literacy, and working tasks which may demonstrate it. As recruiters, we’re going to need to know how to assess for AI - register here
The Brainfood
1. The State of Consumer AI 2025 Menlo Ventures
Consumer behaviour is the bedrock of what will become job seeker and employer behaviour. Hence, very welcome to see this research from Menlo Ventures on how people are using AI in 2025. Main takeaway for me? People use AI mainly on low impact, high frequency tasks that they need to do anyway. Vendors have got to fit into existing workflows. Good reading, lots of interesting concepts to embed.
AI
2. Deloitte Insights 2025 - Global Human Capital Trends
DI Global Human Capital Trends is one of the annual classics. A lot of it is going to be self serving or even self referential but professional services consultancies have at least the language and the frameworks which can help us think through the moment. The piece asks a central question also: how do we balance agility with stability? Creating a flexible structure that can bend in a hurricane is what we have to do. Must read
CULTURE
3. Careerbuilder & Monster Bankrupt
I remember Monster from back in the day - were they once the most innovative business is recruitment tech? Sad to hear that they - along with Careerbuilder files for bankruptcy this week. Brainfooder Alexander Chukovski of course has a unique take - that it’s an SEO takeover; meanwhile brainfooder Julie Ann Sowash reveals that there are many creditors which may be left holding the bag with the bankruptcy declaration.
RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING
4. Becoming An AI First Company
Box has been a leading voice in articulating the ‘AI First’ position, with CEO Aaron Levie particularly prominent on X in recent days. If you’re all in on AI, then this is their how-to guide on organisation transformation - easy to read PDF here. If you want to join the conversation AI First vs Human Centred, register on the Brainfood Live next month here. H/T brainfooder Srini Gundelli for the share in the online community.
CULTURE
5. The Nefarious Side of AI for Talent Acquisition
Somebody needs to pay brainfooder Steve Levy to be a full time writer / thinker. When he has time he can come up with unique posts like this - a logical extrapolations of current trends to sci-fi futures. Candidate fraud should not be overplayed, but as we saw in last Friday’s Brainfood Live on the topic, it is already a current, urgent recruitment concern. With inevitable dissemination of ever more capable technologies, the risk to all stakeholders will become heighten. Have a read of this, ideally when listening to Blade Runner inspired soundtrack…
ASSESSMENT
6. Subnational Population Projections for England: 2022-based
Office of National Statistics in England have published their first population projections since 2018, displayed in this pretty decent interactive website. As TA / HR professionals - as well as a citizens and stakeholders of our respective countries - we need to understand the demographic changes in society; all recruitment challenges might boil down to it. So do society’s finances, though most of us misunderstand our fiscal relationship to the state…
SOCIETY
7. If You Get a Recruiting Email from Mark Zuckerberg, Do Not Assume it is Fake
I’ll say it now for the record: ‘war for talent’ is a term which needs to be rehabilitated, if only for the truly elite hires at the frontier of AI work. It’s a mind bending paradox that competition for having the best AI may yet depend on having the best humans in the team. Mark Zuckerberg coming down from the CEO role to personally recruit from the competition - with reportedly $100 Million dollar signing bonus to those who join. From the EB POV, pretty good employer branding to have your CEO occasionally do this?
EMPLOYER BRANDING
8. The Importance of Understanding Non-Degree Credential Quality
I went down the rabbit hole on credentials following last week’s share of Burning Glass’s credential valuation index. Here’s the counterpoint from the same institution - how we understand the quality of non-degree credentials, especially the new ‘micro-credentials’ that are emerging. As we necessarily pivot away from the CV / resume, we’re going to have to find ways to pull all of these accreditations together in a practical way. Somebody going to build an aggregator for this, waiting for you…H/T brainfooder Juliana Park for the share.
ASSESSMENT
9. Global Economy Set for Weakest Run Since 2008 Outside of Recessions
Donald Trump has cost the global economy north of $1 Trillion, based mainly on a lack of understanding of what tariffs are (he really just wants VAT!). Latest outburst against Canada, is a clear indication that the washing machine is just going to continue to spin. World Bank cuts economic growth forecast again as we begin to understand there is no end in sight. For us in TA, we have to understand that turbulence means defensive budgeting from employers, which means more automation and less headcount. We need to combine ‘workforce automation’ advisory, with expertise in hiring human talent.
ECONOMY
10. The HR Technology Stack Failure: A Research Analysis
We need to do a Brainfood Live on technology implementation - I remember we were due a follow up to one we did with brainfooder Patrick Boonstra last year. This research reminds of the fact - why billions spent on HR Tech has generally led to little or no ROI. Some important philosophical points made in this near polemical article - HR tech is optimised for the wrong thing - for process efficiency rather than relationship quality. Must read folks.
CULTURE
The Podcasts
11. Sam Altman: The Future of OpenAI, ChatGPT's Origins, and Building AI Hardware
Undeniably charming and reasonable-sounding on camera, Sam Altman at interview talking about Open AI. Watching this trying to glean what the future of the human species might look like. He’s not the worst option (that’s Peter Thiel), but also far from the best (that’s Jenson Huang). We have to support true Open Source AI, and not have such immense power concentrated into a single corporation lead by a single individual. H/T to brainfooder Srini Gundelli for the share in the online community
AI
12. Godfather of AI: I Tried to Warn Them, But We’ve Already Lost Control! Geoffrey Hinton
Train to be a plumber
…says the Godfather of AI. I think it was only partially a joke, as AI is going to consume knowledge work, or at least explicit knowledge work. I suspect our future will depend on the needs of the social organisation of business and society, rather than the business logic of a company. But lets listen to Geoffrey Hinton in this interview with Steven Bartlett and see whether he has anything else to say.
AI
13. Tech Leadership Lab featuring Stephane Kasriel (Meta).
Fascinating conversation with Stephane Kasriel , who leads the product / engineering teams at Meta Fundamental AI Research (FAIR). How do you balance what is good for the business and what is good for the world? Maybe you can try being a corporate incubator for multi[le AI moonshots. Have a watch. H/T brainfooder Belinda Johnson for the share.
CULTURE
End Note
Friends, I have been having the best time in Brazil and now as I come to the end of my trip here I need to choose a local football team to support! In São Paolo and Rio de Janeiro there are many great clubs, but so I need your help to choose a Brazilian team to support. Vote below if you have an opinion on this!
That’s it - thanks for reading
Have a great week everybody
Hung
Great to see you in person Hung
Hung Lee - Absolutely love your columns, but, you need to spell São Paulo correctly! Brazil is a fabulous place - enjoy it, and return! All the best - Jim