Recruiting Brainfood - Issue 478
Decline in Trust in Employers, 5 year review of hiring across HV Capital's portfolio, State of People Strategy report from Lattice, one great report from McKinsey on Agents, Robots and Humans.
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Friends,
We are onto the final few weeks of the year. Next week is going to be thrill - seeing a few friends from the US swing by and I’m hoping to close off a few of the admin details for 2026. There may be a few more cheeky walk and talk posts and then it’s a break. What are your plans for the next two weeks?
Thanks to: Martyn Redstone, Garry Turner, Ivan Harrison, Bobby Nunn, Joey NK Koksal, Kevin Green, Nicolas Texier, Ryan Hiscox, Gita Selli-Cellei, Ray Baptiste, Juliana Park, Jamie Lyons, Jeremy A Lyons, Linda Ferrari, Alan Furley, Renita Käsper, Morgan Lobb, Sofia Pohls, Rob Walker, Kevin Ryan, Antonia Aras, Paul McCardle, Colin Donnery, Dave Hazelhurst, Bobby Nunn, David Green and Oonagh Clarke - your public endorsement of all things brainfood keeps this show on the road!
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What Do Brainfooders Think?
Does this result resonate with you? I reckon the productivity gain for me is around 10%, but definitely not 50%. Good poll and thanks for everyone to voting!
Brainfood Live Double Header
Coming to the final stretch of the year, and we are going to with a double header next week: We have David Head at Endorsed tackling the Candidate Fraud issue with Fraud Shield - live demo on Wednesday 10th December, 12pm ET/ 5pm GMT - register here, and then on Friday 12th December, 2pm GMT we’re at Part Two of our look back mini-series, this time focusing on Review of the Year in Recruitment 2025 - Sourcing, Employer Brand and RecOps. Register here
The Brainfood
1. Edelman Trust Barometer 2025
Edelman Trust Barometer is one of those annual surveys which always make this newsletter, but somehow I missed putting this in when it came out earlier in the year. We know the narrative by now - material insecurity is root cause for social sentiment, and we end up distrusting those institutions which overpromise and under delivery. Authenticity in EB going to be winner in 2026 - brutal honesty I reckon will become next years meme. Bookmark this.
EMPLOYER BRANDING
2. Your Time-to-Fill Data Is Lying to You (And 3 Metrics That Actually Matter)
Brainfooder Johnny Campbell is coming up with the goods on a weekly basis on these posts. His mini series on TA Operations is a must read. In this post, we’re discussing the problem of mean averages, where extraordinary outliers can disguise the reality for the vast majority. GDP is measured by mean averages. So is productivity. And so also are all recruitment metrics like TTH. Must read folks.
RECRUITING OPERATIONS
3. From Boom to Balance: Five Years of VC-Backed Startup Hiring Trends
Some fabulous data crunching here by brainfooder Anna Ott, who reviewed the hiring behaviour of the HV Capital portfolio of companies - hundreds of tech startups, posting thousands of jobs over the past 5 year period. It’s confirmatory news over what Tech TA professionals have known for some time - high demand, with Covid collapse, followed back the rocketship of 2021 and then the timeline split in 2022. We know all of this but superb to see it evidenced with this type of data analysis. Must read.
ECONOMY
4. How to Be a Talent Advisor
Brainfooder John Vlastelica has been one of the leading ‘thinker-doer’s in our space for a long time, and some of his ideas on the steps the TA profession needs to take to not only elevate its position within the organisational hierarchy must be taken seriously. The post is an excellent preview of what needs to happen - full deck is well worth a download also.
RECRUITING OPERATIONS
5. Lattice State of People Strategy 2026 Report
This year, DEIB is a priority for just 16% of teams, down from a peak of 30% in 2023. Performance management and DEIB seem to share inverse trajectories — jostling almost neck and neck in 2023 before splitting sharply and veering off on mirrored paths.
Survey on HR professionals from Lattice, covering everything from priorities to HR tech. The grand narrative is probably consistent across all functions: AI-enablement is key to top performance and performance is superceding all other priorities. Most interesting insight? Divergence in optimism for function depending on industry sector (HR in white collar orgs less optimistic about HR) - any thoughts why?
CULTURE
6. Have Top Chinese AI Researchers Stayed in the United States?
A running joke in AI circles is that global race to AI supremacy is really a race between Chinese researchers in San Francisco vs Chinese researchers in Hangzhou. But like all good jokes, there is more than a kernel of truth to it, as approximately half of the global population in frontier AI research are Chinese nationals or of Chinese descent. One of the many paradoxes of hostile de-globalisation, is that in order to survive it, you actually need to do it well. Talent and Geopolitics - and DEIB issue - in one post.
EMPLOYER BRANDING
7. Do Recruiters Penalize Men Who Prefer Low Hours?
I find that recruiters prefer full-time over part-time workers, and that part-time penalties are more pronounced for men than for women. Differences in job or workplace characteristics cannot explain these results. Instead, the preponderance of evidence points to bias due to gender stereotypes.
Super interesting piece of research which underscores the deep, potentially intrinsic, biases we have on the role we expect men to perform. The conclusions from this research shouldn’t surprise us, and should motivate us to work for greater gender equality. Academic paper but readable enough. NB: presumably AI screening would remove this bias, given that human recruiters seem unable to do so? H/T to brainfooder Dorothy Dalton for the share
D&I
8. Why Are Employees Pushing Back on Workplace AI?
Really interesting post which much gives greater nuance to worker resistance to AI than the conventional dismissal of Luddism (tho the Luddites did in fact have the same nuance at the time, they just lost the narrative, as well as the fight). One of those posts where the value is front loaded - the description of worker anxieties is much better than the prescriptions on what to do about it. Simple fact is companies need to share equity share for employees, and materially give them reward for AI optimisation, currently beyond the pale, our collective job is to extend the boundaries of the pale. H/T to brainfooder Ivan Harrison for the share.
AI
9. Agents, Robots, and Us: Skill Partnerships in the Age of AI
So if we get employees to align with AI acceleration (implement a ‘keep what you kill’ policy) what does future work look like? McKinsey do a fantastic job of describing it through a series of visualisations which really help in outlining the division of responsibility between AI Agents, Robots and Human workers. Some great charts in this, one of the best McKinsey reports of this type this year. Must read folks.
FUTURE OF WORK
10. Microsoft Ditches Publishing ‘Traditional’ Diversity and Inclusion Report this Year
Well this isn’t promising is it? I remember well the kudos given to companies who published DEIB reports, but that was when they were trending well in the direction of increasing diversity of the workforce. Not so happy to do so now that perhaps the data undermines the narrative. Microsoft are probably not alone is rolling back reports of this type - somebody should keep a count, its probably as good a signal as any as to the state of DEIB. H/T to brainfooder Morgan Lobb for the share in the Brainfood Live on this topic last week.
D&I
The Podcasts
11. AI Bubble Over! Is 2026 Crash Coming? The One Trend That Changes Everything
We’re in a world where everyone needs to take an interest in geopolitics, which might explain the rise in prominence to Louis-Vincent Gave, one of the smartest investment analysts around whose unique angle is to nest his observations into the proper context of geopolitical conflict. Key observation here: misallocation of capital due to 15 years of cost of capital being too cheap. Have a watch
ECONOMY
12. The Human Advantage. Why AI Makes Us More, Not Less with Mo Gawdat
Egyptian entrepreneur, investor and tech geek Mo Gawdat with his keynote on Sydney SXSW last month. He’s a brilliant speaker so this is an engaging presentation but also one which is hugely validating for those who have (or need?) hope that we can influence and shape the AI-enabled future. Lets not be stupid folks. Have a listen.
CULTURE
13. Global Developer Population Trends 2025 - How Many Developers Are There?
Missed this one from earlier in the year, but probably still relevant today. The question of how many people are actually doing software development is a key question for a world that is rapidly become technologized. Answer is 47 million, an increase from 30 million in 2022, so increase in numbers of people being software developers, which might go in some way to explain why s/w developers are finding it harder to find opportunities today than in 3 years ago. Interesting presentation, worth reviewing for every tech recruiter, and good nurture content to anyone with tech network.
TALENT INTELLIGENCE
End Note
World Cup 2026 Draw has been made - the largest ever in terms of numbers of participants, including some true minnows making their debuts like Curaçao and Cape Verde! Also incredible that its taking place mainly in the United States, where we can fully anticipate the US President hijacking the ceremony - and maybe the event itself - in an act of predictable personal aggrandisement 🤣.
Anyways, this is the topic of today’s poll - whose going to win the World Cup next year now that we know the draw?
France are probably favourites in terms of pure talent of squad, but I do think it may be England’s time. Cast your votes folks and let us know what you think!
That’s it - thanks for reading everyone
Have a great week everyone
Hung
Wc winner: Netherlands Will rise again 🥸🪩