Recruiting Future with Matt Alder - What's Next For Talent Acquisition, HR & Hiring?

Matt Alder
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Talent acquisition is undergoing unprecedented disruption as AI, economic uncertainty, and the ever-shortening lifespan of skills radically reshape recruiting. On Recruiting Future, Matt Alder explores this evolving landscape, using insightful interviews with transformational TA practitioners and forward-thinking experts to spark your imagination and provide the insights you need to shape the future of talent acquisition in your organization. Each episode explores topics such as AI, recruiting automation, recruitment marketing, employer branding, skills-based hiring, assessment, candidate experience, DEI, internal mobility, and the transformation of TA teams. Recruiting Future is an essential resource for everyone involved in hiring. Matt Alder is a globally respected talent acquisition futurist, author, and speaker with over 25 years of experience exploring what’s next in recruiting. Renowned for his expertise in strategic foresight and technology trends, Matt provides a unique perspective that empowers leaders to navigate disruption. His deep industry knowledge and ability to spark meaningful conversations make Recruiting Future a must-listen for talent acquisition and HR professionals everywhere.

  1. 1 day ago

    The Human Side Of AI Readiness

    AI is moving from a specialist technology to something employees in large parts of the organization are increasingly expected to be using. Skills, mindsets, and long-established habits are much harder to change than software, which is why meeting that expectation is proving difficult. If the challenge is mainly a human one, AI readiness is as much a matter for HR and talent leaders as for technology teams. So what does it take to get a workforce ready for AI, and what opportunity does that create for talent leaders? My guest this week is Dr. Michael Housman, Co-Founder and CEO of AI Performance Lab. Michael has spent 17 years building AI and machine learning platforms, and now helps leadership teams around the world adopt AI. In our conversation, he explains what the human aspect of AI readiness means in practice, why execution matters more than strategy, and why HR and talent leaders are well-placed to lead the change. In the interview, we discuss: What has changed since AI went mainstream, and what hasn't Why AI readiness is a question of mindset, culture, and skills Treating AI as a digital colleague rather than a tool Exponential innovation, flat adoption, and an hour a day of AI playtime The companies leading on AI are growing headcount, not cutting it Why a strategy deck is not the same as execution Deciding where humans stay in the loop, and the risk of skills atrophy Why this is a unique moment for HR and talent leaders Why experience and AI skills together are such a powerful combination What does the future look like when adoption can't keep pace with innovation? Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

  2. 2 days ago

    The Talent Employers Are Throwing Away

    Redundancies have become a constant feature of the talent market. AI is taking a lot of the blame, but the drivers behind this are much broader. Jobs and skills are changing faster than most organizations can keep track of and the conventional response is to restructure the workforce and then hire in the new skills that are needed. That approach relies on a ready supply of perfectly qualified candidates, and in a fast-moving skills market those candidates are increasingly hard to find. It also assumes that employers already have a clear view of the skills and potential within their existing workforce, which is rarely the case. So what does a smarter approach to restructuring look like? My guest this week is JC Townend, President of The Adecco Group for the UK and Ireland and CEO of LHH, the Adecco Group business that supports individuals through redundancy. In the UK alone, LHH works with more than 20,000 people a year who have been made redundant, which gives JC a rare view of both the decisions employers are making and where the people affected end up next. In our conversation, she explains what is really driving the current wave of restructuring, why the financial case for replacing people rather than redeploying them has changed, and how the best employers are rethinking workforce planning. In the interview, we discuss: How the pattern of restructuring has changed over the last eight years What is really driving the current wave of redundancies AI, automation and the skills mismatch that goes well beyond them Why companies understand skills within teams but not across them The employers letting people go and then rehiring for similar skills Why the perfectly qualified external candidate is getting harder to find Changing how internal moves are perceived and helping people sell their transferable skills Agile workforce planning and a matrix of opportunities rather than a single career ladder Five careers in a lifetime, all at the same company, and what the future looks like Connect with JC on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannetownend/ Read the 2026 LHH Career Redeployment and Outplacement Trends Report: https://www.lhh.com/en-gb/insights/the-mobility-breakdown Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

  3. 9 Oct

    Is AI Anxiety Holding TA Teams Back?

    There is a lot of pressure on talent acquisition to adopt AI, and the discussion about how to do it tends to focus on tools and skills. With layoffs attributed to AI in the headlines, the people in TA teams have good reason to feel anxious about the technology they are being asked to use. That anxiety makes people less willing to experiment, and addressing it has less to do with the technology than with how leaders handle uncertainty. So what does it take to move a recruiting team from anxiety about AI to confidence in using it? My guest this week is Jennifer Rozon, Division President of McLean & Company, a global HR research and advisory firm whose recent research looks at leadership and AI transformation. In our conversation, Jennifer explains what is driving AI anxiety, how leaders can give their teams the confidence to experiment, and the risks of relying too heavily on AI and cutting entry-level roles. In the interview, we discuss: What is driving AI anxiety in the workforce? Why AI anxiety should not be mistaken for resistance to technology Leading through uncertainty when you don't have all the answers How leaders can give their teams the confidence to experiment How structures, incentives and culture can work against leaders What is cognitive debt and why does it matter? What happens to future leadership pipelines when entry-level roles disappear? Redesigning entry-level roles around the work AI creates Why current experience is becoming a less reliable basis for hiring and succession What does the future look like? Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

  4. 8 Oct

    What TA Leaders Are Talking About Now

    TA leaders have to keep delivering for the business while they use AI to transform how hiring works. At RecFest USA in Nashville, AI was the main topic of conversation, although the people I spoke to talked about much more than the technology. So where should TA leaders be focusing their attention? I recorded seven short interviews at the event, and they fall into three themes. Those themes are the value that talent acquisition brings to the business, the risks that employers now have to manage, and what comes next for hiring. My guests are Jamie Leonard, Founder of RecFest; Stef Nikitas, Director of Talent Acquisition at Ace Hardware; Julia Levy, a former Fortune 500 talent acquisition executive; Jim Stroud, Head of Market Strategy and Industry Engagement at ProvenBase; Lorna Erickson, Co-Founder of Expert Interviewers; Mark Chaffey, Co-Founder and CEO of hackajob, the company behind Archer; and Ben Russell, Co-Founder and CCO of SonicJobs. In our conversations, they discuss who should own quality of hire, how employers are responding to legal risk and candidate fraud, and how AI is changing the way candidates and employers find each other. In the interview, we discuss: The growing conversation about how TA aligns with business goals Who should own quality of hire and how should it be measured? The compliance and legal pitfalls around AI and pay transparency How to check for candidate fraud without making the process harder for real candidates The lack of trust between candidates and recruiters How job seekers are using large language models to look for work What generative engine optimization means for employers Is agent-to-agent hiring the future of talent acquisition? Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

  5. 29 Sept

    Managing Career Transitions

    The world of work is changing quickly, and the way people move between roles is changing with it. Hiring for senior positions looks very different from the way it did even five years ago, while many people still approach their own careers with instincts shaped by a market that no longer exists. What does it mean to manage a career well in this environment, and how do the people who navigate transitions successfully approach them differently? My guest this week is Kelly O. Kay, Global Managing Partner of the Enterprise Software and AI Practice at Heidrick & Struggles. Kelly has spent more than twenty years in executive search, and together with his longtime colleague Jeff Sanders he has just published Show Up to Win, a Harvard Business Review Press book on how leaders should manage their careers and navigate transitions. In our conversation, he explains how hiring at the top has changed, why career management needs to be a continuous and strategic activity, where AI does and doesn't fit into the process, and what people misunderstand about the way search firms work. In the interview, we discuss: How hiring at the most senior level has changed What the best leaders do to get the best roles Career management as a continuous process, not a response to wanting to move Quality of company, quality of role, quality of offer Showing them how you think via executive dialogue rather than question and answer What people misunderstand about how search firms work Using AI as an interview coach What does the future of leadership careers look like? Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

  6. 23 Sept

    Ep 827: Agent To Agent Recruiting

    Recruiting is generating more activity than ever and less connection. Candidates are using AI to produce polished applications at scale, employers are using AI to screen and reach out at scale, and the result is a level of noise that is eroding trust on both sides. More automation applied to the same processes will only make this worse. Solving it means rethinking how matching works, with depth of understanding on both sides and transparency and fairness designed in from the start. So what does that look like in practice? My guest this week is Matt Wilson, Co-founder and CEO of Jack and Jill, whose AI agents work on both sides of the hiring market. In our conversation, Matt shares why supercharging existing processes deepens the noise problem, how transparency and independent auditing build trust in AI matching, and where human judgment remains essential. In the interview, we discuss: Why job hunting is still an inefficient, luck-based process How AI is supercharging broken processes and creating noise on both sides of hiring Building trust in agentic driven processes Bias, fairness, and transparency Challenging deep-seated beliefs about how recruiting gets done Where human judgment remains essential in the hiring process How Jack and Jill manage their own hiring process What does agent-to-agent recruiting mean for the future of hiring? Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

  7. 23 Sept

    Do AI Interviews Work?

    AI is becoming more embedded across recruiting tools, but there is a meaningful difference between AI that automates workflows behind the scenes and AI that talks directly to candidates. When AI conducts the conversation, the stakes are higher; the first interaction shapes how candidates perceive the employer and the role. That is why many talent acquisition teams remain cautious about AI interviews, even as they adopt AI everywhere else. A growing number of enterprises are now running AI interviews at scale in high-volume hiring, and the data coming back on candidate experience and quality of hire improvements is difficult to ignore. So what does that evidence show, and what should it mean for how the industry thinks about AI in hiring? My guest this week is Dave Vu, Co-Founder and COO of Ribbon, who spent 15 years in talent and people leadership before co-founding the AI interview platform. In our conversation, Dave shares what enterprises are reporting from deploying AI interviews across thousands of candidates, how those candidates are responding, and what this could mean for the future of hiring. In the interview, we discuss: The shift from AI experimentation to enterprise deployment The difference between back-office AI and candidate-facing AI Moving from chatbots to natural conversations The impact on the candidate experience Building candidate trust and AI interviewing Improving speed, efficiency and quality of hire Detecting cheating and protecting interview integrity How will AI interviewing evolve over the next few years Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

  8. 18 Sept

    The Real Risks Of Candidate Fraud

    Remote hiring, freely available deepfake tools and harvested identities have created an opportunity that organized criminals are now taking seriously. State-backed operations are training workers to apply for remote roles using stolen credentials and proxy interviewers. The aim is the salary and access to source code, customer data and intellectual property once they are inside. Recruiters are the ones meeting these people first, and in most organizations they are assessing them with a background check and their own judgment while IT, InfoSec and legal are rarely involved. So how seriously should employers be treating this, and what does a credible response look like? My guest this week is Lauren Furey, Principal Product Manager at Proof, where she leads product work on candidate fraud and identity verification. In our conversation, Lauren explains how these attacks work, where hiring processes are most exposed, and what TA teams can do about it. In the interview, we discuss: Bots, deepfakes, identity harvesting and proxy interviewers The criminal motivations behind state-backed infiltration Why the background check is no longer enough on its own How much recruiters overestimate their ability to spot a fake Why remote hiring created the gaps bad actors exploit Building identity continuity through the hiring process Making fraud prevention a shared responsibility with IT and InfoSec The candidate experience trade-off and where to place verification Verifiable credentials and protecting candidates' own identities Practical first steps and what does the future look like? https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurennfurey/ https://www.proof.com Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

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About

Talent acquisition is undergoing unprecedented disruption as AI, economic uncertainty, and the ever-shortening lifespan of skills radically reshape recruiting. On Recruiting Future, Matt Alder explores this evolving landscape, using insightful interviews with transformational TA practitioners and forward-thinking experts to spark your imagination and provide the insights you need to shape the future of talent acquisition in your organization. Each episode explores topics such as AI, recruiting automation, recruitment marketing, employer branding, skills-based hiring, assessment, candidate experience, DEI, internal mobility, and the transformation of TA teams. Recruiting Future is an essential resource for everyone involved in hiring. Matt Alder is a globally respected talent acquisition futurist, author, and speaker with over 25 years of experience exploring what’s next in recruiting. Renowned for his expertise in strategic foresight and technology trends, Matt provides a unique perspective that empowers leaders to navigate disruption. His deep industry knowledge and ability to spark meaningful conversations make Recruiting Future a must-listen for talent acquisition and HR professionals everywhere.

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