Skills, AI & the Future of Talent Acquisition – Talent Download – Ep.9 ft. Spencer Hurley

Darren Lancaster (CEO, Amberjack) interviews Spencer Hurley (Spire Healthcare) about how talent acquisition has evolved from process-driven recruitment to a strategic function spanning assessment, workforce planning, employer branding, data and insight. Spencer outlines his career from agency to in-house roles (including Lloyd’s, ACE/Chubb, Nationwide, and DWF), describing building recruitment “hygiene” like ATS and supplier lists, and leading major change at Nationwide during a tech insourcing programme. He explains applying agile-style “swarming” to cut software engineering time-to-hire from 6–7 weeks to under five days by contracting with hiring managers, pre-planning interviews, and rapid iteration. They discuss skills-based hiring as a promising idea that’s hard to implement, arguing attitudes and soft skills matter most and hiring-manager biases persist. Both frame AI as a tool with uneven adoption, raising implications for assessment, education, recruiter tasks, and the need to invest in analytics to drive insight and D&I change.

00:00 AI Hype Reality Check
00:33 Podcast Welcome Guests
01:27 Spencer Career Origins
02:07 What Talent Acquisition Means
04:10 Agency To In House Shift
06:06 Economic Shocks Reshape Hiring
07:27 Building TA At Lloyds
09:31 Scaling Up Across Europe
10:49 Nationwide Transformation Years
16:43 Agile Recruiting Five Day Hire
18:15 Holding Hiring Managers Accountable
22:44 Skills Based Hiring Debate
27:27 Task Based Work With AI
29:21 AI Adoption Data Snapshot
29:52 AI Hype Versus Reality
31:01 Skills Barriers In Regulated Work
31:37 Corporate Blocks And Cheating Debate
32:59 Education Not Ready For Tools
34:06 Assessing AI Use In Hiring
36:26 Future Proof Careers Linchpin Mindset
38:16 DWF Transformation And RPO Reset
41:41 Recruiters Automation And Human Touch
46:12 TA Best Practices Data Analyst Hire
49:32 Advice And Quickfire Wrap Up