The Recruiting Brainfood Podcast

Hung Lee

The Recruiting Brainfood Podcast: Your weekly 60 minute dose of brilliant conversation about Recruiting & HR

  1. 2d ago

    Brainfood Live On Air - Ep396 - The Employer Branding: the Reckoning - Automation vs Authenticy

    The Employer Branding Reckoning: Authenticity vs Automation   Employer branding has entered a new era. AI can now write careers content, personalise candidate outreach, generate videos, and automate engagement at a scale that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. At the same time, candidates have never been better at spotting generic messaging, over-produced content, or a culture that doesn't match reality. So where should employers draw the line? In this session, we'll explore how organisations can embrace AI without losing the authenticity that attracts - and retains - the right talent.   Key Themes We'll Cover: The New Employer Brand Toolkit – How AI is changing the way organisations create, distribute and measure employer brand content Authenticity Still Wins – Why real employee stories continue to outperform polished corporate messaging in building trust with candidates Scaling Without Sounding Generic – Practical ways to use automation while keeping your employer brand distinctive and human Personalisation at Scale – Where AI can improve candidate engagement, and where human interaction still makes the biggest difference The Candidate Trust Factor – How job seekers evaluate employer claims through reviews, social media and employee-generated content Balancing Speed with Substance – Avoiding the temptation to prioritise content volume over meaningful communication The Role of Recruiters and Employer Brand Teams – How AI is changing workflows, skills and responsibilities rather than replacing them Examples That Get It Right – Organisations successfully combining AI-powered efficiency with genuine employer storytelling What Comes Next – How employer branding is likely to evolve as AI becomes a standard part of every talent acquisition function Whether you're building an employer brand from scratch or adapting an established strategy for the AI era, this session will provide practical insights to help you stay credible, competitive and connected with candidates. Join Recruiting Brainfood as we explore what authentic employer branding looks like when automation becomes the norm.   We're on Friday 7th August, 2pm BST. Follow the channel here (recommended) and register for the show (save my spot) here.   Ep396 is supported by our friends at Joveo   High-Performance Recruitment Marketing Powered by Agentic AI. Integrated Talent Attraction - everything before the ATS. Find out more here

  2. Jul 31

    Brainfood Live On Air - Ep399 - The Essential Guide for Increasing Talent Density

    Essential Guide for Increasing Talent Density   In an era of relentless cost optimisation, organisations face a pivotal choice: maintain headcount breadth or concentrate excellence. Talent density—the concentration of exceptional performers within a team, function, or entire company—has emerged as the decisive competitive advantage for high-performing organisations. This is not merely about hiring stars; it is about architecting environments where elite talent multiplies collective output, accelerates innovation velocity, and repels mediocrity through sheer gravitational pull. As remote work dissolves geographic constraints and AI democratises baseline competence, the organisations that win will be those that deliberately engineer density rather than accumulate volume. This webinar explores how talent acquisition leaders can become the architects of this transformation.   • Defining True Density – Distinguishing talent density from headcount reduction, and why ten exceptional performers routinely outperform thirty average ones   • The Multiplier Effect – How concentrated excellence elevates standards, accelerates peer learning, and creates self-reinforcing cycles of performance   • Hiring for Density, Not Just Fit – Shifting from culture-fit screening to identifying candidates who will raise the ceiling of those around them   • The Cost of Dilution – Quantifying how a single underperformer in a dense team erodes collective output, psychological safety, and retention of top talent   • Compensation Architecture – Why traditional pay bands suffocate density strategies, and how to justify asymmetric investment in exceptional performers   • Density in Distributed Teams – Maintaining and measuring talent concentration when physical proximity no longer enforces organic collaboration   • The Exit Imperative – Why protecting density requires the courage to move on underperformers faster than most organisations currently dare   • Measuring What Matters – Moving beyond individual performance ratings to team-level density metrics that reveal where excellence truly clusters   • TA as Density Curator – Elevating the recruiter's role from vacancy filler to strategic gatekeeper who protects and amplifies organisational capability   Watch this essential discussion to redefine your strategic mandate. Talent density is not a hiring philosophy—it is the operating system of future-ready organisations, and the recruiters who master it will shape which companies thrive or fade.   We're on Friday 31st July at 2pm BST. Register by clicking on the green button (save your spot) and follow the channel here (recommended).   Ep399 is supported by our friends at Lavalier by Textio   Your interviews are where hiring decisions are made, but most aren’t designed to make good ones. Vague requirements, inconsistent questions, slow feedback, and gut-based debriefs all undermine your hiring quality.   Lavalier gives recruiting teams one platform to make your interview process 2x better at predicting candidate job performance.   Lavalier plugs into your ATS and helps you: Run structured intake that aligns your team on the right skills and competencies before the first convo. Auto-generate interview plans and assignments from intake, so everything is connected to role requirements. Guide interviewers in real-time with AI-powered prompts and notes that keep interviews consistent and give candidates a great experience. Get evidence-based hiring signals, so you can go from application to offer faster and with higher confidence. Built by the OG AI for TA team at Textio, Lavalier is free to get started. Recruiting Brainfood readers get 250 bonus credits when you sign up!

  3. Jul 24

    Brainfood Live On Air - Ep397 - Calculating Employee Lifetime Value (in Era of AI)

    CALCULATING EMPLOYEE LIFETIME VALUE   For decades, talent acquisition has been measured by speed and cost—time-to-fill and cost-per-hire dominated the conversation while the true economic impact of every hire remained frustratingly opaque. Yet as workforce strategy matures into a board-level priority, a critical shift is underway: organisations are finally beginning to quantify what an employee is actually worth over their entire tenure. Employee Lifetime Value (ELTV) represents the holy grail of people analytics—a single metric that captures productivity, revenue generation, retention savings, and cultural contribution from day one to departure. This webinar demystifies the calculation, exposes why most organisations get it wrong, and reveals how TA leaders can use ELTV to transform recruitment from a cost centre into a profit-driving strategic function.   Key Themes We Must Address:   • Defining the Metric – Breaking down the ELTV formula beyond simplistic revenue-per-employee to include performance trajectory, promotion velocity, and knowledge transfer value   • The Data Dilemma – Why HRIS fragmentation, inconsistent performance data, and short organisational memory make accurate ELTV calculations notoriously difficult   • Hiring for Longevity vs. Performance – The tension between selecting candidates with maximum immediate output and those who compound value over years of tenure   • The Cost of a Bad Hire, Revisited – How ELTV reframes traditional cost-of-vacancy models by revealing the exponential drag of underperformers who stay too long   • Segmenting by Role and Level – Why a one-size-fits-all ELTV approach fails, and how to build role-specific models for revenue-generators, innovators, and cultural anchors   • TA's Credibility Currency – Using ELTV projections to secure executive buy-in for longer search cycles, premium candidate experiences, and competitive offer strategies   • The Retention Multiplier – How onboarding quality, manager effectiveness, and development investment directly inflate or deflate ELTV before a recruiter's work is even tested   • Predictive ELTV in Sourcing – Emerging signals and assessment methodologies that forecast lifetime value at the point of application, not just post-hire   • From Metric to Movement – Building organisational accountability around ELTV so that talent acquisition, HRBPs, and line managers share ownership of the full employee journey   Watch this essential discussion to elevate your strategic influence. Mastering ELTV separates transactional recruiters from architects of sustainable workforce value—and the window to lead this evolution is narrowing.     We're on Friday 24th July at 2pm BST. Register by clicking on the green button (save your spot) and follow the channel here (recommended).     Ep397 is supported by our friends at Greenhouse   With application volumes at historic highs, AI claims shaping procurement, and candidate fraud entering the funnel in ways most teams can't track, your ATS decision carries more weight than ever. Download this updated guide from Greenhouse for a practical roadmap to cut through vendor noise, understand true total cost of ownership, and choose the platform your hiring function actually needs.   Download now

  4. Jul 17

    Brainfood Live On Air - Ep395 - The Death of the Junior Recruiter

    The Death of the Junior Recruiter: Where Is the Next Generation Coming From?   Since 2022, the talent acquisition landscape has undergone a seismic shift. Once a thriving entry point for ambitious professionals, the function has been systematically truncated as economic pressures mount, headcount budgets shrink, and AI tools increasingly optimise workflows that once demanded human intuition. Companies have all but ceased hiring early-careers recruiters, creating a dangerous vacuum at the foundation of the profession. This webinar confronts an uncomfortable truth: we are witnessing the extinction of the junior recruiter role, and with it, the pipeline that has sustained the industry for decades. Where will tomorrow's talent leaders come from if we stop cultivating them today?   Key Themes We Must Address: • The Great Early Career Hiring Freeze – Why organisations stopped investing in entry-level TA talent after 2022 and what this signals about perceived value   • AI's Double-Edged Sword – How automation optimised efficiency while simultaneously justifying the elimination of junior roles traditionally used for training   • The Experience Trap – The growing expectation for "senior-only" hiring that leaves no room for developing raw potential or diverse perspectives   • Broken Apprenticeship Models – The collapse of structured learning pathways where junior recruiters once absorbed expertise from seasoned professionals   • Skills Atrophy at the Top – What happens when senior recruiters lose the ability to delegate, mentor, or scale their impact without junior support   • The Succession Crisis – Who steps into leadership roles in 5-10 years when an entire generation of developing talent never entered the pipeline   • Redefining Value in TA – Moving beyond cost-per-hire metrics to recognise the long-term strategic damage of eliminating early-careers investment   • Alternative Pathways – Whether adjacent professions (HR tech, marketing, operations) can realistically feed experienced professionals into TA leadership   • Reversing the Trend – Practical frameworks for justifying junior headcount to CFOs who view TA as a cost centre ripe for automation   Watch this essential discussion on the long term future of the function!   We're on Friday 17th July at 2pm BST. Register by clicking on the green button (save your spot) and follow the channel here (recommended).     Ep395 is supported by our friends at Greenhouse   With application volumes at historic highs, AI claims shaping procurement, and candidate fraud entering the funnel in ways most teams can't track, your ATS decision carries more weight than ever. Download this updated guide from Greenhouse for a practical roadmap to cut through vendor noise, understand true total cost of ownership, and choose the platform your hiring function actually needs.   Download now

  5. Jul 11

    Brainfood Live On Air - Ep393 - Fixing Hiring Manager and Recruiter Misalignment

    Fixing Hiring Manager vs Recruiter MIS-Alignment The recruiter-hiring manager relationship is the most consequential partnership in talent acquisition—and yet, according to Metaview's 2026 AI & Hiring Alignment Report surveying 505 recruiting and hiring leaders, it is also the most dangerously misaligned. While an overwhelming 90% of leaders describe their partnerships as "good," a staggering 58% privately admit they actively wish they could bypass their counterpart entirely. This silent fracture is not merely an interpersonal inconvenience; it is a direct driver of candidate loss, speed-to-hire erosion, and competitive disadvantage. As AI reshapes how hiring teams collaborate, the organisations that thrive will be those that confront this disconnect head-on and rebuild alignment as a strategic imperative rather than an assumed courtesy.   • The Alignment Illusion – Why 90% of partnerships self-rate as "good" while 58% of leaders secretly want to work around each other, and what this gap reveals about organisational honesty   • The Speed Tax of Misalignment – How recruiter-manager friction directly costs companies talent, with well-aligned teams 60% less likely to lose candidates to faster-moving competitors   • AI as Collaboration Infrastructure – Why teams that treat AI as core to hiring report excellent working relationships at 3.8x the rate of AI-hesitant organisations, and how shared context replaces tribal knowledge   • The Intake Call Failure – Why initial role alignment remains the highest-leverage moment most teams squander, and how to engineer shared understanding before a single candidate is sourced   • Signal vs. Noise in Feedback – How inconsistent evaluation criteria, delayed scorecard completion, and contradictory feedback destroy candidate experience and recruiter credibility   • The Power Dynamic Problem – Why hiring managers still view recruiters as order-takers rather than strategic partners, and how to reframe the relationship as co-ownership of business outcomes   • Shared Accountability Frameworks – Moving beyond service-level agreements to joint KPIs that bind recruiters and hiring managers to the same speed, quality, and candidate-experience standards   • Calibrating on "Good" – How misaligned definitions of ideal candidate profiles lead to endless iteration, offer rejections, and the demoralising cycle of "send more, I'll know it when I see it"   • The Business Goal Connection – Why 85% of companies exceeding their business goals actively use AI in hiring workflows, and what this reveals about alignment as a competitive differentiator   Watch this essential discussion to diagnose your own alignment gaps before they cost you your next critical hire. The recruiter-manager partnership is either your greatest strategic asset or your silentest competitive liability—and the data says most teams are living in dangerous denial.   We're on Friday 10th July at 2pm BST. Register by clicking on the green button (save your spot) and follow the channel here (recommended).     Ep393 is supported by our friends at Metaview   Metaview is the Agentic Recruiting Platform built for radically efficient hiring, end to end. Source, engage, and hire better with agents that truly get your brief. Metaviews AI Agents finds candidates, reviews inbound applications, automatically captures notes, constantly learns and spots talent opportunities, whilst your recruiters spend time doing work which humans can only do - build relationships with candidates and hiring managers.   Need to uplevpel your hiring function?   Book a demo or start for free here.

  6. Jul 8

    Brainfood Live On Air - Ep392 - The Recfest Recap 2026

    The Recfest Recap 2026   We’re unpacking the absolute best moments, groundbreaking strategies, and actionable takeaways from RecFest 2026. Whether you were dodging the summer sun at Knebworth Park or couldn't make it across the pond, this exclusive recap session distills the high-impact content from the industry's top thought leaders. Get ready to supercharge your TA strategy, embrace the human advantage in an AI-driven world, and discover exactly what the future of recruitment looks like.   The Human Advantage in an AI World: Grace Lordan (LSE) explores how talent leaders can leverage AI, inclusion, and better decision-making to drive true performance rather than just processing efficiency.   From Recruiter to Talent Architect: A powerhouse panel featuring leaders from Amazon, EY, and Booking.com discusses the evolution of the recruiter role as AI absorbs operational tasks, shifting the focus to high-value, human-centric strategy.   The AI-Adjusted EVP: Joanna Hackett (Howden) reveals how forward-thinking organisations are evolving their Employee Value Propositions to focus on reskilling, internal mobility, and long-term career relevance in the age of automation.   TA as a Strategic Growth Engine: Chris Tennant (Infor) and fellow TA directors from Gilead and Mars share how to fundamentally redesign the talent acquisition function to operate as a core driver of business performance.   Amazon’s Strategic Business Partner Model: Beckie Longworth and the Amazon TA team reveal how they shifted from a transactional, requisition-driven service into a strategic business partner function that acts as a consistent interface for growth.   Talent Intelligence at Scale: Andrew Sinclair and Charles Rue (S&P Global) demonstrate how to build a connected workforce by turning overwhelming talent data into actionable, confident market intelligence.   The Early Careers Talent Crisis: Aisha Lysejko (2040 Leaders) and experts from Shell and Danone warn against cutting early careers investments, explaining how doing so creates a dangerous "missing middle" that cripples future leadership pipelines.   Standardised Hiring Metrics: Adrian Thomas (Walbridge) and Jonathan Berry (House of Commons) break down the UK’s first standardised hiring metrics, exploring what "good" really looks like in talent acquisition benchmarking today.   Global TA Transformation at Sanofi: Lia Manafova (Sanofi) shares the healthcare giant’s journey of taking back ownership of their global recruitment landscape, transitioning away from decentralized models to centralise and streamline their tech stack.   Why should you carve out time in your busy schedule to join 'The Recfest Recap 2026'? Because the recruitment landscape is shifting faster than ever, and relying on yesterday’s playbooks simply won't cut it. This webinar isn't just a summary; it’s your shortcut to the strategies that are actively reshaping the industry—from deploying AI without losing the human touch to transforming TA into a strategic business partner. By signing up, you’ll equip yourself with the tangible, future-proof tactics you need to attract top talent, elevate your employer brand, and lead your team into the next era of hiring. Secure your spot now and stay ahead of the curve!   We're on Wednesday 8th July at 2pm BST. Register by clicking on the green button (save your spot) and follow the channel here (recommended).   Ep392 is supported by our friends at Screenloop   Screenloop is the number one ATS for SMEs: covering interview intelligence, background checks, automations, candidate NPS and Quality of Hire analytics, all-in-one package.   Rated 4.9/5 on G2 our Interview Intelligence transcribes, fills scorecards, coaches hiring teams, so every hiring decision is faster, fairer and evidence-based. Importantly, our AI tools do hallucinate or over promise, it improves human led conversations.

  7. Jul 4

    Brainfood Live On Air - Ep391 - Evolution of Talent CRM's

    THE EVOLUTION OF TALENT CRMS (Building Talent Communities in the Agentic Era)   The recruitment technology stack is undergoing its most profound transformation since the shift from paper CVs to applicant tracking systems. Autonomous AI agents—capable of reasoning, planning, and executing complex workflows without human intervention—are now infiltrating every stage of the talent lifecycle, rendering traditional CRM architectures obsolete. The passive database of yesterday, where candidate records sat dormant until manually activated, is giving way to dynamic, self-orchestrating ecosystems where agents continuously nurture, assess, match, and engage talent at scale. For talent acquisition leaders, the question is no longer whether to adopt agentic technology, but whether their CRM infrastructure can survive the transition—or become a costly legacy anchor dragging strategy backward.     • From Database to Ecosystem – Why legacy CRM architectures, built for human-driven search-and-retrieve, collapse under the demands of autonomous agent orchestration   • Agentic Capabilities Defined – Distinguishing between automation (rule-based) and true agentic AI (goal-directed reasoning) in candidate engagement and pipeline management   • The Always-On Pipeline – How agentic CRMs transform talent pools from static repositories into living networks that self-nurture, self-qualify, and surface opportunities without recruiter intervention   • Hyper-Personalisation at Scale – Whether AI agents can replicate—or exceed—the authenticity of human relationship-building without triggering candidate alienation   • Data Sovereignty and Trust – Navigating the ethical and compliance minefield of agents autonomously interacting with candidates, processing sensitive data, and making consequential decisions   • The Recruiter Redefined – How agentic CRMs shift the human role from execution to exception-handling, strategy, and high-stakes relationship stewardship     • Measuring Agentic ROI – Moving beyond vanity metrics to evaluate whether autonomous systems genuinely improve quality of hire, time-to-productivity, and candidate experience   • Vendor Landscape Reality – Cutting through the marketing noise to identify which CRM platforms are genuinely agentic-ready versus those simply rebranding automation   Watch this essential discussion to future-proof your technology strategy. The agentic era will not wait for hesitant adopters—and the CRM decisions you make today will determine whether your function leads or is rendered redundant by those who moved faster.   We're on Friday 3rd July at 2pm BST. Register by clicking on the green button (save your spot) and follow the channel here (recommended).     Ep391 is supported by our friends at Joveo   High-Performance Recruitment Marketing Powered by Agentic AI. Integrated Talent Attraction - everything before the ATS.   Find out more here

  8. Jun 27

    Brainfood Live On Air - Ep389 - HR vs People Ops: Semantic vs Substantive Difference?

    HR vs People Ops: Semantic or Substantive Difference?   IsIf your organization is still running a traditional Human Resources function - policy police, form processors, compliance checkers - you are bleeding candidates before they even apply. Modern talent acquisition doesn't need more administrators; it needs a People Operations engine built for growth, experience, and competitive advantage.   • From gatekeeping to enabling: how People Ops removes friction instead of creating it • Data over doctrine: using people analytics to drive decisions instead of hiding behind policy manuals • Employee experience as product: designing journeys that market themselves to passive candidates • Strategic workforce planning vs reactive backfilling and headcount approvals • Technology stack ownership: People Ops architects systems • Talent branding from the inside out: turning onboarding and internal mobility into recruiting assets • Velocity in hiring: streamlined processes that respect candidate time and manager urgency • Total rewards intelligence: comp, equity, and benefits strategy that wins offers, not just administers them • Manager enablement: coaching leaders to build teams instead of policing their paperwork • The cost of legacy HR: how bureaucratic drag directly inflates cost-per-hire and time-to-fill   This isn't a rebrand with a fresh business card. It's a fundamental rewiring of how your company attracts, supports, and retains talent. TA leaders cannot win the external market when the internal function is stuck in 1998.   Register now by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be notified of updates.   Ep389 is supported by our friends Greenhouse   The Hire Standard: 2026 Benchmark Report FREE ACCESS HERE

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The Recruiting Brainfood Podcast: Your weekly 60 minute dose of brilliant conversation about Recruiting & HR

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