Moonshot Minute

Moonshot Consulting
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AI is rewriting hiring faster than HR can keep up. Moonshot Minute is short, sharp intelligence on recruiting tech, employment data, and the human cost the headlines skip. For recruiters, founders, and anyone watching AI reshape work. New episodes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Hosted by L. David Oliver, founder of Moonshot Consulting. Full breakdowns on Substack: bit.ly/moonshotsubstack No fluff. Just signal.

  1. 20h ago

    Friday Rant - The Icing Sits on the Infrastructure

    Barclays reported a stronger quarter and a workforce plan on the same Thursday. Profit before tax rose 12 percent from the same quarter a year earlier, and the bank announced a fresh buyback. Same-day timing is not a sign that particular exits funded the buyback. Reuters describes a full-year reduction of about 5,000 jobs, about 5 percent of the workforce. About 1,000 roles have already gone, which City AM places in the first half, before the reported quarter began. Reuters describes the rest as aimed at year-end. City AM spreads the remaining balance across the third and fourth quarters, so some may already sit in the quarter that closed September 30. Sky carries chief executive C. S. Venkatakrishnan on years of technology spending, simpler processes, and AI that may matter more from here. He called AI the icing on the cake: infrastructure underneath, AI as a layer on top. He was talking about systems. Reuters also reports the quarter below analyst expectations, with weak fixed-income trading: higher than last year, short of the forecast. About 60 percent of the actions concern support roles, developers included. That mix does not identify the cause. There is no public list pairing each removed role with a system that now does the job. The bank says it intends to support colleagues building careers while the workforce changes. These reports do not count redeployments that lasted, training that became a paid job still inside the bank, or lighter weeks on the desks that remain. The promise is not declared broken. David's argument, kept separate from the filings: count that human side the way a buyback gets counted. Specific, public, and checkable.

  2. Oct 14

    The Screening Layer - The Fix, For Both Sides

    A hiring manager can finish eight names. She cannot finish 254. Part 10 of The Screening Layer. The fix for both sides. The last part. More applications are not the fix. A smarter rank is not the fix. Picture 254 applicants for one posting. That is not a short list somebody can finish in one sitting. If you are looking for a job: 1. Pick fewer roles you can explain. 2. Use the posting's words only for work you have done. 3. Write five lines: the job link, the role, one match, why this team, and the ask. 4. Send them to one person who does the work. 5. Count time-to-human. If a person who can say yes never talks to you, stop feeding that posting. 6. A bot interview is optional. Ask for the person. If you run TA: 1. Put a name on the req before it opens. 2. Write the job-related bar first. The same bar for referrals, sourced, and cold applicants. 3. Give that person review batches they can finish. People outside the model's top twenty need a path too. 4. The stack may sort. It does not sign the list. 5. Say in the posting who reads, and how a candidate gets a conversation. A name on the review is accountability, not a legal shield. 6. Track time-to-human next to time-to-fill. Count the days and the share of qualified applicants who ever reach a person. A short list. A name under it. The Screening Layer. What sits between a resume and a hiring manager. #TheScreeningLayer #AIinHiring #Recruiting

  3. Oct 12

    Episode 35 - Time To Human

    HubSpot says its layoffs aren't about AI efficiency. FICO's filing names AI. Amazon pointed back at pandemic hiring. Different labels, familiar direction: simpler structures and more budget headed toward the next capital cycle. Meanwhile, hiring is turning into bots talking to bots. Checkr flagged 36 percent of inbound resumes for review in its fraud beta. A job seeker with more than 600 applications told CNBC a bot interviewed him, repeated questions, and interrupted him. This week: why time-to-human may be the metric that matters most right now. Read more: https://www.moonshotconsultingdc.com/blog/time-to-human/ Book a short call: https://calendly.com/moonshotconsultingdc/new-meeting Moonshot Minute is hosted by L. David Oliver, founder of Moonshot Consulting. #MoonshotMinute #LaborMarket #Hiring

  4. Oct 9

    Friday Rant: 197,000 Claims. Everyone Spearheaded 30 Percent Growth.

    197,000 people filed new unemployment claims for the week ended October 3. Fourth straight week under 200,000. The four-week average fell to 198,000. Reuters called it a hover near a 57-year low. Continuing claims rose to 1.716 million. September payrolls were 29,000. July, after revision, is a loss of 10,000. August was marked down from 162,000 to 133,000. Greenhouse: 244 applications per opening in 2025, up from 116 in 2022. Daniel Chait calls the blur the AI doom loop. HubSpot's memo holds two sentences at once: outcomes with AI, and not driven by AI-related efficiencies. The Friday Rant. The uncounted are getting louder. Watch: https://www.youtube.com/@MoonshotConsultingDC #FridayRant #MoonshotMinute #LaborMarket

  5. Oct 5

    Episode 34 - Back To The Future

    September added 29,000 jobs. Economists wanted about 90,000. The weekend did not rescue the number. July is now a loss, and this morning services hiring was back to a dead heat while prices stayed hot. Information, finance, and professional services shrank. Wages are up 3 percent. August prices were up 3.4 percent. Wednesday brings the Fed minutes from a meeting that still said job gains were keeping pace. Thursday is claims. September prices come out October 14. Moonshot Minute is hosted by L. David Oliver, founder of Moonshot Consulting. The uncounted are getting louder. Read: https://www.moonshotconsultingdc.com/blog/september-added-29000-jobs/

  6. Sep 29

    Screening Layer - The Legal Landscape

    A tool ranked a person. The receipt for that rank never left the building. The receipt that covers a job in this country is still Title VII. A score that screens people out is a selection procedure. The EEOC wrote that down in 2023. In January 2025 the pamphlet came off the site. The statute did not. New York City has required a local receipt since July 2023: a yearly bias audit, a public summary, and notice. Through June 2025 the city had received two complaints. Illinois, since January 1, 2026, made a missing notice its own violation, even when the employer believes the tool is fair. Europe moved the heavy hiring-tool duties to December 2, 2027. Telling a person they are talking to a machine already started. If you are applying: ask what scored you. If you hire: name the tool, and put a person's name under the score. The Screening Layer, Part 8. Read: https://lnkd.in/p/e8nV8k4w Watch: https://youtu.be/tdVusng3Z7M #TheScreeningLayer #AIinHiring #Recruiting

  7. Sep 28

    Episode 34 - The AI Efficiency Theater

    Three companies said transformation last week. All three meant cheaper. Novo Nordisk cut 13,000 jobs. Microsoft cut another 268 inside Xbox on top of roughly 1,600 earlier. Then Paychex launched an AI recruiting tool that promises to find talent four times faster. The story is about the future. The mechanism is about the cost line. Here is what nobody is saying. AI efficiency has become the language for correcting a hiring binge, moving money from payroll to data centers, and cutting the management layers that looked essential two years ago. Institutional knowledge does not sit in a model. It walks out the door with the person. The uncounted are getting louder. The question is whether anyone is listening. Hosted by L. David Oliver. Founder and CEO, Moonshot Consulting. Book a call: https://www.moonshotconsultingdc.com

  8. Sep 26

    162,000 Jobs. Information Lost 23,000. Guess the Headline!

    The AI apocalypse was "postponed" this month. The people doing the work did not get the memo. August added 162,000 jobs. Information lost 23,000 in the same month. Financial activities lost 11,000. The sectors most soaked in AI transformation are quietly shrinking while restaurants and school districts carry the headline. Crunchbase: tech layoffs through August are already 17 percent ahead of 2025. AI is the cited reason in a third of those events. In 2024 it was 1 percent. Census asked firms actually using AI what happened to headcount. About 5 percent reported any effect at all. Five percent. That is the gap between the press release and the shop floor. Stanford: hiring for 22-to-25-year-olds in the most AI-exposed jobs is down 19 percent since late 2022. They did not fire the juniors. They stopped letting them in. This is Moonshot Minute. AI, work, and the people caught in between. One story. No fluff. Just what is actually happening.

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About

AI is rewriting hiring faster than HR can keep up. Moonshot Minute is short, sharp intelligence on recruiting tech, employment data, and the human cost the headlines skip. For recruiters, founders, and anyone watching AI reshape work. New episodes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Hosted by L. David Oliver, founder of Moonshot Consulting. Full breakdowns on Substack: bit.ly/moonshotsubstack No fluff. Just signal.

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  • Creator
    Moonshot Consulting
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    58
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Moonshot Consulting
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    Moonshot Minute