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Friends,

One more trip for me this week - Amsterdam for the lightning in / out visit. Looking forward to seeing everyone at the dinner on Wednesday. I’m otherwise back in London for the rest of the year, so let me know if anyone is around and want to check in before the end of the year. Lets keep rolling 👊

Thanks to: Eugene van den Hemel, Darren Bush, Joey NK Koksal, Neil Carberry, Colin Donnery, Dave Hazlehurst, David Green, Kevin Green, Claudia Lorber, Rachel Bradman, Romuald Restout, Kevin Grossman, Taz Rajabali, Garry Turner, Steven Rothberg, Manjuri Sinha, Tom Murray, Rob Walker, Bill Fischer, Alexander Chukovski, Amreen Rahman, Randy Bailey, Juliana Park, Eva-Maria Meyr and Neil Carberry - your public endorsement of all things brainfood are the only marketing we get - thanks!

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What Do Brainfooders Think?

Clear majority of us think we’re going to be 1/4 flexi-labour in our own TA teams. This correlates with the rise of freelancer recruiter (see France data last week) and perhaps the availability of experienced IC’s currently on the market. Thanks all who voted - make sure you scroll to the bottom of the newsletter and vote on this week’s poll 🙏

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep286 - 2024 in Review: State of Talent Acquisition, Fri 13th December, 2pm GMT

We’re going to conclude the 2024 in Review mini series this week, with a review of the State of Talent Acquisition. We’ll discuss the results of the TTL annual survey with Emma Mirrington, chat with community builders Becky Lee and Andreea Lungulescu and connect with hiring manager Jim Miller and friends. Must attend folks - register here

The Brainfood

1. Annual Survey 2024 - The Talent Lab

One of the classics in annual surveys in our industry - its the The Talent Labs Annual Survey of Talent Acquisition & Talent Managers, mainly in the UK. Some fascinating slides, including the one featured above on TA team size and capability. Main trend for me? Rise of the single member TA team, from 68% in 2023 to 71% in 2024. What is this number in 2025? Positive vision: super AI-enabled recruiter coordinating a swarm of AI Agents, doing the work of 10 recruiters…H/T to brainfooder Emma Mirrington for the share, outside of the reg wall.

RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS

2. The Ultimate Guide to Neurodiversity Hiring 2025

DEI is going through a tough moment, caught in the cross hairs of an unforgiving culture war in the US, where the momentum seems very much with the critics. Progressivism still holds sway in Europe though and I suspect we will soon see a clear bifurcation in the discourse on either side of the Atlantic. Meanwhile, this how-to guide from Joveo on inclusive hiring for the neurodiverse is an excellent resource. H/T to brainfooder Heather van Werkhooven for the share.

D&I

3. Is it OK to Lie to a Chatbot on a Job Application?

Interesting conjecture, which for me, there is no obvious answer. We’re going to hear the argument (typically from employers, chatbot vendors) that ‘there is no point’ in lying to a bot, but from a candidate’s POV, its just another gate to get through to the where the real decision still mainly lies - a human being. OP strawman’s Kant in order to make his case, but I wonder whether morality really has any place here - we have to design systems which incentivise truthfulness. Anyways, this post isn’t going to make you a better recruiter, but it might give you a few minutes for your mind to do some exercise…H/T to brainfooder Randy Bailey for the share.

ASSESSMENT

4. 16 Recruitment Inefficiencies Draining Your Budget and 14 Solutions to Fix Them

Do more with less? The first thing to do is to reduce the inefficiencies in your process. Here’s a load of them to think about - especially note how weakness in one area produces extra work in another. Recruitment efficiency will again be top priority in 2025, so we had better get to it.

RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS

5. How to Grow Professional Relationships

One of the reasons why I’m such an evangelist of in-person events is the acceleration of relationship building that comes from simply being physically in the same room as somebody. There’s a probably a science to it, which got me interested in this post on ‘the journey to synergy’ which is basically a maturity model of networking. Very nice graphic, very nice post.

NETWORKING

6. HR Britain: How Human Resources Captured the Nation

Spoiler alert: this will be a challenging read for most of us here. Pamela Dow - lifelong career civil servant, formerly Exec Director of the Cabinet Office and now COO of Civic Future, pens a critique of the HR function, connecting its growth with UK’s poor economic performance. Some of this rings true - maybe too much - especially as we begin to understand the nature of social organisation as ultimately a competition for status and resources. Whether you are pro or anti-HR, this is worth your read. H/T to brainfooders Alexandra Depledge and Andrea Kirby for the share.

SOCIETY

7. Cost of Failure & Competitiveness in Disruptive Innovation 2024

The growing awareness of a deep crisis in Europe where two decades of anaemic economic growth is producing significant stresses to the previously stable systems of governance has us reaching for all kinds of reasons why. One of the most popular is overly strong worker protections. Yet breaking the unions and stripping back worker protections will not set Europe up for US style success, because Europe does not have the exorbitant privilege of controlling the global money supply. John Maynard Keynes was right - we didn’t need Bretton Woods, we needed the BANCOR.

CULTURE

8. Beyond Prediction: Shaping Your Work Story in an Uncertain World

Fun post from brainfooder Andrew Spence, who outlines 7 narratives which are framing how we think about the future of work. These are: Dataism, Exterminism, Re/Upskilling, Augmentation, The Singularity, Job Destruction and Work Diversification. Comment below - which one is your favourite?

FUTURE OF WORK

9. Relocate Me - Your Relocation Companion

Brainfooder Andrew Stetsenko reformats Relocate me into a one stop shop for anyone looking to relocate, anywhere. We’ve long needed a resource that brings together visa, cost-of-living and jobs data and this site might be it. One for personal use of course, in case you’re looking for fresh pasture, or great nurture content for any candidates you know who might be consider a relocate. Going to label this remote working, even tho it isn’t.

REMOTE WORKING

10. The Great Flattening Is Here To Stay

AI will greatly simplify company structure. It will have a de-layering and de-siloing effect. This accessible post from Business Insider tells the story from the point of view of middle managers on the job market which is simply not providing the opportunities which were once there. There’s a lot of middle managers stranded atm, including many in our community. What to do? Might be worth a brainfood live early in the new year.

RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS

The Podcasts

11. Vertical AI Agents Could Be 10X Bigger Than SaaS

Vertical AI Agent is agentic AI which aims to replace not only software but also human labour. VC’s talk about the ‘opportunity’ of ending SaaS and instead disrupting not only the tools but the people who use them. Payroll is the biggest saving - and it’s the primary target. Important for everyone in this community to understand the plan.

FUTURE OF WORK

12. What a Crazy Year This Has Been: HR Trends 2024 Recap and Outlook for 2025

Visiting Vienna last month was one of the highlights of the year. Centrepiece was the HR Meetup hosted at the We Are Developers HQ, where I took part in a panel with fellow brainfooders Rudi Bauer and Eva-Maria Meyr. It’s real talk about 2024 and how we are TA leaders have to prepare for 2025 where we will be expected to ‘do even more, with even less’. Have a watch.

RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS

13. Standard Operating Procedures

Love this new podcast series from brainfooder Iwan Gulenko. He’s a lunatic, but our community is much richer for it 🤣. Here he is doing a monologue on Standard Operating Procedures. Super hard to do this style of content, but Iwan does it with aplomb. Too early to say I am a fan of this, but I have already subscribed.

CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE

End Note

We’re coming to the final parts of the year and I suspect most of us have already got the headcount plan for 2025 🤣. Even if you haven’t, give us your best guess what kind of hiring you expect to be doing next year compared to last. And let me know what you’re going to be hiring for in comments below 👊

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That’s it - thanks for reading.

Have a great week everyone

Hung