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Friends,

Last week in Australia and what an amazing month it has been so far. There is no question that 99% of the reason for this is the hospitality and generosity of the people here. Huge thanks for everyone who has been so kind with their time. Special shout to to Liz van Zyl (thanks for letting me crash my dear!), Steve and Sabrina Chan for the intro to the AFL, Pavi Iyer, Jo Ioannidis, Michael Delaney, Sandra Lim for your company and chat on Friday and Lauren Sharp whose introduced me to my new best mate Harvey!

Final stretch this week - one event to think about and it is the two day celebration of the rebels in Talent Acquisition - TalentPalooza in Abbotsford Convent (!) on 26th/27th March. I’m moderating two panels on this, as well as being around all day to connect - get your tickets here (RECRUITINGBRAINFOOD) discount code

re: Spotify vs Youtube

The Recruiting Brainfood Podcast has disappeared from Spotify(!). Not sure what crime was committed on air, but it appears that I’ve been blasted off that platform. Apple Music still has it, and you can also follow on Podbean where it is hosted. Also, subscribe to my Youtube channel here, which has the recordings of all the shows.

Thanks to: Joey NK Koksal, Michelle Barrett, Dave Hazelhurst, Kevin Green, Maria Ma, Rob Walker, Steven Rothberg, Garry Turner, Ed Delgado, Mary Kay Baldino, Steve Chan, Deepak Singh, Gareth Flynn, Juliana Park, Caroline Resende, Robert Newry, Alex Palmer, Minouck Dame, Jay.S.Duc, Jordan Monier and Bradley Clark for your public support of this newsletter - critically important to keep this show on the road - cheers!

Can you help? Share this newsletter with your friends in the Recruiting / HR space and have them subscribe.

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What Do Brainfooders Think?

The poll results can go down as ‘as expected’ - most of us have been caught unprepared by candidates fraudulent use of AI - and have no countermeasures. Obviously untenable, we’re going to see the 11% and 5% options increase x2 by end of the year - or else we will be out of a job. Thanks for all who voted - make sure to scroll down to the bottom of the newsletter to vote on this week’s issue.

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep298 - How to Hire in Australia in 2025, Friday 28th March,12pm AEST

Australia coming up for General Election soon and every incumbent government has been thrown out due to global economic downturn, now exacerbated by Trump 2.0 in the US. How has the Aussie job and labour market being doing in this past 12 months? Lets talk to local recruiters, agents and in-house to figure out where we are. We’re on Friday 28th March, 12pm AEST. Register here

The Brainfood

1. Top 3 Strategic Priorities for CHRO’s

Highly readable survey report from Gartner - the three are: elevating HR impact on business growth strategy, developing a deep bench of change leaders and creating a future-ready workforce. AI is going to eat a lot work, but the reorganisation of human labour will itself require a lot of work performed by humans. Excellent read, everyone should read this

FUTURE OF WORK

2. Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks

It’s long been impossible to keep up with AI; now with Open Source additionally leading to accelerated distribution of innovation, we humans probably have to get used to the feeling that we’re always going to feel that we’re one step behind curve. Only psychologically comforting solution is to try to be directionally correct, whilst dipping into the details. Blogs like this help, especially as we see tools for building agents being released into the wild.

AI

3. Rippling sued Deel today

We were due a corporate sensation weren’t we? Astonishing allegations dropped via X last week, as Rippling CEO accuses Deel of cultivating (or perhaps even planting) a corporate spy whose role was to provide sales and talent intelligence from the their formal employer to their competitor. Includes a delicious honeypot trap which implicated Deel’s senior leadership. CEO Conrad Parker’s tweet and Rippling blog about the allegations here. Not seen any response from Deel yet, if you see any, let me know…

SOURCING

4. No, GenAI isn't Killing SaaS

One of the theories I subscribe to is that the tech downturn over the past 2-3 years can be largely attributed to the decline of globalising SaaS businesses whose VC powered growth manifested in unquenchable demand for software engineering talent. GenAI changes this, but not in the way we might think - it does indeed reduce the need for ‘unlimited engineers’ but might still be monetised via subscription model, hence a reiteration of SaaS rather than a replacement for it. Worth thinking about, in terms of hiring demand for tech talent

ECONOMY

5. Evaluating Talent Hubs: A Data-Driven Approach using GenAI w/Tableau

Strategic workforce planning cannot be done without talent intelligence - awareness of what skills are distributed in which locations. GenAI promises to resolve the data processing problem which always made the task practically impossible for all but the most well resourced organisations, but how does it work in practice today? Incredibly valuable post here from Scott Reida at AWS - must read for everyone here as an example of advanced, cautious use of GenAI for talent acquisition. H/T to brainfooder Ivan Harrison for the share.

TALENT INTELLIGENCE

6. Why I’ve Now Quit My Google Contract Job

Trump 2.0 is on a mission to kill DEI and one of the ways is to lean heavily on the corporations and submit them to government authority. They are mainly folding, as we might expect, understand and for some, quietly endorse. However, for workers committed to the DEI field these companies have become uncomfortable places to work. This post from a technical writer at Google describes the psychology, as well as runs through a history of Google’s efforts in DEI. It’s sobering reading and I think a fair representation of the current situation.

D&I

7. Deloitte Unveils Zora AI, Agentic AI for Tomorrow's Workforce

Agentic AI will happen like this for most of us - rolled into us from corporate via an enterprise solution which has been securitised, trained on proprietary data and guardrailed in terms of use cases. Decent PR release from Deloitte on their roll out of Zora AI. PS: argument on whether something is or is not ‘agentic’ is really about whether they are generalised or verticalised agents - its basically moot. H/T to brainfooder Pavi Iyer for the share.

AI

8. Three Types of Intelligence Explosion

Once AI systems can themselves design and build even more capable AI systems, progress in AI might accelerate, leading to a rapid increase in AI capabilities. This is known as an intelligence explosion (“IE”).

Open Source is the only way to prevent AI hegemony - a lock in of inequality, where one class of people will have permanent, structural advantages against another. Especially important as we have today confirmation that alliances are temporary and rules based international orders is anything but - something which poorer people in the world have long been aware. Have a read on why we all must support open vs closed sourced AI.

AI

9. We Uncovered Meta's 'Block Lists.' It Turns Out a Lot More Companies Have Them, Too

Does your company operate ‘blacklists’ of no-hire candidates? Its not a question anyone can honestly answer in public, but we all know they exist, formally or otherwise. Meta gets the bad press for what I suspect is a much wider industry practice than commonly admitted. Two minds here: it seems reasonable to have a record of bad, harmful or even dangerous employees; yet the scope for abuse / discrimination is obviously large. Any thoughts on this? Might be worth a Brainfood Live at some point

CULTURE

10. Intensity, Team Photos & Fatherly Advice: Inside Howe's Newcastle

As everyone knows by now, the mighty Newcastle United are the Carabao Cup champions 👊, so this piece of manager Eddie Howe’s management approach is timely. Some great insight from the players he’s improved, re-positioned and re-motivated - manage the whole human, not just the guy running around the pitch. Lessons for all leaders here.

CULTURE

The Podcasts

11. Why Some Workers Won't Have Time to Adapt to AI

Any CEO that can replace humans with robots or AI, they will

Honest appraisal from Gilbert Houngbo, Director-General of the International Labour Organization in this interview with Die Welt. One thing that makes this stage of technological innovation different from previous tech revolutions, is the self-improvement flywheel of AI (see post No8 in this newsletter). Good watch

12. Skills Based Hiring with Hung Lee

I recall having a great conversation with brainfooder Christian Wastlhuber at the We Are Developers World Congress last year - and I was delighted to continue the chat this fabulous podcast. We’re talking Skill Based Hiring, with reasoned skepticism, w/ Ina Fassbender. Have a listen.

ASSESSMENT

13. BRAIN ROT | Why You Are Losing Control Of Your Brain?

Aevy TV again with a great mini documentary on how social media engagement algorithmics are melting our ability to think. Throw in the amazing ability of AI to take on even more responsibility for critical analysis and the future of human cognition looks increasingly like long term atrophy. At least, it will be entertaining 🤣

SOCIETY

End Note

Been thinking about the Meta story on employee blacklists. I suspect the majority of the opinion in community would be outraged that such a phenomena exists, yet it is pretty clear that it does either informally or formally. Also whether it is justified or not seems to vary according to who is being blacklisted for what. Lets see what the community thinks of this - what is your position on hiring blacklists?

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That’s it - thanks for reading

Have a great week everyone

Hung