State of the Union: Recruiting in Times of Uncertainty

A panel of talent acquisition professionals talks through the state of recruiting right now, from the layoffs companies won't admit to publicly, to the scramble to figure out what AI is actually good for in this work.

On layoffs, the conversation is blunt: companies that publicly claim record strength are quietly cutting headcount in waves, and the whiplash from pandemic-era overhiring, election-cycle uncertainty, and now AI is leaving leadership making decisions based on misread numbers. For job seekers navigating that mess, one tactic that produced real results was skipping the job boards entirely and reaching out directly to chief people officers at well-regarded companies, with personalized notes referencing specific news about their organization, even when no roles were posted.

On AI, the discussion moves past generic prompts and into where the technology should actually free up a recruiter's time. The most useful shift isn't writing faster emails, it's using AI to build custom interview prep guides, dropping in a resume and job description and asking for likely questions answered in STAR format based on the candidate's own background. That kind of prep, once standard practice in agency recruiting, is credited with directly improving both hire rates and candidate acceptance. The advice for anyone intimidated by the tools is simple: stop researching and start using them, experimenting with sourcing strings, job descriptions, and prompts until the applications become obvious.

There's also a case made for reviving older, pre-digital sourcing instincts, like picking up the phone and calling companies that have mandated office returns, since that means real people are reliably at a desk again. The panel argues that any task a bot can already do, from posting jobs to writing Boolean strings, is effectively gone as a value-add for a recruiter, and the only way forward is either mastering skills AI can't replicate or getting better at directing and correcting the AI itself.

The conversation closes on the order-taker problem: recruiters who simply accept a job description as handed to them instead of acting as consultants. The fix discussed includes coming into intake meetings already armed with sourced profiles and talent-mapping data, and redlining outdated job requirements in real time with the hiring manager rather than accepting them at face value.