Recruiting Future with Matt Alder - What's Next For Talent Acquisition, HR & Hiring?

Employee engagement remains one of the most talked-about challenges in the world of work. Year after year, the data tells the same story: levels barely shift, no matter what organizations try. The usual response is to focus on what happens once people are already in the door, but the results rarely change.

At the same time, AI is reshaping roles and expectations, making employees question their value in ways that weren't there before. So what if the real engagement problem starts in the hiring process itself?

My guest this week is Dr. Roz Cohen, Chief People Officer and author of “The Engagement Dilemma”. In our conversation, she explains why there are three distinct types of engagement, how outdated job descriptions undermine them, and what hiring teams should do differently to build belonging from the start.

In the interview, we discuss:

Why engagement levels haven't shifted

Three types of employee engagement

The role of TA in employee engagement

Reassessing roles before recruiting

Hiring for attributes and behaviours

Onboarding for connection and belonging

Identity beyond surface characteristics

What does the future look like?

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A full transcript will appear here shortly.

In frontline retail hiring, speed is everything. If the process is too slow, candidates take offers elsewhere, and stores are short-staffed, hurting both service and revenue. AI-powered automation is now helping some organizations close that gap, cutting hiring times, saving thousands of hours, and driving measurable financial value for the business. 

The organizations seeing real results started with the problem, not the technology, because layering AI onto a process that isn't working only makes things worse. They also had to answer a question that rarely gets asked: how quick is too quick, and when does speed start to feel impersonal? The goal isn't to remove humans from the hiring process. It's to remove the noise so candidates reach the right people faster.

My guests this week are Stef Nikitas, Director of Talent Acquisition at Ace Hardware, and Rachel Allen, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at 7-Eleven. In our conversation, they share how they transformed frontline hiring with AI, the results it delivered, and where they chose to keep humans firmly in the process.

In the interview, we discuss:

Why speed matters in frontline hiring

The danger of automating broken processes

Leading with the problem, not the technology

How quick is too quick?

What remains human and why

How automation improves the candidate experience

Time savings and measurable business value

Advice for TA on change management

What does the future look like

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When organizations hire thousands of frontline workers, delivering a personal candidate experience becomes almost impossible. Recruiters spend all of their time answering calls, responding to messages, and running through the same screening questions over and over. There is little time left for the conversations that actually matter. Meanwhile, candidates want speed, flexibility, and a process that respects their time, including outside business hours.

So how can AI solve this?

My guests this week are Jeroen Klerkx, People Operations Leader at Picnic, and Bill Fischer, CTO at VONQ. In our conversation, recorded live at HR Tech Europe, they share what happened when Picnic gave candidates the choice of a human or AI screening call, the surprising feedback they received, and how they built 10 years of recruiting knowledge into an AI agent that frees up time for their recruiters to have more valuable conversations.

In the interview, we discuss:

Picnic’s unique approach to candidate experience

The current market challenges

Building an AI recruiter

Closely monitoring candidate sentiment and responding to their feedback.

Overcoming the considerable technical challenges

How recruiters responded to automation and how their role is developing

Managing candidate expectations around AI

What does the future look like for AI in TA

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HR is at a pivotal moment. AI has shifted the conversation in a way nothing else has in years, the demands on the function are growing faster than its capacity to respond, and the questions being asked of it are bigger than they have ever been. The opportunity is significant, but so is the gap between where HR is and where it needs to be.

So what does it actually take for HR to step into this moment?

In this episode, recorded at HR Tech Europe in Amsterdam, I'm joined by two guests with strong views on what's holding the function back and what good looks like. Anna Carlsson, an HR tech analyst based in Stockholm, shares what she's seeing across the Nordic market and why culture and infrastructure matter more than the technology itself. Nazhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/nazim-ünlü-0774b714/im Ünlü, a Global HRD and HR transformation leader, then joins me to talk about why HR is more needed than ever and the strategic shift the function has to make to stay relevant.

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Talent acquisition is sitting in a strange place right now. AI is in every conversation, but the work of actually hiring people is getting harder rather than easier. Application volumes are swinging in unpredictable ways, the workforce itself is changing shape, and the reality on the ground is some distance from the hype.

So what is actually going on in talent acquisition right now?

In this episode, recorded at HR Tech Europe in Amsterdam, I'm joined by two guests who have spent decades watching this industry evolve. 

Wolfgang Brickwedde from the Institute for Competitive Recruiting shares what his research is telling him about the market employers are navigating and where vendors are still getting it wrong. 

Mervyn Dinnen then joins me to talk about the reality behind the AI hype and how the multigenerational workforce is reshaping the world of work.

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