The Recruiting Brainfood Podcast

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep354 - Vibe Sourcing 101 - Live Demo of Metaview Sourcing Agent

VIBE SOURCING 101: LEARN TO SOURCE FROM THE WEB & YOUR ATS WITH METAVIEW AI AGENT

 

We are going to look back at 2025 as the year it all changed for sourcing. AI Agents entered the market and immediately began to demonstrate talent acquisition teams could become massively more efficient by leverage the increasable ability of AI Agents to ingest huge amounts of candidate data and instantly return viable results from natural language prompts.

 

But we can already see that some recruiters are better than others when it comes to collaborating with AI Agents to source candidates. What are those recruiters doing, why do they get better results, what are the behaviours required to get the best out of your AI Agent?

 

We're going to deep dive how to source with AI Agents, revealing the techniques, the skills and the mentality which will reveal the best recruiters of tomorrow.

 

It's a mid week special - so we're on Wednesday 14th January, 4pm GMT / 11am ET. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)

 

 

 

Ep354 is sponsored by Metaview

 

Are you ready to supercharge your recruiting teams performance?

 

Metaview’s AI Sourcing will feel like a cheat code. It’s the first autonomous AI coworker that goes off and does the search for you and brings back spot-on candidates based on your exact brief.

 

Here’s what recruiters have been saying about it:

 

“I don’t know how you did it, but Metaview’s AI Sourcing is absurdly good.”

 

Michael, Partner @ Super Recruiter

 

“Metaview’s AI Sourcing really helps with niche roles. It surfaces profiles I wouldn’t have found.”

 

Dea, TA Manager @ Miro

 

“So impressed by how Metaview’s AI Sourcing turns a natural language prompt into great profiles.”

 

Leslie, Recruiter @ Cockroach Labs

 

Metaview gives high-performance teams a genuine unfair advantage in hiring. Join teams like ElevenLabs, Deel, and Pleo — along with 4,000+ others — and try it for free today.

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep353 - Hiring Benchmarks - 16 x Most Common Job Occupations in the USA

HIRING BENCHMARKS FOR THE 16 MOST COMMON OCCUPATIONS IN THE USA

 

We all want to be 'data driven' but most of the time the only data we have access to are those which we have recorded of ourselves and our own activity. This is vitally important for tracking your progress over time, but not the complete picture when it comes to how you are doing against the market and against the competition.

 

In partnership with our friends Joveo, we are pulling together behaviour data from job candidates on the 16 most common job roles in the USA - book keeper, truck driver, construction worker, nurse practitioner, teacher - and finding out what the state of the Labour market is: what is the size of the labour pool, what is the average number of job applications per role in these sectors, what are the most important sources of hire, what is the CPA for the employer of each of these roles, what is the geographic distribution of the talent and so on.

 

Essential viewing for any US recruiter for some of the most employed positions in the country.

 

We're on Friday 9th January, 2pm GMT / 9am ET. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)

 

Ep353 is sponsored by Joveo

 

As the global leader in AI-powered, high-performance recruitment marketing, Joveo is transforming talent attraction and recruitment media buying for the world’s largest employers, staffing firms, RPOs, and media agencies. The Joveo platform enables businesses to attract, source, engage, and hire the best candidates on time and within budget.

 

Powering millions of jobs every day, Joveo’s AI-led recruitment marketing platform uses advanced data science and machine learning to dynamically manage and optimize talent sourcing and applications across all online channels, while providing real-time insights at every step of the job seeker journey, from click to hire.

 

For more information about Joveo’s award-winning platform and solutions, visit www.joveo.com.

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep352 - Hiring Intelligence Report 2026

Informing Happy Hiring: Signals from Willo's Hiring Intelligence Report 2026

 

This year, Willo didn’t just watch hiring change, they measured it.

 

In this episode of Brainfood Live on Air, we’ll explore what the data from Willo’s Hiring Intelligence Report 2026 reveals about how hiring teams are actually operating in the AI-era, how this compares to previous years, and what that means as we look ahead.

What will we be talking about?

• What’s really happening to CV-centric hiring
• Where AI is being introduced into hiring workflows, and where it isn’t
• How automation is influencing candidate screening and assessment
• Why final hiring decisions remain human-led
• How fairness and consistency are being approached in practice
• The role of asynchronous interviews in modern hiring
• What hiring leaders are prioritizing as they look toward 2026

All this and more on Brainfood Live on Air.

 

We’ll be joined by Euan Cameron, CEO at Willo and Tanya van Soest, Head of Content at Willo on January 7, 2026

 

Register by clicking the green button (“save my spot”) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be notified when we go live.

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep349 - Review of the Year - Economy & AI

REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2025 - Economy & AI

 

Final part of our 4 part series on the Review of the Year. The two dominant mega themes of this year has undoubtedly been the global economy and the rise of AI. The two are becoming intertwined, especially with the AI investment boom drawing down investments from other parts of the US economy, whilst Trump Trade War 2.0 hobbles global economic growth, likely inadvertently accelerating the adoption of AI...

 

- Global economic growth 2025

- Jobs Growth / Loss

- Sectoral growth / decline

- Staffing agency figures

- ONS data on unemployed / underemployed

- Employment Rights Bill

- Immigration

- UK vs Europe

- UK vs US

- UK vs Global Mean

- Contact / FTE

- Wage growth / decline

- Entry level hiring

- AI Economy

- Adoption patterns and impact on employment

- Sectors most exposed, greatest risk / greatest opportunity?

- Forecast for 2026 - UK, Europe, US, Globe

- Recommendations for TA, Staffing Agencies, Hiring Managers

 

All this and more on brainfood live on air.

 

We're with Neil Carberry, MD (Recruitment & Employment Confederation), Belinda Johnson, Founder, (Worklab) & Rt Hon Chloe Smith on Friday 19th December, 2pm GMT.

 

Register by click on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be noticed when we go live.

 

 

Ep349 is sponsored by Recruiting Brainfood

 

Thank you all for your support in 2025. We cannot do these conversations without the support of our amazing sponsors, our fantastic panelists but most of all, you the viewing public. Thank you and see you next year!

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep348 - Review of the Year in Recruitment 2025 - Sourcing, Employer Branding & RecOps

REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2025 - Sourcing, Employer Branding & RecOps

 

Third of our 4 part series reviewing the major events and trends of the year in Sourcing, Employer Branding & RecOps What has happened this year that we got on talk about?

 

- End of an Era? Irina Shamaeva

- SOSU review

- Is Sourcing dead or shifting toward automation of candidate discovery?

- Demand for sourcing training being replaced by demand for AI training

- Employer branding - how is AI being used to support this?

- How is AI being ab-used to inadvertently damage this?

- How do we understand 'AI first' through the lens of EB?

- What happened to 'Mission focused' btw, was it anti-DEIB in disguise?

- What is the percentage of AI ten content on career pages, going up or down?

- Have any organisations consciously thought about their AI principles through an EB lens?

- RecOps ...what have been the priorities for recruitment operations?

- Have we seen AI operations leads in RecOps?

- How has AI changed the RecOps role...replaced or expanded?

- Forecasts for 2026 - sourcing, eb and recops

 

All this and more on brainfood live on air.

 

We're with Alla Pavlova, Recruiter (Riot Games), Chloe Morrison, RecOps (datadog), Steve Ward, Employer Brand Strategist (Blackbridge Communications) & Jeremy Lyons, Founder (RecOps Collective) on Friday 12th December, 2pm GMT

 

Register by click on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be noticed when we go live.

 

 

Ep348 is sponsored by our friends Ashby

 

Drive faster, more confident hiring decisions with native AI-Notetaking

 

Ashby’s AI Notetaker brings structured meeting data together with emails, notes, feedback, and more. It shortens time to feedback and provides rich candidate context, helping your team align quickly and make faster, more confident hiring decisions.

 

Spend less time typing and more time hiring with interview notes that practically write themselves.

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep351 - Fraud Prood AI - Live Demo (Endorsed)

FRAUD PROOF AI? - ENDORSED LIVE DEMO

 

We will look back at 2025 as the year when candidate fraud escalated into amongst the top priorities of employers looking who were still looking to hire but also now needing to securitise their companies from risk.

 

Huge credit goes to technology vendors for responding to the demand - and we're seeing a lot of interesting techniques deployed to identify potential fraud risk. I'm delighted to welcome back one of those vendors at Live Demo to show us how his platform - Endorsed - is going to help recruiters find the right talent whilst mitigating risk of putting bad actors into the hiring process.

 

Its the man himself, David Head, CEO of Endorsed, at Live Demo! and we're on Weds 10th December, 9am PT / 12pm ET / 5pm GMT.

 

Follow the channel here (recommended) and register for the event now (save my spot) to get notified when we go live.

 

 

Episode 351 is sponsored by Endorsed

 

Endorsed.com is the AI recruiting agent platform for rapidly building talent-dense teams.

 

Rapidly growing companies like Quince, Eight Sleep, and Prokeep rely on Endorsed to surface hidden stars, combat candidate fraud, and streamline sourcing and applicant review workflows. Endorsed increases quality-of-hire, reduces time-to-fill by up to 75%, and boosts recruiter role capacity by up to 2x.

 

Get 10% off your subscription with the code BRAINFOOD

 

See Endorsed instantly triple your number of gold medal candidates on your real role by booking a demo.

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep347 - Review of the Year 2025 - CX, Assessment and DEIB

REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2025 - CX, Assessment & DEIB

 

Second of our 4 part series reviewing the major events and trends of the year in CX, Assessment and DEIB. What has happened this year that we got on talk about??

 

- Mobley vs Workday, let's get an update on this, the quintessential CX challenge!

- CX resentment rate...where are we tracking on this?

- What do we know about AI and CX, can we see positive impact of AI on CX?

- ID verification, this is both an CX and Assessment issue. In fact, it may also be a DEIB issu

- How to deal with overcapacity of job applications into traditional hiring funnels?

- How to do this whilst maintaining, improving CX?

- Candidate agency - can enablement of great participation in shaping the experience improve both efficiency and CX?

- What is the state of DEIB...rhetorical question...

- How does the new inclusion work, can we still think about 'protected groups'?

- Divergence between US and UK / EU

- Yet migration of cultural influence from US to UK / EU

- What do we think of AI Interviewing?

- What do we think of other forms of AI powered Assessment?

- Forecasts for 2026 on CX, Assessment and DEIB?

 

We're with Morgan Lobb, Founder (Vercida), Maddy Roberts, Head of TA Solutions (Aon), Euan Cameron, Founder, (Willo) & friends & friends on Friday 5th December, 2pm GMT

 

Register by click on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be noticed when we go live.

 

 

Ep 347 is sponsored by our friends Willo

 

Hiring should be human, but too often it doesn’t feel that way.Recruiting isn’t slowing down; it’s more competitive and more global than ever. Yet too many teams are still buried in CVs, optimising for speed instead of connection.

 

That’s why teams are switching to Willo - the #1 candidate screening platform built for a world where connection matters more than credentials. With thousands of customers worldwide, Willo helps you meet talent faster, fairer, and smarter.Our 2026 Hiring Trends Survey is open until the end of October, and we’d love your take. What’s keeping you up at night (or getting you excited) about the future of hiring?

 

Share your voice or book a demo to see why hiring feels different with Willo.

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep346 - REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2025 - TALENT TECHNOLOGY

REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2025 - TALENT TECHNOLOGY

 

Can you believe that we're at the end of another year in Brainfood?

 

As is tradition, we're going to do a 4 part series to conclude the year - and I will be a 4 part series where we review the major events and trends which have occurred on all the topics which matter to us. To kick off the series, let's talk about the the talent tech landscape - what is going on the tools we rely on every day?

 

- Investment landscape in Worktech

- Sector breakdown...where is the VC going?

- Rise of AI sourcing tools

- Big deals, the M&A's - what does this mean?

- Linkedin Hiring Assistant

- Open AI jobs

- Monster / Career Builder Obit

- Mercor...

- Indeed, what is going on?

- Verticalised AI Agents, what are the implications for core platforms?

- ATS / HRIS combo - didn't happen?

- ATS / CRM - did happen?

- Job Candidate use of AI vs AI Assessment

- Rise of Verification / Background Checking

- What else is under-the-radar that we need to talk about?

 

We're with Alexander Chukovski, HR Tech Consultant, George LaRocque, Founder (WorkTech), Louise Triance, Founder (UK Recruiter) & friends on Friday 28th November, 2pm GMT

 

Register by click on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be noticed when we go live.

 

 

Ep 346 is sponsored by our friends Greenhouse

 

Feeling buried under a backlog of disconnected tools, spammy applicants, and stalled workflows? This latest guide from Greenhouse shares how their innovative platform brings simplicity and control back to recruiting.

 

Discover how to:

• Centralize sourcing, scheduling, and reporting seamlessly
• Gain end-to-end visibility into pipeline health
• Cut through noise with fraud detection and smart automation

Download to see how your team can hire with confidence 👉 [Read the full article]

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep345 - Recruitment Advertising ....with AI Agents?

RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING ....WITH AI AGENTS?

 

We may look back at 2025 has a pivotal year in online job advertising. Economic chaos, investment uncertainty, rise of AI, has made employers change how they think about headcount and are increasingly scrutinising the ROI of traditional job distribution. The flood of irrelevant applications has more or less killed the ppc model - what other iterations do we expect to see over the next 12 months?

 

We're going to be speaking with the C-level team at VONQ to better understand state of market.

 

- Recruitment Advertising 2025

- What are the available job advertising models?

- Which ones seem to be on the rise / on the decline?

- Niche vs Generalised Job Board advertising and relationship with business models

- AI-enabled Job Applications, how big an impact on job advertising?

- How does this force job advertising vendors to adapt?

- What are the mitigation strategies?

- AI Agents, verticalised vs generalised

- What can they do

- How does this impact candidate acquisition?

- What does Recruitment Advertising look like over the next 12 months?

 

 

We're with Ritu Mohanka, CEO & Bill Fischer, CTO, (VONQ) & friends on Friday 21st November, 2pm GMT. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be noticed when we go live.

 

 

Ep345 is sponsored by VONQ

 

Transform recruitment advertising by leveraging AI-driven technology, deep ATS integrations, and expertise to deliver high-quality candidates to the shortlist while elevating employer brands. Our solution is now available via over 100 Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and Human Capital Management (HCM) platforms, accessible to over 80% of the US and EU talent acquisition teams.

 

We have a +5000 global media channels network and back our solutions with reliable automation, data-driven recommendations, recruitment marketing expertise, programmatic advertising, and meaningful reporting.

 

Need to get more qualified, relevant and motivated job candidates at the top of the funnel? Get in touch with VONQ here

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep350 - Diversity & Inclusion in the Era of AI and Emerging Cybersecurity Threats

Diversity & Inclusion in an Era of Emerging AI and Cyberthreats

 

The rise of candidate fraud has been a huge topic in recruitment in 2025, so much so that employers have had to take extreme steps to protect their businesses, from asking candidates to physically move on command in front of screen to come in person to attend interview on premise, to go through ID verification procedures which would have previously been reserved for high security roles.

 

What does all this mean for diversity and inclusion? That the question we're going to ask in today's Brainfood Live

 

- State of Candidate Fraud

- What are the potential concerns for D&I

- On premise, requires car

- More rigid work patterns is bad for primary care givers

- ID verification techniques depend on photo ID

- Bank records / Criminal records / Credit records

- Economically deprived are most likely to have disadvantage in ID verification processes

- Gender: name change for women married / divorce

- Trans: ID change, no longer recognised in some states?

- Ambiguity on legislation, concern over future direction

- How do we ensure that ID verification and candidate fraud mitigation steps do not over step into identity profiling and prejudice?

 

All this and more on brainfood live on air.

 

We're with Kyle Barry, CISO (Clear), Torin Ellis, Principal Analyst (The Torin Ellis Brand) & Daniel Chait, CEO (Greenhouse) on Friday 14th November, 2pm GMT.

 

Register by click on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended) to be noticed when we go live.

 

 

Episode 350 is sponsored by Greenhouse

 

It’s tough out there for today’s recruiting teams.

 

The rise of AI, slashed recruiting budgets and lean teams have made candidate funnels more chaotic than ever. Take back control of your candidate pipeline with new Greenhouse features that help put an end to application overload, messy data, and disconnected tools.

 

Check out everything new at Greenhouse here!