Transforming Recruitment Marketing: From Data to Insights
Posted on November 26, 2025 1 Comment
Let’s be honest: if you’re still reporting recruitment marketing performance in spreadsheets, you’re not “data-driven,” nor does this constitute anything resembling “talent intelligence.”
You’re just stuck sometime in the era where Clippy was the most advanced answer engine on the market, Monster was still part of the S&P 500 and on-premise vs. cloud was still a real debate in the esoteric world of HR Technology.
If you’re still relying on spreadsheets and third party reporting to inform your recruitment marketing strategy, then no matter how great you might be at creating v-lookups, macros or pivot tables, you’re getting an inaccurate, incomplete and most importantly, ineffective snapshot of historical numbers without context or benchmarks.
Read MoreStill Crazy After All These Metrics: The Myth of Quality of Hire
Posted on November 20, 2025 Leave a Comment
Quality of hire is the kind of metric you trot out when you want everyone to believe you’ve unlocked the secrets of strategic recruiting without actually unlocking anything.
It’s performative, ambiguous and sounds like something you’d learn in business school, not something made up by product marketers. It looks great in a QBR. It sounds great during budget season. It gives executives that warm, fuzzy feeling that talent acquisition knows what it’s doing.
But behind the curtain, it’s no secret that no one really knows what they’re doing if their existential crisis led them to this random career path. We mostly do a pretty effective job of hiding that fact behind brand, bluster and buzzwords.
There’s a saying you can’t manage what you can’t measure, but the paradox of TA leadership is that when you have no actual clue what you’re supposed to be doing, you also have no idea what you’re supposed to be measuring, or what good looks like.
This makes choosing optics over outcomes an increasingly perilous decision for talent acquisition and recruiting leaders; the increasing focus on finally capturing the unicorn that is quantifying quality of hire proves that if recruiters disappear, it won’t be because of AI – it’ll be because of real stupidity.
Read MoreVideo Interviews Evolve: Zoom’s Strategic Move with BrightHire
Posted on November 18, 2025 Leave a Comment
When Sunset Boulevard Meets Sass
I want to tell you a story. Back when I was running social and employer content over at Monster (aka so long ago that it was actually an S&P 500 component, and dinosaurs ruled the Earth, and Taleo shipped its last update), I wrote a harmless little post on their employer resource center suggesting that companies film their hiring managers and embed those videos into job descriptions.
Nothing fancy. I pointed out that in fact, companies shouldn’t invest in video – for the recruitment marketing genre, Cinema Verite is the optimal style – a reference that was probably lost on those employers who paid agency retainers to make their career site look like a McG sizzle reel.
Then, as now, I suggested that all you need to make it not cringe was a simple introduction from the person a candidate would actually work for, talking about what the job is really like. Kind of like one of those director’s commentary tracks they used to stick on DVDs.
PS: Sorry, Gen Zers – not that you don’t get the reference, but you didn’t experience the joy waiting for Netflix to mail you DVD gems like Showgirls narrated by a drunk Paul Verhoven or Scorsese droning on about the cinematic influences of establishing shots or cutaways.
Read MoreBuzzwords in Recruiting: A Survival Guide for 2026
Posted on November 11, 2025 Leave a Comment
Recruiters have always been fluent in a language that sounds intelligent and insightful, even if it’s more or less meaningless. The “shop talk” in our industry is a essentially a pastiche of buzzwords, bravado, and borrowed business jargon, designed less to inform than to impress. It’s equal parts survival mechanism, sales tactic, and performance art meets Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Every year, a new batch of noxious “talent transformation” phrases (like “talent transformation”) shows up to make hiring sound like quantum mechanics when it’s really just matching résumés to job descriptions written by people who’ve never done the work they’re hiring for.
Read MoreJoin the Spooktacular Halloween Bash at Work!
Posted on October 31, 2025 Leave a Comment
🎃 From the Desk of Your Chief Happiness (and Human Resources) Officer: Let’s Get Spooky! 🎃
Team,
It’s that wonderful time of year again; the crisp autumn air, the faint scent of pumpkin spice wafting through the office, and the glorious return of our Annual All-Hands Halloween Hullabaloo!
I can feel the excitement already. You can, too, right? RIGHT?
This is our chance to really show the world, and ourselves, what makes our company culture so special. Not the benefits, not the flexible work policy, not the groundbreaking innovation.
No, friends. What truly sets us apart is our unwavering commitment to seasonal enthusiasm.
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Snark Attack 