Employer of Record: Solution or Shell Game?
Posted on August 6, 2025 Leave a Comment
There’s a new acronym in town that every HR tech vendor is frantically adding to their pitch deck (and no, it’s not “AI”). It’s EOR, short for Employer of Record. Which is about as sexy as it sounds, if we’re being honest.
Here’s the basic pitch: you want to hire some hotshot engineer in Germany or a growth hacker in Brazil, but you don’t want to set up a legal entity, figure out foreign tax law, or accidentally trigger an audit.
EOR platforms, like Rippling, Remote, Papaya Global, Multiplier, and literally hundreds of other lookalikes, step in as the legal employer on your behalf, handling payroll, compliance, benefits, and all the messy bureaucratic stuff you’d rather ignore.
Sounds awesome, right?
Read MoreWinston Goes to Walldorf: SAP Acquires SmartRecruiters’ AI and Ambition
Posted on August 1, 2025 3 Comments
Here’s a headline I didn’t expect to write this year (or ever, if we’re being honest). But it’s true.
SAP is acquiring SmartRecruiters.
And for once, in a sea of misguided “strategic tuck-ins” and overpriced AI fluff, this actually makes sense. For everyone.
Candidates. Recruiters. SAP. Hell, even SuccessFactors might finally be able to recruit without a manual.
This isn’t one of those acquisitions where a flailing legacy platform absorbs a scrappy little startup and slowly strangles the innovation out of it.
If SAP plays this right, it could actually turn the recruiting tech market on its head—and maybe, just maybe, fix the trainwreck that is enterprise hiring in the process.
Read MoreIncompetency Framework: The Truth About Skills Based Hiring
Posted on July 30, 2025 3 Comments
If you’ve been to an HR tech conference lately, sat through a VC pitch deck, or made the mistake of opening LinkedIn during business hours, then congratulations.
You’ve already been force-fed the gospel of “skills-based hiring.”
It’s 2025, and apparently we’ve all collectively decided that job titles, experience, and education don’t matter anymore. All that matters is “skills.”
Skills, we’re told, are the great equalizer. The future of work is a meritocracy where resumes don’t matter, degrees are obsolete, and anyone who can prove they’ve mastered the right blend of Power BI, emotional intelligence, and generative AI prompt engineering gets the job.
It sounds great – until you realize, like most other talent trends, it’s mostly theater (of the absurd).
Because here’s the thing: skills-based hiring, for all its promise, is fundamentally flawed. Not just flawed in practice, but flawed in premise, too.
The truth is, skills, as they’re currently defined and implemented in most HR systems and hiring processes, are too subjective, too fluid, and too dependent on context to serve as a stable foundation for hiring.
Read MoreThe State of HR Industry Analysts 2025
Posted on July 25, 2025 7 Comments
A Guest Post by Joe Worsten, founder of The Worsten Institute, a thought leadership platform dedicated to thought-leading the thoughts of other thought leaders. All his insights are copyrighted, trademarked, and occasionally sponsored by a platform with three capital letters.
The HR world is changing fast, or at least that’s what we’ve been saying since the Industrial Revolution.
Today, we’re witnessing seismic shifts in workforce strategy, operating models, AI enablement, talent marketplaces, and whatever other trends are driving your existential angst.
Most critically, though, the HR profession is witnessing another evolution: the proliferation of analyst frameworks that exist solely to keep HR executives feeling like they’re “strategic” for attending a $3,500 webinar hosted by a guy who hasn’t worked in HR since “Friends” was still on air.
That guy is me. I am an analyst.
And I’m here to tell you that your HR function isn’t just behind the curve—it’s in the bottom-left quadrant of the Capability Maturity Map™. Don’t worry, though. For a reasonable fee, I can help you crawl your way into the “strategic” upper right.
All it takes is following a model I made up last Tuesday while eating a $27 airport salad.
Read MoreHR Tech Isn’t Dead—You’re Just Building It Wrong
Posted on July 23, 2025 2 Comments
In an environment where HR tech startups are dying of thirst, Ashby just took a swig from the Series D firehose. Yesterday, he company announced a fresh $50 million in funding, led by Alkeon Capital, bringing its total raised to $100 million—and, more importantly, doing so with a sub-1x burn multiple and most of its Series C capital still in the bank.
Translation: they didn’t need the money. Investors insisted they take it.
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Snark Attack 