The AI Recruiting War

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This Week’s Breakdown

Last week’s episode of Is This Still A Good Time with Richie Lampani hit on something I think a lot of recruiters feel but haven’t quite said out loud yet because they don’t want to be seen as callous. Luckily Richie and I don’t worry about that so we’ll say it:

The “AI Recruiting War” isn’t us versus the robots.

It’s recruiters versus which recruiters will still be standing when the smoke clears.

AI isn’t coming for all of us, it’s coming for what Richie calls the middle.

The checkbox work.
The sort, submit, pray work.
The “let me nod through this screening call and repeat whatever you tell me to the hiring manager” work.

That stuff is dead and gone and already being automated whether we like it or not.

Here’s what Richie said that I think is the real heart of the matter:

If the most valuable contribution you make in a process could be replaced by a recommendation engine, you’re in trouble.

Sorting through 300 applications in 30 seconds?
Cool, AI can do that.

But knowing which candidate to push, why them, and how to direct the hiring manager to getting to the right decision in the right way?

AI doesn’t do that, because a prompt doesn’t fix people being people. A shiny new sourcing tool can’t make a hiring manager care, and cant separate the hire that is going to get you a bonus at the end of the year from the one that is going to have you searching for a backfill in a few months.

And that’s where the future of this job is going, back to actual recruiting. The things that great recruiters thrive at.

The craft!

Recruiting is essentially splintering into two paths. (There is a 3rd, the recruiter who refuses to use AI at all, but I think we know how that story will end unfortunately).

Path 1 : The Recruiter Who Gets The Craft

Specialized, consultative, high-trust, high-value.
You know comp, org design, process.
You know how to run a search from chaos to close.
You sell expertise, not tasks.

Path 2: The AI Administrator Recruiter

Able to keep up with volume, tools, and automation, but without the senior skills, judgment, or influence to lead a search. This is the kind of work companies will automate fully eventulaly.

Even the companies selling “full automation” tools don’t actually believe in full automation. Richie said it himself, clients outsource recruiting because they want to stop thinking about it. They want someone to own the mess, not a tool that just generates more questions.

And even if AI could do it?

Half these systems are one audit away from a lawsuit, because nobody actually knows what’s happening inside the models or whether any of it is legally compliant, and we likely won’t know that for a long time.

So where does that leave us?

Here:

If you’re building skills around judgment, influence, communication, relationship management, and the parts of recruiting that don’t live in Boolean strings, there will always be work for you to do somewhere.

If you’re stuck in that middle layer Richie talked about, the one that’s already crumbling, you may get taken down with it.

The future isn’t “AI replacing recruiters.”
It’s AI replacing recruiters who aren’t becoming advisors.

But those advisors are about to become more valuable than ever as people rely more and more on software they don’t understand.

Anyway, you should go listen to the episode and check out Richie’s book when it’s out.

Recruited in the Wild

/

Seen on LinkedIn, overheard in Slack, or posted without shame.

We need to talk about SHRM.
Again!

But this time, not for a bad take, not for a conference keynote, but because SHRM is literally on trial for discrimination, and their defense strategy is… interesting as my mom would say.

If you haven’t been following the case:

SHRM, the “trusted authority on all things work” (their words), is currently the defendant in a racial discrimination and retaliation lawsuit brought by a former employee.

This case is already rare since most employment claims never make it to trial. But here’s the part that is really garnering all the attention:

SHRM asked the court to exclude evidence of… SHRM’s own HR expertise.

Let me say that again:

The organization that sells HR certifications (one that I got years ago thinking I needed and won’t be renewing), writes the playbooks, and scolds the rest of us on compliance argued that their expertise shouldn’t count when evaluating whether they handled their own employee properly.

That’s like a Michelin-star chef saying:
“Your honor, I cannot reasonably be expected to know how kitchens work.”

Or an airline saying:
“We can’t be judged on safety because we’re experts in flying airplanes, which would unfairly raise expectations.”

The judge of course said no to this request.

If you brand yourself as the gold standard for HR, jurors deserve to know what your own standards are before hearing you allegedly violated them.

To me, whether they win or lose in court almost feels like the second-story here.

The real story, and why I’m talking about it in this newsletter, is the massive credibility gap it reveals.

Because SHRM’s public positioning has always been:
“Do HR the right way. Follow our guidance. Trust us to show you how.”

But now, inside a courtroom?
Suddenly that expertise is optional.
Suddenly their own standards are too “unfair” to apply to themselves.
Suddenly they want the same employer grace they rarely give in their own “best practice” content.

This is a reminder for every recruiter, HR pro, and leader reading this:

It is very easy to preach “best practices.”
It is much harder to actually follow them.

One decision, one bad conversation, one sloppy performance review, one retaliation claim, one poorly handled complaint, and suddenly your values deck means nothing.

Here’s the stance worth taking:

• If you’re going to position yourself as the voice of HR excellence, the bar should be higher.

• If you sell compliance, you should be compliant.

• If you tell companies how to treat employees fairly, you should treat employees fairly.

• And if you’re the ones telling the world how to avoid lawsuits… maybe make sure you’re not starring in one.

Because SHRM might walk out of this court case just fine.
But their credibility continues to take hit after hit, and this is just the latest one.

And for the rest of us, especially those trying to actually build trust, influence, and real expertise in this industry, it’s a reminder of why doing the work right matters far more than posting about doing the work right.

And check out a great 23 minute video by expert Ashley Herd breaking it down evern further

Accrued Time

A weekly check-in on what I’ve got going on behind the scenes, events, projects, and life outside the req pile.

I mentioned Richies podcast episode above, if you have not checked that one out you definitely should.

Tomorrow a new episode with Shaun Hervey will be dropping and it’s a really fun chat I’ll discuss in next week’s newsletter.

Big News:

I have officially opened a merch store! It’s mostly for fun, I’m making almost 0 profit from it, but I often get asked about some of the clothes or mugs I make for myself so I thought I’d make it available for any other recruiters who just want to be seen.

Check out some of the fun designs here with more to come soon.

Also, I know shipping costs are out of control, I’m not sure how to bring those down, I’m new to this, but will continue to work on other ways to do so but for now shipping is free if you buy pretty much any 2 products!

Cope of the Week

Because it’s either this or scream into a pillow.

I’m not going to lie, talking about the future of recruiting every week can feel a little existential. Some days it feels like half the internet is screaming that AI will replace us, and the other half is screaming that we deserve it.

So here’s where I’ve landed this week, and maybe it’ll help you land somewhere too:

Yes, the middle of this job is disappearing.
Yes, tools are taking over the low-value work.
Yes, the market is going to get tighter before it gets easier.

But none of that means you’re disappearing.

If anything, all the noise is just making something really obvious:

The recruiters who thrive are the ones who know how to stay steady while everything else feels chaotic.

AI can triage resumes, but it can’t regulate its emotions when a hiring manager spirals.
A sorting tool can shortlist, but it can’t talk someone off a ledge about comp bands.

So if you’re feeling that weird pressure of “where do I fit in all this?”

Same.

And the answer is this:

Stay good at the human parts of this job, and you’ll always have a place.

Everyone else panicking about being replaced? That’s not yours to carry.

We cope by getting better, not by getting louder.

 Forward this to someone in TA who's barely holding it together.