The Cope of The Year Issue

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This Week’s Breakdown

You can’t go to a conference, webinar, or browse LinkedIn without hearing some version of “We need to put the human back in HR.”

But what does that even mean? You’re all in HR in some regards right? Are you humans?

At this point, it’s become nothing but a slogan, a bumper sticker, something people say when they get invited to speak at a conference but don’t actually want to talk about execution (or worse yet, don’t even execute in their day jobs anymore).

I talked about this with Kelli Hrivnak on the podcast recently, and the more we unpacked it, the clearer it became: when candidates say they want the “human element,” they’re not asking for warm branding or inspirational talks.

They’re asking for basic communication and trust.

That’s it. They don’t mean to literally remove all technology, they just want you, the recruiter or the HR professional to take a second and remind them you’re a warm blooded human just like they are.

When job seekers complain about hiring feeling inhuman, what they really mean is:

• They don’t know where they stand

• They don’t hear back

• They don’t trust the process

• They don’t feel seen as an actual person

Empathy doesn’t mean holding hands or over-explaining every decision. It means acknowledging someone exists on the other side of the process.

And one of the places this is obvious is in outreach.

We can admit that for most recruiters, sourcing outreach has become absolute slop. I purposely chose that word because we all know we have all reached a point where we associate the word slop with too much AI.

Outreach has become over automated, lifeless, and clearly written by a tool that never looked at a profile for more than half a second, and even the best recruiters are becoming guilty of it. Candidates can tell immediately, just like you can when you get similar messages. The bar has dropped so low that sounding like a real person is now a differentiator.

Kelli said something simple that stuck with me:
How would you want to be approached?

That’s the entire framework.

If you wouldn’t respond to your own message, why would anyone else?
If you wouldn’t trust the process you’re running as a candidate, why should they?

I’ve recently been doing more outreach as I took on a new fractional project to help a former colleague of mine out, and it has become so obvious how low the bar really is. I’m constantly seeing replies that say things like: “This is one of the first messages I’ve received that doesn’t sound like a robot.”

That’s not because I’m special (I am, but not because I write good outreach emails). It’s because I took an extra two minutes to write a message that felt unique. Even though most of it is copied and pasted from a template I’d send to other candidates, that doesn’t mean I couldn’t also take the time to personalize it beyond something like “I’m impressed by this random line im copying and pasting from your profile”

I automated the sourcing, I automated nearly the entire email template, but I still took the time to make sure that when an email does come from me, it feels direct and to them. That’s it, that’s the secret that I keep hearing so many have forgotten.

Putting the human back in recruiting doesn’t require a manifesto, and it sure doesn’t require someone who hasn’t worked an open job in 8 years to stand on a stage and tell us that we should be doing it.

It requires effort, consistency, and treating communication like it actually matters.

In an era where AI is everywhere, that effort stands out more than ever, not because it’s revolutionary, but because somehow it’s become rare.

The human element isn’t gone.

It’s just been replaced by convenience and the pressure to move too fast which is hurting you in the long run.

Recruited in the Wild

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

Heading into the new year I have a new least favorite kind of LinkedIn post, and it’s one that is popping up more and more!

It’s the “here’s how I can tell your post is written by AI” post.

Now look, (someone said this is a common AI phrase) I get it, there is A LOT of AI slop on the internet and most of it is mind numbingly bad.

But here’s the thing (another phrase I’ve heard is a giveaway AI wrote it), AI is also trained on human writing. So when you start saying silly things like “using different adjectives is a sign of AI” or “using commas is a sign of AI” you are also taking away from people who just simply write correctly.

I love the oxford comma, I love phrases like here’s the thing, I love using different words?? (still confused how this one became an issue), and I’m not going to have them taken away by LinkedIn sleuths playing spot the AI.

The most important thing when you see something written is did it resonate with you? Did you like reading it or have some kind of reaction? I am firmly in the camp of people who want to see more human, personal, and authentic touches on the internet. But I also think even more annoying than a post written by AI is the obsession some people have with trying to prove things are AI or not.

(And yes, this clearly is about hiring as well)

Accrued Time

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

This is likely to be the last newsletter for a few weeks as I take some time off. Between Christmas, my daughter’s birthday on the 30th, and my mom coming to stay with us over that time (including sleeping in my office) I think we will all be ok if I don’t rant about some weirdos on LinkedIn for a few weeks.

2025 has been a wild year and I want to thank each of you who read this newsletter, listen to the podcast, and support me everywhere that you do. I have some really cool plans for 2026 including a few new keynotes and training topics that I think will be relevant to all of you, and a goal to really push the podcast to some new heights.

See ya’ll in January!

Cope of the Week (Cope of The Year edition)

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

Since I started this newsletter, I’ve written about a lot of things:

AI panic
Bad LinkedIn takes
Recruiter burnout
Candidates who are exhausted
Hiring managers who are impossible
Systems that don’t work the way they’re supposed to
And an industry that loves to tell us we’re doing it wrong while still expecting us to hold everything together

If there’s one throughline to all of it, it’s this:

Recruiting is messy, emotional, and deeply human work, and pretending otherwise is what breaks people.

This year pushed a lot of us to the edge. Continued layoffs, hiring freezes, public scapegoating, tools that promised clarity and delivered chaos. And yet, recruiters kept showing up.

We take the calls, we deliver the news, we manage the tension.

What I’ve learned (and relearned) this year is that you don’t survive this job by being perfect, you survive it by being real and building community.

Real about what you can and can’t control. Real about when you’re tired, burned out, or just done arguing with strangers online.

And real about the fact that no tool, no framework, no thought leader is coming to save this work for us.

And as far as community goes, all of you have become that, this year I have expanded mine through so many events, meetings, newsletters, podcasts etc… and I hope you do the same.

If you’ve made it to the end of this year still in recruiting, whether you’re thriving, surviving, or somewhere in between, that matters. If you’ve stepped away, built something new, or are still figuring out what’s next, that matters too.

So as I take a few weeks off and put this newsletter down until the new year, here’s what I hope you carry with you:

You are not replaceable just because parts of your work can be automated. And you are not behind because you’re questioning what all of this is supposed to look like now.

Take the break. Log off. Close the tabs.
Let the hot takes fight amongst themselves for a bit.

Thank you for reading, responding, arguing, laughing, and sticking with me this year.

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