Those Who Can't Recruit...

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This Week’s Breakdown

“Most recruiter screens are the ultimate meeting that could have been an email”

That’s what the Founder of Superposition Edmund Cuthbert had to say this week when discussing yet another new AI tool meant to replace recruiters.

We’ve talked about it a ton in this newsletter, but every now and then I like to really focus on one specific person and tool, their story, and the issue when everyone thinks they know how to fix recruiting.

Failed recruiters. Ex-recruiters. Candidates. Sales bros. Founders. AI tool peddlers.
Every single one of them seems convinced they’ve uncovered the real problem and, of course, the simple solution we’re all too blind to see.

If you know me, you know I’m pro AI tools (I even wrote about several I thought were cool last week), but when I see a founder of company claiming that recruiter screening calls are pointless, that no actual screening happens, and that the whole thing should just be skipped so candidates can talk directly to hiring managers, my instinct is usually to say “oh you were just a bad recruiter”. And in this case if you read the post, you’ll see I’m correct.

Here’s the thing though:
He’s not entirely wrong about how a lot of recruiter screens are run… but he’s dead wrong about what that means.

Recruiter screens should be a structured, high-signal conversation to assess skills, motivation, logistics, and mutual fit.
But in a high-volume, high-pressure environment with hiring managers who often haven’t defined what they actually want, they often end up being:

• A vibe check for basic communication skills

• A place to confirm logistical stuff hiring managers don’t want to touch (visa status, in-office days, comp expectations)

• A first chance to sell the opportunity

It may not be perfect, but it’s also not meaningless!

The post frames it like recruiters are gleefully wasting time because we’re too lazy or dumb to realize we could just send every candidate straight to the hiring manager.

That’s not innovation, that’s someone who’s never dealt with a hiring manager who cancels half their interviews, can’t articulate what “good” looks like, or expects magic candidates to appear fully qualified and pre-vetted.

This is the same flavor of “I could fix hiring in three easy steps” thinking that shows up every few weeks:

• “Why do we need job descriptions?”

• “Why not just hire people like we hire plumbers?”

• “Recruiters should stop asking questions and just connect candidates and managers.”

It’s all armchair solutions. Easy to say when you’ve never successfully run a messy, ambiguous search with 200 inbound applications, three stakeholders who disagree, and a hiring manager who gives contradictory feedback.

Recruiting is imperfect. A lot of recruiter screens are indeed subpar. But flattening the entire process into “ditch screening calls” is like saying doctors should skip intake questions and just hand you the prescription you Googled.

The loudest voices criticizing recruiters are often the ones who never actually had to do the work well, and I wonder if some training could have helped this founder years ago.

Recruited in the Wild

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

Sometimes I feel bad specifically calling people out, but also we know that people usually write the posts I call out because they want to specifically be spoken about, so let’s speak about this post.

At first glance, this is just another “here’s how to communicate better” post. But let’s be honest: calling a candidate’s flexibility a red flag is absurd. “I’m available anytime” is often someone trying to make it easy for you, not signaling they don’t care. Plenty of candidates say this because they actually are available anytime, especially when they are constantly hearing from recruiters online about how being difficult to schedule is also a red flag. The idea that this is some massive sign of disorganization is… a stretch at best.

But we know why this post really got made.

This post blew up — over 300 comments and 200 engagements, compared to the author’s usual 3–7 likes per post. And with virality came the backlash with the usual players involved (shout to friend of the newsletter and pod Amy Miller of course). People pushed back hard, pointing out how ridiculous it is to punish people for being flexible. Recruiters chimed in with their usual lack of nuance. And the author as usual got defensive. Claimed it wasn’t rage bait, even showed up on my video preview of the podcast to say so.

We have seen this song and dance on Linkedin enough. Let’s start with the basic fact that people who post often on LinkedIn are not doing it because they hate engagement. Even people who are not trying to become LinkedIn famous are still posting because they want to be seen, there is no denying that.

If your average post gets single digit engagement and suddenly you have a small LinkedIn wildfire on your hands, let’s not pretend you didn’t strike a match. Rage bait works because it exploits frustration, in this case, job seekers being told their flexibility is wrong.

And this ties perfectly into last week’s podcast episode with Leah Dillon:
Not every thought needs to be a LinkedIn post.

Sometimes you can think, “I prefer candidates to give a few times,” and just… keep it to yourself. There were a dozen ways to phrase this like a tip and not a moral failing if that were actually the goal. But on LinkedIn, outrage is engagement, and engagement is dopamine.

And this is the stuff that gives so many of us a bad name.

Accrued Time

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

If you’re reading this on Tuesday, then tonight I’ll be speaking at Disrupt HR in Minneapolis on one of my signature topics: The Call Is Coming From Inside the ATS

The newest episode of Is This Still A Good Time is out today as well with my good friend and former podcast host Farah Sharghi who has every imaginable logo on her resume.

RecFest USA is also a week away, I’ll be there recording some live episodes and creating content, stop by to say hi if you’re there!

Cope of the Week

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

One of the hardest parts of this job isn’t the work itself, it’s the constant noise from people outside the work telling you how easy it should be.

Every few weeks, someone who’s never successfully run a search in their life goes viral with their three-step plan to “fix” recruiting. This week it’s “ditch screening calls,” last week it was plumbers, next week it’ll be something else.

And if you’re not careful, that noise seeps in. You start questioning your process, your value, your instincts.

Here’s the truth: recruiting isn’t broken because you’re bad at it. It’s messy because it involves humans, and humans are messy. You can be excellent at your job and still get dunked on by someone who’s never opened an ATS.

Your job isn’t to win the algorithm. It’s to keep doing the work well, even while the LinkedIn peanut gallery builds their next outrage post.

Keep your head down. Keep your standards up. And remember you’re not crazy, the takes are.

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