Hiring is broken - but not for the reasons you think.

Recruiters flood hiring managers with candidates, yet decision-makers hesitate to pull the trigger. The process drags, top talent walks, and organizations pay the price.

Tim Sackett isn’t here to sugarcoat it. In this unfiltered solo session, he lays out why the hiring machine is failing and what needs to change.

From hiring managers’ paradoxical indecision to the myth of "more candidates = better hires," he breaks down how talent acquisition teams have conditioned bad behavior - and why fixing it requires a shift in trust, process, and execution.

Then there’s Elon Musk. His blunt demand for accountability in government sent HR circles into a tailspin, but is he wrong?

Sackett cuts through the noise to dissect why performance management is broken and why most leaders are afraid to ask their employees the one question that actually matters.

The workforce is shifting.

The hiring game is changing.

If you’re still playing by the old rules, you’re already behind.

Connect with Us:

Tim Sackett

Follow Tim on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timsackett

Visit Tim’s website: hrutech.com

AI is infiltrating HR in ways no one’s talking about - yet. The shift isn’t coming. It’s already here. And if you’re not paying attention, you’re already behind.

Enter Madeline Laurano, a leading analyst who’s been tracking AI’s silent takeover of HR technology. She joins Tim Sackett to break down what’s really happening beneath the surface - how AI agents are replacing traditional workflows, why the old way of hiring is crumbling, and what the biggest players like Workday and LinkedIn are doing to stay ahead.

The real question? If AI is making HR more efficient, what happens to the humans still doing the job?

Madeline unpacks the biggest shift in HR technology we’ve seen in decades - and why most organizations aren’t prepared.

The companies that adapt will redefine work.

The ones that don’t may not have a future.

Connect with Us:

Madeline Laurano

Follow Madeline on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/madelinelaurano

Learn more about Aptitude Research: aptituderesearch.com

Tim Sackett

Follow Tim on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timsackett

Visit Tim’s website: hrutech.com

Marcus Stewart, Professor and Department Chair at Bentley University, has been studying workforce dynamics for years - and now, he’s watching the DEI movement take a nosedive while Gen Z struggles to find its footing in the workplace.

In this episode, Marcus joins me to break down two of the biggest workplace shifts happening right now: the quiet rollback of DEI initiatives and why so many companies are unimpressed with their Gen Z hires.

Is DEI truly dying, or is it just evolving? And when it comes to the next generation of workers, is the issue with Gen Z - or are we the problem?

With deep expertise in organizational behavior and leadership, Marcus brings candid insights into how shifting workplace expectations, economic realities, and cultural shifts are reshaping how companies hire, retain, and develop talent.

If you’re wondering what’s next for work, this episode is for you.

Connect with Us:

Marcus Stewart

Follow Marcus on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/marcusstewart

Tim Sackett

Follow Tim on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timsackett

Visit Tim’s website: hrutech.com

Jon Stross, Co-founder and CEO of Greenhouse, has been making headlines - but not for the reasons you'd expect.

In this episode, Jon joins Tim Sackett to tackle the growing problem of 'ghost jobs,' those elusive listings that leave candidates feeling duped and disheartened. But are companies really out to deceive, or is there more beneath the surface?

Jon guides us through the murky waters of hiring practices, from misunderstood job postings to the real reasons candidates get left in the dark. With candid insights from his recent Wall Street Journal feature and a deep dive into Greenhouse’s data, Jon doesn’t just spotlight the problem - he’s working on solutions that could change the game for job seekers and recruiters alike.

If you've ever applied for a job and heard nothing back, this one's for you.

Connect with Us:

Jon Stross

Follow Jon on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jonstross

Learn more about Greenhouse: greenhouse.com

Tim Sackett

Follow Tim on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timsackett

Visit Tim’s website: hrutech.com

On episode 116 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Madeline Laurano, Jessica Lee, and Tim Sackett come together to discuss their favorite Super Bowl commercials, Chat GPT, and how you can utilize AI to be a better leader. Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!

:30 - JLee had Chat GPT write an intro for this episode! It didn’t do a good job the first time, so she had it do a second pass to make it funnier. 

2:00 - The crew didn’t think the Super Bowl commercials of 2023 were too exciting. Madeline and JLee’s favorite was the Clueless one, and Tim shouted out the Workday and Dunkin commercials

7:30 - Another podcast, another convo about Chat GPT and AI. Microsoft Bing is trying to become the top browser again, and JLee is on a waitlist to use the program. 

10:00 - Tim’s 2023 keynote is all about the future of recruiting with AI. He thinks that the only limit of what AI can do in TA is the limit of our imaginations. 

14:15 - Tim speaks to the importance of narration with AI. With AI, you have to be the expert on your topic, but you don’t have to produce anymore. 

17:00 - Madeline thinks another area that AI will completely change is travel. Imagine traveling and having the whole trip planned by AI. 

20:00 - Madeline is surprised that we haven’t seen more people talking about AI and Chat GPT in the TA space. She thinks some people may feel threatened by the topic. 

23:45 - JLee runs through examples of how to use AI to help handle a tough situation with an emotional employee. 

27:00 - JLee talks about how being open and not intimidated by AI can allow you to use it as leverage and become better.  She uses a Teams tool that critiques how she speaks on calls and helps her improve the words she chooses. 

31:00 - Tim thinks that Microsoft is the winner of the future of HR tech.

On episode 115 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Madeline Laurano, Jessica Lee and Tim Sackett come together to discuss Ted Lasso, the everchanging recruiter experience, and Tim’s experience with the Michigan State shooting.

Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!

1:45 - Ted Lasso season 3 is on the horizon! The crew gives their prediction for the new season coming in March. 

4:00 - Madeline and Tim did a roundtable recently about recruiter experience. Tim doesn’t think it matters anymore, and JLee asks Tim to define it. 

8:00 - Madeline mentions that a lot of people don’t know what recruiters do. Tim says that recruiting is the job that everyone thinks they can do. 

9:15 - Tim says that when he was running TA at larger companies, senior leadership felt very comfortable giving advice to him about how to recruit, even though their advice was unfounded. 

12:00 - JLee and Tim talk about how being a recruiter isn’t one of the hardest jobs that one could have. There are a lot of other jobs that require a lot out of the people who hold those positions. 

15:30 - Madeline brings up a study they did at Disney where they found that the most important position at all of the Disney parks was the street sweepers. 

18:30 - Tim’s opinion is that Chat GPT is going to change the landscape of everything in TA & recruiting. He says that the only thing that can’t be replaced by AI is the real conversation a recruiter has with a candidate. 

21:30 - Madeline mentions a company who measures their recruiter productivity by getting them to “inbox zero”. She says she could never be a recruiter if this is a standard she was held to. 

24:00 - Tim and JLee say they’d never judge one of the people they manage by the number of emails in their inbox. JLee judges people by the battery level of their devices. 

27:30 - Tim’s son goes to Michigan State, and he runs a business in Lansing. He talks about his experience with and the aftermath of the shooting that happened on campus recently. 

36:15 - Madeline asks Tim what he did about closing his business in the aftermath. Tim said that his Teams work groups were very active around the time of the shooting

On episode 114 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee and Tim Sackett come together to discuss their favorite (and least favorite) Oscar-nominated movies, the difficulty of finding childcare, and how to handle annoying entry-level job tasks. Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!

1:00 - Madeline isn’t here because of last-minute child needs. Tim’s an empty nester and he says his kids’ still interrupt his life! 

2:45 - It’s awards season and JLee and Tim are on the opposite ends of the spectrum on a big frontrunner, Everything Everywhere All At Once. Tim thought it was terrible, and JLee adores it. (Producer Cam, Tim’s son, is here to say Tim is horribly wrong, sorry Dad!!!).

7:30 - JLee diagnoses Tim with a savior complex which prevents him from watching/liking a lot of media. He’s a papa bear!

9:00 - JLee shouts out the Banshees of Inisherin. She says it’s one of the strangest movies she’s seen in a long time but also one of the best. 

11:30 - This Wall Street Journal article has documented how childcare numbers haven’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Tim asks JLee if there are any things that JLee’s company is doing to help combat the loss of childcare. 

16:00 - Tim has an idea to replicate Uber surge pricing with childcare to help out the childcare companies and also help those who have flexibility with their working situations. 

19:00 - JLee notes that her colleagues know that when she’s working from home, there will most likely be children walking in her background. She gets good feedback from her team about the involvement of her kids in her work life. 

23:30 - KD sent in an article about a congressperson’s staffer who has filed complaints against their boss. They felt like they were being taken advantage of. Tim reminisces on the things that he was asked to do when he was in entry-level jobs. 

26:45 - Tim notes that a lot of the complaints over being asked to complete these kinds of tasks depend on who the person asking is. A specific person can make these tasks feel meaningful. 

29:30 - Tim’s advice to entry-level/young people in careers is to be one of the last few people to leave the office. He warns against being “the early person” in the office and urges them to become the late person. 

32:30 - Tim wants a “scoreboard” of badge swipes into the office. He thinks everyone will be in the office as soon as that’s implemented. 

On episode 113 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee and Tim Sackett come together to discuss Chat GPT and Tim’s utopian view if remote employees are more or less engaged and how we should be doing holiday parties. 

Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!

2:00 - Tim said he needs to add stretching to his New Year’s resolution list. 

3:15 - Tim is extremely fascinated by Chat GPT (which may or may not take over this podcast). JLee tested it with her husband when she asked Chat GPT to write a Thank You letter after a job interview. 

7:00 - JLee thinks it’s really fascinating when Chat GPT is looked at as a tool as a Kickstarter for writing in a business format. Madeline mentioned in a previous episode how editing and revision might become more important in the future instead of writing.

11:00 - On a basic level, JLee thinks there will be a behavior change from talking to an AI/chatbot as a “machine” to talking to them as you would a normal person. 

15:00 - Tim has a utopian hope of the world with AI. He thinks it will be able to free us from our work and give us back time to dedicate to our families, ourselves, and our world. 

17:30 - Harvard Business Review released an article (with a very bad title, according to Tim) titled “No, Remote Employees Aren’t Becoming Less Engaged.” They pulled data from Teams and Outlook and found that remote employees have more meetings, and thus, they’re more engaged. 

19:30 - JLee loves HBR and still gets HBR in the mail. She thinks that engagement being defined by meetings is a silly proposition. 

21:30 - Tim says that everyone will fall differently on the productivity spectrum in regard to remote work. He thinks you can’t make a sweeping generalization about whether it’s more or less productive to work remotely. 

24:00 - JLee notes that she’s been focusing on “meeting fatigue” and how to get creative on who needs to be in meetings and how many meetings actually need to be happening. 

26:15 - The holiday season is right behind us, and many companies have recently gotten through layoffs. Tim notes that office parties and bonuses have been things on the chopping block. Tim asks the question, “can we have good employee experience events without spending a lot of money?”. 

28:00 - JLee says that it comes down to what employees really care about. Do we really want holiday parties? 

31:20 - Tim asked Chat GPT if employees like holiday parties. It gave a pretty good response!

On episode 112 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee, Madeline Laurano, and Tim Sackett come together to discuss what they’re hoping to learn in 2023, the extra burden placed on women in Executive level roles, and unrealistic hopes for pay increases. 

Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!

1:00 - JLee asks the crew what is one thing that they want to learn in 2023.  JLee has only ridden a bike a few times, and she wants to master riding a bike this year. Madeline’s goal is to get better at golfing. 

4:15 - Tim is taking his Jewish family to Israel this year. His youngest son, Cooper, is learning Hebrew at school, and Tim wants to learn some of that language. 

6:15 - JLee brings up an article from Fortune about women in C-Suite or Executive level positions and how they may have to pay a lot of money on childcare and household help. JLee asks Madeline if we are talking about this topic enough. 

8:50 - Madeline tells a story about her son, who had a female friend over. She told the kids she just needed to take some time to clean up and her son’s friend said to her, “don’t you have a cleaner?”. 

11:30 - Tim mentions how when his mom was starting her business, she hired Tim’s Grandma to come to clean the house while she worked. 

14:00 - Madeline thinks that there is more stigma around people hiring for childcare help than household help.

16:45 - Tim wonders how much of this is American culture vs. culture from all around the world. He mentions how shocked he was when he visited South Africa, and he saw how much help middle-class white families had for their everyday life. 

20:30 - Lesson of the day: parenting is not easy and it’s near impossible to do it all by yourself! 

21:30 - Bloomberg reported on the unrealistic high hopes that employees have for pay hikes in the new year. JLee asks the crew if they are seeing this in the workplace. 

24:45 - Madeline notes how it still is an employee/candidate first market due to the number of jobs available. She does think that due to the layoffs happening across the workforce, the behavior of asking for raises may change. 

29:00 - JLee notes that any publicly traded company has to listen to its shareholders and what they think is best for the business. A big question for these companies is, “who are we in service to?”. 

31:30 - When can you stop saying Happy New Year? Madeline thinks she could go to 1/30, but Tim only gives it two weeks. 

On episode 111 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee, Madeline Laurano, and Tim Sackett come together to discuss 2022 and give their thoughts about this year in HR and talent. 

Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!

1:00 - Tim asks the crew what their favorite TV show, movie, or book from 2022 was. Madeline is a big Euphoria fan, JLee loved Ted Lasso, and Tim couldn’t choose one (House of Dragon, Peaky Blinders. 2022 was a great year for TV!

8:00 - The crew name some of their favorites (Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is Madeline’s). Tim loves Talent by Tyler Cowen. 

10:00 - JLee tried to get Cowen to come speak at a Marriott event and she found that he isn’t too fond of HR folks. She wants to dig in with him and see his real feelings about people who work in HR. 

12:00 - It’s time for the HR and talent year in review! JLee mentions the transition from The Great Resignation into Quiet Quitting. She found that we can get worked up over things that end up not being as noteworthy in the long run. 

14:00 - Tim tried to make “The Big Regret” happened but it never took off…

16:50 - Tim thinks that the HR and talent community needs someone that we can trust for facts and information. He shouts out Roy from SHRM for his journalism work. 

19:00 - Madeline brings up how the biggest topic that isn’t being discussed in HR is the rise of freelancing within the job market. She notes that by 2030, 50% of an organization’s workforce will be freelancers. 

24:00 - Tim says that he thinks there has been a de-emphasis on DEI in 2022. Madeline thinks that within the HR technology space, DEI wasn’t the hot topic of the year. JLee notes that in 2020 there were so many topics culturally that forced the conversations around DEI to be at the forefront. 

26:00 - As we look ahead to 2023, Tim asks the team what points of emphasis he sees coming to the head. Madeline thinks the skills conversation has surprised her in its prominence. She thinks it’s the topic that everyone is obsessed with. 

28:00 - Tim asks JLee where they are at Marriott with skills. She thinks that organizations can be intimidated by the topic and that people are over contemplating where to get started. 

31:30 - JLee’s focus for 2023 is AI and how it will affect content creation.