Recruiting Future with Matt Alder - What's Next For Talent Acquisition, HR & Hiring?

In some industries, aging workforces and deepening skill shortages mean companies can no longer rely on hiring the experienced workers they need. The only realistic option is to grow their own, and that puts apprenticeship schemes right at the centre of workforce planning.

Running a programme at that scale raises questions that go well beyond recruiting. Culture shapes whether people stay, mentoring determines whether skills actually transfer, and long-term success often depends on governments understanding how to direct support towards the future talent that industries actually need. 

So what makes an apprenticeship scheme genuinely effective for high-skilled talent, and what has to be in place around it to make it work?

My guest this week is David Dart, Chief People Officer at Caliber Holdings. In our conversation, David shares what he's learned building a skilled-talent pipeline at scale.

In the interview, we discuss:

The unique talent challenges in recruiting auto body technicians

Skills shortages and an aging workforce

Culture and retention

The importance of mentoring

The impact of AI on jobs

The importance of trades careers and the need for government support

What does the future look like?

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In frontline industries, if you can't hire fast enough, the operation stops. A restaurant that can't fill shifts doesn't open. A delivery company that can't onboard drivers loses customers overnight. This constant pressure has pushed frontline employers to adopt AI and automation faster and further than any other area of recruiting.

Frontline hiring is now where some of the most advanced AI-driven recruiting is happening. Agents are screening candidates, running compliance, and managing entire workflows. Things that felt theoretical months ago are already working. 

So what can every employer learn about AI agents, candidate trust, and the balance between humans and automation?

My guest this week is Salim Jernite, Chief Product Officer at Fountain. In our conversation, Salim explains how the rapid pace of AI is transforming frontline operations and shares lessons that apply far beyond frontline hiring.

In the interview, we discuss:

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The race to develop humanoid robots that can work alongside people in factories, warehouses and retail environments is attracting billions in investment. The talent powering this revolution is in critically short supply. Specialist AI researchers, robotics engineers, and machine learning experts are being sought by every company in the sector, from global tech giants to ambitious startups.

So, in this environment of talent scarcity, how much does the human side of recruiting matter?

My guest this week is Kathrin Selezneva, Talent Acquisition Lead at Humanoid. In our conversation, she shares her experience building a hiring function from scratch in one of the most competitive talent markets in the world and explains why, as AI transforms everything around it, the human skills of recruiting have never mattered more.

In the interview, we discuss:

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Employee engagement remains one of the most talked-about challenges in the world of work. Year after year, the data tells the same story: levels barely shift, no matter what organizations try. The usual response is to focus on what happens once people are already in the door, but the results rarely change.

At the same time, AI is reshaping roles and expectations, making employees question their value in ways that weren't there before. So what if the real engagement problem starts in the hiring process itself?

My guest this week is Dr. Roz Cohen, Chief People Officer and author of “The Engagement Dilemma”. In our conversation, she explains why there are three distinct types of engagement, how outdated job descriptions undermine them, and what hiring teams should do differently to build belonging from the start.

In the interview, we discuss:

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In frontline retail hiring, speed is everything. If the process is too slow, candidates take offers elsewhere, and stores are short-staffed, hurting both service and revenue. AI-powered automation is now helping some organizations close that gap, cutting hiring times, saving thousands of hours, and driving measurable financial value for the business. 

The organizations seeing real results started with the problem, not the technology, because layering AI onto a process that isn't working only makes things worse. They also had to answer a question that rarely gets asked: how quick is too quick, and when does speed start to feel impersonal? The goal isn't to remove humans from the hiring process. It's to remove the noise so candidates reach the right people faster.

My guests this week are Stef Nikitas, Director of Talent Acquisition at Ace Hardware, and Rachel Allen, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at 7-Eleven. In our conversation, they share how they transformed frontline hiring with AI, the results it delivered, and where they chose to keep humans firmly in the process.

In the interview, we discuss:

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When organizations hire thousands of frontline workers, delivering a personal candidate experience becomes almost impossible. Recruiters spend all of their time answering calls, responding to messages, and running through the same screening questions over and over. There is little time left for the conversations that actually matter. Meanwhile, candidates want speed, flexibility, and a process that respects their time, including outside business hours.

So how can AI solve this?

My guests this week are Jeroen Klerkx, People Operations Leader at Picnic, and Bill Fischer, CTO at VONQ. In our conversation, recorded live at HR Tech Europe, they share what happened when Picnic gave candidates the choice of a human or AI screening call, the surprising feedback they received, and how they built 10 years of recruiting knowledge into an AI agent that frees up time for their recruiters to have more valuable conversations.

In the interview, we discuss:

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HR is at a pivotal moment. AI has shifted the conversation in a way nothing else has in years, the demands on the function are growing faster than its capacity to respond, and the questions being asked of it are bigger than they have ever been. The opportunity is significant, but so is the gap between where HR is and where it needs to be.

So what does it actually take for HR to step into this moment?

In this episode, recorded at HR Tech Europe in Amsterdam, I'm joined by two guests with strong views on what's holding the function back and what good looks like. Anna Carlsson, an HR tech analyst based in Stockholm, shares what she's seeing across the Nordic market and why culture and infrastructure matter more than the technology itself. Nazhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/nazim-ünlü-0774b714/im Ünlü, a Global HRD and HR transformation leader, then joins me to talk about why HR is more needed than ever and the strategic shift the function has to make to stay relevant.

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Talent acquisition is sitting in a strange place right now. AI is in every conversation, but the work of actually hiring people is getting harder rather than easier. Application volumes are swinging in unpredictable ways, the workforce itself is changing shape, and the reality on the ground is some distance from the hype.

So what is actually going on in talent acquisition right now?

In this episode, recorded at HR Tech Europe in Amsterdam, I'm joined by two guests who have spent decades watching this industry evolve. 

Wolfgang Brickwedde from the Institute for Competitive Recruiting shares what his research is telling him about the market employers are navigating and where vendors are still getting it wrong. 

Mervyn Dinnen then joins me to talk about the reality behind the AI hype and how the multigenerational workforce is reshaping the world of work.

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The real value of AI agents in HR comes from connecting them to work across the employee lifecycle, not from deploying them on individual tasks. That's where most large organisations are getting stuck. Working in a fully agentic way means dealing with different systems and different data sources that often have no shared foundation.

The result is fragmented experiences for employees and managers, with the end-to-end potential remaining out of reach. Getting there requires some serious work in data governance, process design, and integration, the kind of foundational work that rarely gets mentioned at industry conferences.

So what needs to be in place before AI agents can work at enterprise scale?

My guest this week is Melissa Shelley Höjwall, Global HR Technology Lead at H&M Group. In our conversation, which we recorded live at HR Tech Europe, she explains what it takes to build a connected AI architecture across HR and why many companies are undermining their own progress.

In the interview, we discuss:

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We're living through one of the most consequential shifts in how work gets done. AI is everywhere in headlines and vendor pitches, but the reality inside organisations is far more nuanced than the noise suggests. Personal adoption is running well ahead of how companies are embedding the technology into actual workflows. Demographic changes continue to tighten labour supply, and the HR tech vendor landscape is consolidating and expanding all at once, leaving buyers uncertain about where to invest. 

So how should HR leaders be thinking about technology, workforce design, and the role they need to play in shaping what work actually becomes?

Recorded live at HR Tech Europe, my guest this week is Stacey Harris, Chief Research Officer at Sapient Insights Group. Stacey runs the longest-running HR systems survey in the market, and we discuss what her data shows about where things are heading.

In the interview, we discuss:

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