VC Investment in WorkTech - Where is the Money Going in 2025?

 

We're halfway through the year (can you believe this??) and so a great time to stop and take stock on where we are going with recruitment and HR technology. It's pretty clear that investors know that the organisational transformation is underway - driven by AI innovation which is changing the nature of almost every job.

 

What can we learn from where the investment is going?

 

- Volume of VC investment in H1 2025

- How does this compare to 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020?

- Breakdown of investment: regional, sectoral, company size

- Categories securing most / least investment interest

- Update on M&A activity so far in 2025 - who has bought what / when

- Vendor updates - who is launching what

- Microsoft / LinkedIn / Indeed - what are they doing?

- Projections for H2 2025 - where do we end up?

- What does this all mean for recruiters?

 

All this and more, with Brainfood Live On Air.

 

We're with George LaRoque, Founder (WorkTech), Madeline Laurano, Founder (Aptitude Research) & friends

 

We are on Friday 6th June, 2pm BST

 

Register by clicking the green button and follow the channel here (recommended)

 

 

Ep311 is sponsored by our friends at Scotty AI

 

Scotty AI creates multi-agent systems, that speak with humans and other agents, use software solutions and operate across all communication channels, to automate cognitive labour!

 

Scotty AI can help recruiters achieve the hiring efficiency demanded for AI-first organisations. Some of our best use cases are from employers who have deployed Scotty to transform how they hire.

 

Want to know more? Book a demo and see how Scotty AI works first hand

HIRING EFFICIENCY: HOW AGENCIES, RPO'S AND IN-HOUSE USE AI / AUTOMATION

 

Agencies, RPO's and In-house - we're all recruiters at heart but we too often end up self siloing in order to create safe spaces, which whilst necessary, can also lead to a slow down in knowledge transfer across party lines.

 

Lets use this week's Brainfood Live to find out if we can break down some of these barriers

 

- How are recruitment agencies using AI / Automation?

- Is AI transforming how business development is performed?

- Where is AI / Automation in customer retention and up selling?

- How are agencies using AI when it comes to interfacing with candidates?

- Are we seeing any proctoring / ID verification performed by 3rd party recruiters?

- How can technology help SME staffing firms differentiate?

- Has anyone figured out how to actually mobilise the whole store of collected candidate data?

- How do 3rd parties interact with customers when using technology?

- How do we navigate governance and compliance when agencies, RPO and in-house each use different technology stacks?

- Do we have embedded staff working within stack with in-house?

- How is AI changing the skills recruiters need?

- What impact as AI had on how we staff up staffing agencies?

 

All this and more, with Brainfood Live On Air.

 

We're with Neil Ray, CEO (Livero), Louise Triance, Founder (UK Recruiter), James Osbourne, Founder (The Recruitment Network), Rob White, MD (Redimeer) & friends

 

We are on Friday 30th May, 2pm BST

 

Register by clicking the green button and follow the channel here (recommended)

 

 

Ep310 is sponsored by our friends at Hire

 

Hire.inc is an AI-powered recruitment platform that streamlines hiring with advanced AI sourcing agents, automated AI interview notes, bulk resume screening, and a collaborative ATS. Designed for startups & staffing agencies, Hire.inc helps recruitment teams find, evaluate, and engage top talent faster while integrating into existing workflows.

 

Question for all recruiters: how much is your time worth??

 

Answer: a lot more than you think

 

Demo and try for free here

CHIEF OF STAFF - WTF IS THIS ROLE (and can TA / HR do it?)

 

Chief of STAFF? Sounds like it should be a role which falls into the People Org so its weird that such a senior position so often appears elsewhere ;-) What is the Chief of Staff role, how does it differ from CHRO / Head of HR / EA ....and is it a good idea to have one in your organisation?

 

- Wtf is Chief of Staff? Can we outline what it definitely is or isn't

- History of the role, why is it in politics and governance, but not always in corporate?

- What is the main value CoS delivers to the business?

- What kind of organisation is most suitable for a CoS position?

- Are there any sectors where this appears most?

- Job design CoS

- What is the reporting line, what are the direct reports, which are the main stakeholders?

- Who does CoS butt heads with most?

- What skills most appropriate for CoS? What attributes?

- If TA / HR want to do the role, what things have to change?

- Hiring for CoS - best source sites, assessment techniques, EVP pitches

- Career path to and from ...is there any?

- Great things about the job / terrible things about the job?

- Recommendations for wannabe CoS

 

We're with Evan Gusev, Chief of Staff (Pleo), Ben Craig, Chief of Staff (Miro), Teddy Owen, Head of Growth (Autoblocks), Christine Ng, Head of Talent & People (Quantum Motion), Alex Ashford, Chief of Staff (Continuum) & friends

 

We are on Friday 23rd May, 2pm BST

 

Register by clicking the green button and follow the channel here (recommended)

 

 

Ep309 is sponsored by our friends at Teamtailor

 

Great teams start with great hiring — and that’s exactly what Teamtailor is built for.

 

Loved by companies like Happy Socks, OneFlow, Oatly, and Five Guys, Teamtailor is the all-in-one recruitment platform trusted by over 10,000 businesses and 150,000 recruiters worldwide. It combines a powerful ATS with fully customizable, AI-powered tools to elevate your employer brand and deliver a standout candidate experience.

 

From career sites to collaboration workflows, Teamtailor helps talent teams move faster, work smarter, and create hiring journeys that people actually enjoy — candidates and hiring managers alike.

 

→ See how top teams are hiring better with Teamtailor: Experience the magic today!

HIRING MANAGER SELF SERVE - THE PAST AND FUTURE OF RECRUITMENT?

 

It was also the Past of Recruitment - where hiring managers were doing most of the work in hiring for their teams, everything from putting up adverts in shop windows, handling the first enquiries, reviewing CV's, screening candidates, scheduling interviews, interviewing candidates and then offering / hiring said candidates. Perhaps Personnel got involved in the contracts of employment, but 'recruitment' was once handled entirely by the line.

 

Could it be that this model returns, as AI improves to such an extent that a centralised TA function may not be the most optimal model?

 

Lets explore how some companies have shifted from centralised TA to empowering hiring managers to do more of the hiring work

 

- What conditions best suit centralised vs decentralised TA teams?

- Pro's / Cons of decentralised vs centralised

- What degree of hiring maturity is required for hiring manager self serve?

- Retail franchises are the obvious business type for this model: which others?

- How to avoid hiring managers bad practice in hiring?

- Bias mitigation - realistic in HM?

- How to ensure QoH in decentralised model?

- What tools are best suited for this model

- How does AI support hiring manager self serve?

- What role does a recruiter continue to play in such a set up?

- How can a business improve its hiring capability if we go hiring manager self serve?

- What are the top things to remember if you are planning to making this shift?

 

We're with Martin Warren, TA Leader (ex-Grab), Lyndsey Taylor, Head of HR Transformation (Brooks Automation) & friends

 

We are on Friday 16th May, 2pm BST

 

Register by clicking the green button and follow the channel here (recommended)

 

 

 

 

Ep300 is sponsored by our friends at Ashby

 

Ashby is what an ATS should be: an integration of sourcing automation, AI-supported outreach sequencing, native interview scheduling, a searchable CRM, and advanced analytics – all in one ATS++ system. That means better data, less context switching, and more streamlined workflows.

Chosen by over a thousand companies, including Quora, Docker, Ironclad, and Multiverse, Ashby stands out as the top-rated ATS on G2. It is renowned for its real-time and reliable reporting, the ability to centralize the entire hiring process, and unparalleled customer support.

 

Talent Trends Reports are freely available: Download the latest here

HOW TO BUILD CAREER PAGES WHICH ACTUALLY WORK

 

One of the biggest mistakes in Talent Attraction is failure to maximise conversion from attention you've already captured! The people who visit your career page are ALREADY declaring interesting in working for your business and you need to have a digital property there that underlines your EVP, helps both self select in/out and makes it easy for the right candidates to enter into the recruiting process.

 

What do know today about building a career page that does all of these things?

 

- What does a great career page look like - can we have examples?

- 2025: what basic elements must a career page today?

- What are some basic errors to avoid on career pages?

- Images: how to use this - stock, real, AI generated - what are the pros and cons?

- How do we communicate EVP?

- What do we do when company brand vs employer brand are divergent?

- What do we do if we want to create an inclusive message, even though we might not be demographically diverse?

- How AI is too much AI - on copy, image, video?

- Humour: do we use this?

- What is the right degree of friction on apply?

- How does this thing look on mobile?

- Integration with CRM / ATS

- Who is control of this - Recruitment Marketing if it exists, but TA vs Marketing if it does not?

- What are the most common pitfalls in career page design?

- How to handle it when your audience is multiplication?

 

All this and more as we talk brainfood live. We are on Thursday 15th May, 2pm BST with Bas van de Haterd, Author (Talent Acquisition Excellence), Charu Malhotra, Head of Talent Attraction (ex-PA Consulting, McKinsey & Co, Koos Wurzer, Global Director Talent Acquisition and Employer Branding (Danone)

 

Register by clicking the green button and follow the channel here (recommended)

 

 

 

Ep308 is sponsored by our friends at Teamtailor

 

 

Great teams start with great hiring — and that’s exactly what Teamtailor is built for.

 

Loved by companies like Happy Socks, OneFlow, Oatly, and Five Guys, Teamtailor is the all-in-one recruitment platform trusted by over 10,000 businesses and 150,000 recruiters worldwide. It combines a powerful ATS with fully customizable, AI-powered tools to elevate your employer brand and deliver a standout candidate experience.

 

From career sites to collaboration workflows, Teamtailor helps talent teams move faster, work smarter, and create hiring journeys that people actually enjoy — candidates and hiring managers alike.

 

→ See how top teams are hiring better with Teamtailor: Experience the magic today!

RECRUITING REIMAGINED IN THE AI ERA

 

Friends, we have a special Brainfood Live to kick off the week! Continuing our series of profiling innovative AI solutions in the recruitment space, we have none other than Hari Srinivasan, VP of Product at LinkedIn, joining the show on May 12th to talk about LinkedIn’s AI hiring tools for recruiters!

 

Including LinkedIn’s first generative AI hiring experience, Recruiter, and the launch of its first AI agent, Hiring Assistant.

 

Hear directly from Hari about how LinkedIn is reimagining candidate search and hiring with AI, early feedback on the hiring tools, and why this new tech will help usher a new era of recruiting—that will help recruiters focus on their most impactful work

 

Register have clicking on the green button and the channel here (recommended) for future updates.

TRANSITIONING TO CV FREE HIRING

 

The CV has been around for maybe even longer than recruiting itself become a distinct profession, so are we destined to forever have a document like this in our hiring process? What does it look like if we can remove the CV - does it thicken our pipeline, improve it or make it even harder to handle or process?

 

Lets have a chat with TA leaders who have made the shift to CV Free Hiring and see if we can learn how they did it, what they learned and what they would recommend to others contemplating the same.

 

- Why CV Free Hiring?

- How does this argument translate into the business case?

- What types of scenario is optimal for CV Free Hiring?

- What kind of roles are most suitable for it?

- Conversely, what scenarios / roles are NOT suitable for CV free hiring?

- Change management: what were the expected outcomes of shifting to CV free hiring?

- What challenges can TA Leaders expect to encounter?

- How did you handle them?

- What did the recruitment team think of CV free hiring?

- What TA strategies are eliminated by going CV Free hiring - presumably, sourcing?

- Short / Medium / Long term outcomes of the shift

- CX impact?

 

All this and more as we tackle an issue whose moment may be now!

 

 

We are on Friday 9th May, 2pm BST with Jessie Schofer, Founder (Stakked), Matthias Schmeisser, VP People & Operations (Emnify), Tony McCaffery, Founder (Diversity Scotland) & Kare Heward, Talent Acquisition Manager (QVC)

 

Register by clicking the green button and follow the channel here (recommended)

 

 

 

Ep306 is sponsored by our friends at Willo

 

 

Recruiting for high-volume positions in a global, diverse workforce is increasingly challenging, especially when relying on traditional methods and the limitations of written CVs. Managing thousands of applications manually is not only exhausting and inefficient, it can also prevent you from finding the top talent your organization needs to thrive.

 

Enter Willo. The award-winning team is transforming the hiring process with a dynamic candidate screening solution that users love, backed by an NPS score to prove it!

 

Their web-based, human-centric platform enables candidates to record responses to a predefined set of questions at their convenience. With over 5,000 secure integrations, Willo makes it easy to supercharge your recruitment process, reduce bias, and support diversity, equity, and inclusion goals—all while helping you tap into a larger, more exciting pool of global candidates.

 

Book a demo at willo.video this month to get 10% off—just use the coupon code "brainfood”. That's W-i-l-l-o dot video.

AI REGULATIONS IN TA & HR: 2025 Q2 UPDATE!

 

2025 has been the year of AI innovation in recruitment technology.

 

There hasn't been a serious recruitment tech vendor hasn't infused their product with AI, and more than a few are moving toward to next step with Agentic or Agent-like AI now taking on significant chunks of the recruiter / hr workload.

 

Time is perfect for us to update on our understanding of AI regulations in the US, UK and EU!

 

- What is the latest with AI regulations across different territories?

- Is the EU getting rid of GDPR, and if so, what does this signal?

- What technology innovations are clearly within compliance?

- Which are clearly outside?

- Which are somewhere in the middle?

- Humans in the loop: is this ethics or legislation at this point?

- Cyber security...what is best practice, what is legal / illegal?

- DOGE and AI....how legal is this??

- If law is broken by government, what does this mean for corporations and individuals?

- Has anyone been sued for breaches of AI usage yet?

- What is the current guidance we can give to vendors and buyers on the usage of AI?

 

We're with Jess Schofer, Founder (Stakked) , Dan Gallagher, Disrupt HR AI Advocate (Avanade), Martyn Redstone, Founder (genAssess), Bob Pulver, Founder (Elevate Your AIQ), Andrew Gadomski, Founder, (Aspen Analytics) & friends

 

We are on Friday 2nd May, 2pm BST

 

Register by clicking the green button and follow the channel here (recommended)

 

 

Ep305 is sponsored by our friends at Greenhouse

 

Greenhouse is sponsoring HR Technologies on April 23–24, 2025 at ExCeL London. Swing by stand CC14 to see how an all-in-one hiring platform simplifies and streamlines every step of the hiring process. Also, don't miss an insightful speaker session on April 24 with Nkem Nwankwo from Greenhouse and Chris Lees from Monzo Bank, as they dive into how AI is shaping both recruiter efficiency and candidate experience. Finally wind down your day with Greenhouse and Lattice on 23 April at 4 pm for a happy hour with refreshing drinks, great company and even better conversations.

 

Register here

MITIGATION STRATEGIES VS FAKE JOB CANDIDATES

 

Reports of fraudulent job applications are on the rise. A globalised internet, universal job insecurity and the reduction of friction provided by technology innovation from EasyApply to AI-powered mass personalisation, is a producing a perfect storm which is overwhelming recruitment teams.

 

As these trends accelerate, we can expect the volume and sophistication of fake job applications to likewise increase. Let's talk about the techniques job candidates are using and what counter measures employers are thinking about to ensure only authentic, honest candidates get through to process.

 

We will explore:

 

- What do we categorise as fraudulent?

- What types of candidate fraud can we describe?

- What is our current mechanism of mitigation?

- Detect or Deter?

- How do we ensure Candidate Experience, whilst protecting employers interests?

- Is the best way to change our talent attraction approach (i.e stop advertising) or can there be another solution?

- Using tech to fight agains tech

- What are the most fraud-proof assessment techniques

- How to balance between security vs efficiency?

- What skills does a recruiter need to be good at fraud mitigation?

- What do hiring managers needs to do to become good at fraud mitigation?

- What types of assessment are no longer viable?

- What are the long term implications for talent acquisition?

 

All this and more as we dive into the world of recruiting and the job search in 2025

 

We are on Friday 25th April, 2pm BST

 

Register by clicking the green button and follow the channel here (recommended)

 

 

 

Ep303 is sponsored by our friends at BrightHire

 

BrightHire is the leader in Interview Intelligence trusted by the world’s fastest growing companies: Canva, Ramp, Toast, Axon, Zapier, Vercel, Klaviyo, Rippling, Attentive, HighTouch, Groq, Navan, and 000s more.

Not just another note-taking tool, BrightHire’s end-to-end AI platform is transforming how our clients hire — delivering substantial hiring efficiency and consistently raising the bar on quality.

 

“BrightHire has elevated both the quality and speed of our hiring process” - Tony James, Talent Acquisition Partner at AlphaSense

 

Discover why market-leaders call BrightHire a game-changer for how they hire.

 

If you schedule a demo with our team next week, and mention Hung sent you, we’ll send you a $50 eGift.

Agentic AI in the Wild: Live Demo

 

Some of you might have noticed that whenever a recruitment software business promotes their Agentic AI, Brainfood is here to challenge them to do a live demo. So far no one has yet shirked the challenge, nor have their agents disappointed - we're beginning to understand that the generalist agent is likely be to an aspiration goal for business, but those that domain specific are going to be in with a chance to truly transform our approach to recruitment.

 

Next up is Recruitment job advertiser, VONQ

 

Under CEO Ritu Mohanka and CTO Bill Fischer, VONQ have been experimenting with Agentic AI with enterprise clients already using different agents to optimise their hiring across organisations. What does all this look like for us on the outside? We're going find out as VONQ live demo's the agents on this special Brainfood Live On Air.

 

We are on Thursday 17th April, 2pm BST

 

Register by clicking the green button and follow the channel here (recommended)

 

 

 

Ep302 is sponsored by our friends at VONQ

 

VONQ is transforming recruitment advertising with a results-driven platform that combines AI-driven technology, deep ATS integrations, and recruitment expertise.

 

Trusted by global leaders such as Danone, Bayer, Randstad, and PwC, we help employers attract, vet, and shortlist top-quality candidates efficiently. Our seamless integrations and real-time insights optimize hiring workflows, enhance employer branding, and drive measurable outcomes.

 

With VONQ, businesses can streamline their recruitment process, improve ROI, and build diverse, high-performing teams.