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Friends,
I’m going to be the United States for the next 10 days from 24th August to the 4th September. Here’s the itinerary - let me know if you’re around in any of these places and want to meet up - either at one of these events or in something we otherwise set up - I’m game for anything 👊
Aug 25-27th - GoodTime Moment 2026
Evening Aug 27th - Textio Talent Leaders Dinner at The Cavalier
Aug 28th - Happy Hour with Endorsed at Southern Pacific Brewing
Aug 29th-31st - I’m in Chicago, wandering around. Tips anybody?
2nd Sept - Maki Talent Leaders Dinner at Essential by Christophe
3rd Sept - Happy Hour with Maki at ILA Penthouse
We’re at capacity for some of these but register and get on the waitlist - they are going to be late drops, in which case first in queue will get first option to come. See you there!
Thanks to: Steven Davis, Kevin Green, Colin Donnery, Dave Hazlehurst, John Bersentes, Elizabeth Murphy, Bas van de Haterd, Somer Hackley, Sarah White, Adam Gordon, Rob Walker, Jamie Leonard and Manjuri Sinha - your support on all things brainfood is what is keeping this show on the road. Cheers!
Can you help? Share this newsletter with a friend in industry and have them subscribe.
Looks like overwhelming support for BUPA’s CEO from the brainfood community here…🤣. Seriously, how else are we to get to know what a person is really like, other than see them in action, at close quarters, ideally over extended period of time? Lots of things we can assess in a more scalable way, but lots, we cannot. Thanks for all who voted in the poll!
In and amongst all the events listed in intro, there are of course a continuation of Brainfood Live unabated throughout. Three shows for you to take an interest in over the next 10 days
In Conversation with John Vlastelica - Fri 28th August 10am PT / 1pm ET. John is one of those in our industry who really does not need any appellation - he’s been one of the best thinker-doers in our business for the past three decades. Diving in with a 1-2-1 chat on how John see’s the present and future of Talent Acquisition. Register here
AI in Talent Acquisition: The Four Week Implementation (Case study with Jerome LeClerq, Director of Talent, Wise) - Wed 2nd Sept 2pm BST. One of the main challenges with AI in TA is switching costs from legacy to AI-enabled process. Yet some companies have radically changed workflow in under 4 weeks; how have they done it, what did they learn, how can you do the same? Register here
EU AI Act now in Force: What Does this Mean for Recruiters? Fri 4th Sept, 2pm BST. We’re already here folks and judging be early interest in this show, pretty clear that we in TA / HR really need to quickly get up to speed. We’re together with Martyn Redstone, Natalie Farmer & Alexandra Davoli. Register here.
It’s sadly a rare sight to see brainfooder Matt Charney up on stage, so you got to take what you get when you get it. This slide deck from a recent talk of his was shared online and thankfully it is designed to be read, as well as delivered. It’s a brilliantly structured overview of the state of talent acquisition, with some decent speculations as to what our future direction might be. I don’t agree with all of this so I look forward to seeing Matt in person at dinner on the 27th and debate some of my questions 🤣. Might also be a good opportunity for you, if you have any questions that you want me to put to Matt, then DM me or comment below.
TALENT OPERATIONS
I remember once upon a time that brainfooder Johnny Campbell and his team at Social Talent mapped all of the steps involved in the Talent Acquisition process; here he is reviewing that work through the lens of ‘what remains non-negotiably human’. Important exercise, one which all Talent Acquisition functions should be doing right now. Must read.
TALENT OPERATIONS
What you didn’t know you needed in your life was a 3D atlas of all the AI models, and how they are all variably related to each other, so here you go.
AI
It wasn’t so long ago that the consensus was that physical labour would be the first to be displaced by technology; instead, it is the cognitive labour of some of the smartest people humanity can produce which are being outcompeted by software which can process exponentially more data, discover the hidden patterns and achieve genuine breakthroughs which have defeated the human mind. Genius mathematician gives up on the career he loved, because AI can do it better.
FUTURE OF WORK
There is no way you can do a list like this objectively but its not useless to have your CEO listed up there like this. AI is going to ingest it for a start, and from there all kinds of amplification and validation might ensue. It probably pays to have an EB plan for your CEO - anyone in this community thinking along these lines?
EMPLOYER BRANDING
I’ve said before that X is a hellscape but you do get enough cool threads (ahem) on there to make it worthwhile to stay on platform. This how-to on LinkedIn is directed at founders, but can be used by anybody who wants to boost their reach, engagement and profile. Obviously useful for recruiters, and also for recruiter’s looking for work. Give some of the techniques here a go and let me know how you go.
PERSONAL BRANDING
Smart commentary on short form video, delivering a punchline aligned to your core business? Winning piece of marketing here by talent market place Orbi. Have a watch and a laugh. H/T to brainfooder Zichuan Lim for the share.
EMPLOYER BRANDING
Sometimes charts get published that have mega meme potential; this is one of those, from a paper which tracked the homework + exam performance of school age children w/ and w/o using AI. Homework scores improved, but exam performance crashed for those who were users. Need to know more about how they did the control group, but research like this underlines what we all already suspect; AI impacts our cognitive capability, even as it might unequivocally improve our output. Economist article here, download the full paper here.
AI
Brainfooder Chris Long is doing some fantastic work - he’s way out ahead of the field when it comes to thinking about HR Tech, the future of ‘headless software’ and what this is going to mean for TA / HR. We need to get a grip of this because the next big technology decisions we’re going to make are going to shape the human organisations around it. If you don’t know what Model Context Protocol is, you need to read this.
AI
Fascinating breakdown of the Pubic Sector recruitment market in the UK, where opportunities in public healthcare and local government recruitment are mapped against the leading suppliers of services. Only a snapshot of the market intelligence that Tussell can offer - if I had this sort of intelligence back in my day, I would have made x10 what I actually did. Must read for anyone interested in the staffing agency market, and in public sector recruitment in the UK.
ECONOMY
Is brainfooder Toby Culshaw ‘Mr Talent Intelligence’? His interview here with fellow brainfooder Johnny Campbell might be evidence that he is - fantastic conversation which serves as a part history of TI, part consultancy on how to do TI well. Must listen folks.
TALENT INTELLIGENCE
I think I saw this panel discussion live at the We Are Developers World Congress 2026 a few months ago. It turns out all the talks are freely available on the website - an incredible resource which I urge you all to dive into. This one, on the restructuring of the org chart following the arrival of AI in the workforce is a good sample. H/T to brainfooder Juliana Park for the share.
CULTURE
This interview ends up being a cameo case study of the Chinese labs building the best open source models - DeepSeek, MoonShot, Z.ai, MiniMax, Bytedance and the rest. Some recruiting chat here, with the key theme of both DeepSeek and MoonShot being a focus on small teams of super talented - and super young, academic high flyers. Interesting and educational interview with VC Xing Meng, Partner at VC 5Y Capital.
CULTURE
Probably the post of the week was the report on impact of Gen AI on the school kids exam results. If the findings replicate, then the implications are profound - we may secure the productivity gains alright but pay the price in losing the reps required to build fundamental capability. Question for this week - as a Talent person, are you concerned about ‘skills fade’ brought about by increasing dependence on AI?
That’s it - thanks for reading
Have a great week everybody
Hung
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