SHRM Talent 2026

Hiring has always involved a little deception. AI turned it into a completely different game. Philippe Beucher argues that recruiters now face a challenge they’ve never seen before: candidates using AI to optimize every part of the hiring process while companies race to figure out what’s real and what isn’t. The future of recruiting may depend on one question: can you still identify genuine talent...

Applying for a job has never been easier. Finding the right candidate has never felt harder. Tina Robinson argues that recruiters and candidates are trapped in an AI arms race where both sides keep adding technology and nobody seems happier with the outcome. The real challenge isn't AI. It's figuring out how to stay human while using it. Talent management, recruiting, AI adoption, leadership devel...

Most workplace learning is built around convenience, not science. Three-hour presentations. Endless slides. Mandatory training sessions nobody remembers. Marcy Baughman explains why education research has known for decades that these methods don't work and why companies keep using them anyway. The future of learning looks a lot more like practice than presentation. Learning science, workforce deve...

The best recruiting teams don’t fill jobs faster. They help businesses make better decisions. Paul Norman explains why too many recruiters are still measured by recruiting metrics while business leaders care about entirely different outcomes. That disconnect is costing companies more than they realize. Talent acquisition, business alignment, workforce planning, AI adoption, talent management, recr...

The recruiting funnel is overflowing, but confidence is disappearing. Mike Peditto explains why recruiters are battling fraud candidates, AI-generated applications, and record inbound volume while trying to figure out who’s actually qualified and who’s just good at gaming the process. The best recruiters aren’t screening people out. They’re finding better ways to screen people in. Recruiting, AI a...

Companies say there’s a talent shortage while millions of people are looking for work. Jim Stroud breaks down the disconnect sitting underneath modern hiring and why recruiting teams are struggling to match the right people to the right opportunities even with more technology than ever. Everybody’s obsessing over AI. Jim thinks the bigger workforce crisis is already here. Recruiting, AI adoption,...

Most companies are still treating branding like a billboard problem while their employees are becoming media channels overnight. Roy Abdo explains why polished corporate messaging is losing to authentic storytelling and why executives who stay silent are getting outperformed by people with less expertise but more visibility. The real shift is simple: people trust people more than brands. Executive...

AI was supposed to fix recruiting. Instead, it made every resume look the same. That’s the mess recruiters are dealing with right now. More automation. More applications. More noise. And somehow less signal. The old recruiting playbook is breaking fast. In this episode, Robb Lifferth explains why AI is flooding recruiting with bad data, why job boards are losing value, and why recruiters now have...

“How’s it going?” might be the most expensive question managers ask. Joe Rotella argues that vague conversations create vague performance. Employees leave one-on-ones frustrated, managers leave without clarity, and nothing actually moves forward. The problem isn’t performance reviews. It’s everything that happens between them. Performance management, leadership, coaching, employee engagement, feed...

Most leaders spend more time asking why employees leave than why they stay. Njsane Courtney argues that’s backwards. The answers companies need are already sitting inside the organization. They just aren’t asking the right questions often enough. Retention isn’t a compensation problem as often as leaders think. Talent management, employee retention, AI adoption, leadership, recruiting, stay interv...

Too many leaders are managing a 2026 workforce with lessons they learned in 2006. Krishna Powell argues that the biggest leadership challenge today isn’t attracting talent. It’s understanding, developing, and deploying the talent you already have before it walks out the door. The workforce changed. Most leadership habits didn’t. Leadership, multigenerational teams, talent management, AI adoption,...

Resumes have never been perfect. AI just made the problem harder to ignore. Philip Nash argues that companies are spending too much time chasing credentials and not enough time evaluating character, coachability, and the human skills that actually drive long-term success. The future of hiring may be less about what people know today and more about what they can become tomorrow. Talent management,...

Most recruiting teams are hitting their metrics and still getting told they’re failing. Tim Sackett argues that’s because the metric everyone tracks most obsessively might be the one that matters least. Faster hiring doesn’t automatically mean better hiring. The future of recruiting isn’t speed. It’s trust, responsiveness, and human connection. Recruiting, candidate experience, AI adoption, workfo...

Most companies spend years perfecting recruiting and almost no time thinking about offboarding. Sarah Rodehorst argues that’s a massive mistake. The way employees leave a company can strengthen your employer brand or quietly destroy it from the inside out. Culture isn’t measured during the good times. It’s revealed during the hard ones. Talent management, employer brand, employee experience, reten...

Most companies obsess over attracting talent and spend far less time thinking about what happens next. Chad Sorenson argues that real talent management starts before someone joins and continues long after they leave. The companies that understand that are building stronger brands, stronger cultures, and stronger talent pipelines. AI is changing recruiting fast, but people still want to work for or...

Ask ten HR leaders about AI adoption and you’ll get ten different answers. Cole Napper argues that most AI conversations are broken because people are talking about completely different things. Personal AI tools. Vendor AI features. Enterprise AI systems. Same words. Different realities. The gap isn’t technology. It’s understanding. AI adoption, people analytics, workforce intelligence, recruiting...

Every candidate suddenly sounds polished. Every resume looks optimized. Every interview answer feels rehearsed. Isela Conley breaks down what hiring leaders are quietly struggling with right now: figuring out who actually knows the job versus who just knows how to use AI better. Recruiting isn’t getting easier with AI. It’s getting noisier. Quality of hire, candidate experience, hiring managers, A...

The days of “trust us, we investigated it” are over. Jackie Schafer explains why HR teams are facing increasing pressure to document decisions, prove fairness, and back every conclusion with evidence. In a world of growing compliance scrutiny, good intentions are no longer enough. The future of HR may look a lot more like legal work than people expect. Employee relations, investigations, complianc...

Most organizations are still measuring the wrong things. They hire for today’s job description while the role changes six months later. Art Jackson argues the companies winning the talent game aren’t looking for perfect resumes. They’re identifying the people who can adapt, learn, lead, and grow into what comes next. The problem isn’t talent. It’s what we choose to measure. Soft skills, workforce...

AI adoption isn’t failing because of technology. It’s failing because companies still don’t know what problem they’re solving. Every HR platform suddenly has “AI” slapped on the homepage. Meanwhile buyers are stuck asking the real questions: Is this secure? Is this ethical? And is my company data quietly training someone else’s model? In this episode, Amit Parmar breaks down why AI adoption in HR...

Most companies still hire for resumes. Meanwhile the real gap is human judgment, AI fluency, adaptability, and leadership under pressure. That’s the shift Yigal Rosen is betting on. If your people can’t learn fast, manage ambiguity, or work alongside AI, the skills on paper stop mattering real quick. In this episode, Yigal Rosen breaks down why “soft skills” is outdated language, how companies sho...

Everybody talks about productivity. Almost nobody talks about maintenance. Jim Giovannini dropped one of the simplest frameworks for leadership burnout we’ve heard in a long time: PIES. Physical. Intellectual. Emotional. Spiritual. Miss one long enough and eventually the whole system cracks. Most leadership programs still feel copy-pasted and lifeless. Jim argues companies are over-automating deve...

Every Resume Looks the Same Now. That’s the real hiring crisis. Not talent shortages. Not AI. Just recruiters drowning in identical applications while trying to make million-dollar hiring decisions with gut instinct and keyword matching. Hiring got noisy fast. AI-generated resumes. Mass applications. Skills inflation. Taylor Genderon breaks down why recruiting teams are losing signal at the top of...

Most people wait to “feel ready.” That’s why they stay stuck. Jaylin Williams breaks down why discipline wins, why leaders are built through routine, and why relocation is way more personal than companies think. One bad relocation can wreck a family’s rhythm. One honest coach can change a career. That’s the thread through this conversation: people don’t need hype. They need structure, honesty, and...

The hiring market isn’t broken. Communication is. Pete Schramm breaks down why candidates disappear, why recruiters lose trust fast, and how most companies still make hiring way harder than it needs to be. Most hiring problems are self-inflicted. Candidates apply to 200 jobs and hear back from almost nobody. Recruiters lose attention in minutes. Vendors all look the same. Pete cuts through the noi...