Talent Hunters

Everyone says they want "top talent." But most recruiters look for it in all the same places. The same résumés, the same titles, the same predictable career paths. And now, with LinkedIn doing most of the heavy lifting, many recruiters have forgotten how to actually recruit. They inbox, keyword search, and wait for the algorithm to serve up the same recycled profiles, and then wonder why their pla...

In manufacturing, people are always talking about innovation. But very often, the focus on automation, robotics, and AI leaves out the real key to performance and progress.  The frontline workers who make everything run. For decades, the frontline workforce has been managed like machinery: interchangeable, replaceable, and measured only in hours worked or units produced.  But if you've ever walked...

Businesses everywhere are facing the same challenge: trying to meet financial goals, production goals, and staffing needs, all at once. Budgets are tightening, teams are shrinking, and hiring has become a constant uphill climb. The pressure to "do more with less" isn't just a slogan anymore, it's reality for nearly every organization. That's the landscape where a new partnership between HPS, a 75-...

Public health is one of the most misunderstood fields in the job market. It's full of people who quietly hold entire communities together, designing prevention programs, managing data, and saving lives. Yet they're often underpaid, overlooked, and invisible to recruiters. The irony is that the very professionals trained to serve others often struggle to advocate for themselves.  They're taught to...

  Companies constantly talk about hiring and supporting veterans. While that sounds patriotic and well-intentioned, they often miss the mark on execution.  Recruiting campaigns, hiring pledges, and onboarding slide decks look good on paper, yet the results are sobering: too many veteran hires fail.  It's not because they can't lead, it's because both sides underestimate the culture shock of the tr...

A successful acquisition takes place when an organization that sees something special to invest in meets a company that will be propelled further through a partnership. It's a perfect marriage allowing both sides to achieve more together than they would separately. This is what HireQuest looks for when they're looking to acquire a business. It's not about money - in a people-facing service-based i...

In healthcare, hiring used to be about credentials and clinical experience. Post-pandemic, it became a desperate race to fill open shifts. Care delivery has exploded beyond hospital walls. It's expanded into outpatient clinics, rural settings, and even tech-driven virtual care. The problem is, healthcare workforce pipelines haven't caught up to this change.  If we don't radically re-engineer how w...

Contract staffing used to mean plugging holes; covering maternity leaves, bridging gaps until a full-time hire came on board, or filling in while HR caught up.  But in today's economy, it's something very different. In a world that has grown comfortable with gig work and fractional talent, contract staffing has become a strategic weapon.  The rise of the gig economy normalized the idea that not ev...

Today's recruiting landscape is full of challenges, hurdles, and hiccups. Tariffs are squeezing certain sectors. AI has brought change to the industry. Economic uncertainty is making candidates hesitant to move. Hiring managers are harder to reach.  And when business does come in, it's often from existing relationships, leaving you wondering how to keep your pipeline alive when the phone stops rin...

Smart factories, where machines that think enable the manufacturing process, aren't science fiction anymore. They are already here. AI-powered smart factories are transforming how rockets are built, hiring decisions are made, and how manufacturing lines adapt in real time. As this tech accelerates, it's easy to ask what this means for humans. Will humans be eliminated from the manufacturing proces...

The resume gap…it used to feel like it spelled the end of a career, but that's not true, especially now.  We're living in a time when career gaps (once seen as red flags) are becoming part of the new professional norm. Whether it's stepping away to raise a family, navigating layoffs, or hitting pause for personal growth. The question isn't whether you've had a break, it's how you tell the story of...

If technology's impact on the sales profession was up for debate before, 2020 turned the dial all the way up. The digital transformation that was already in motion accelerated at lightning speed during the pandemic. Now, salespeople face a new challenge: making sure screen time doesn't become a barrier to the face time that drives success. Technology can make us more efficient, but it will never m...

Most people think sales is all about getting deals and hitting targets. That mindset misses a much bigger opportunity. The fact is: even the best salesperson won't win every deal, that's just the nature of the game. But what if you could lose the deal and still win the relationship? What if you could deliver value even when someone chooses not to work with you? When we shift from chasing transacti...

Most people think tech jobs are just about building complex systems, but that's only scratching the surface. Technology doesn't exist for its own sake. It exists to solve real problems for real people and companies. At its core, working in tech means standing at the intersection of two worlds: the product and the business, the hard technical skills and the soft human ones. The challenge? That inte...

If you ask five recruiters what they think of AI, you'll get five different answers, ranging from "total game-changer" to "the end of the profession." The truth is somewhere in the middle. AI isn't a magic button, and it's not a death sentence. It's the perfect tool for subject matter experts who want to cut out the busy work and spend more time where they truly add value.  That makes it a natural...

If you've ever bought something on Amazon with one click, you've seen embedded payments in action. But that same seamless experience is now making waves in the B2B world.  And it's changing how money moves between businesses and how fintechs and banks collaborate. As organizations modernize operations, they're looking for talent that can not only keep up but lead the charge.  They need people who...

For most of the workforce, the chaos, uncertainty, and intensity of COVID are in the rearview mirror.  But for the healthcare workforce and hospital systems, it's still very much the present.  Not only has the sector struggled to recover from the effects of the pandemic, but in many ways, working conditions have worsened. From unsustainable hours to shrinking margins, the human toll has been immen...

Week after week on Talent Hunters , our host Vince Holt has brought out powerful insights from guests across every corner of the business. From former governors to top-tier doctors and seasoned recruiters. But today, we're switching things up. Vince is stepping out of the host's chair and into the spotlight. With over 35 years in the recruiting industry, what does he believe is the key to long-ter...

Most doctors and nurses didn't choose medicine for the money. They chose it to make a difference. But for many, that purpose feels out of reach. Declining working conditions. Long hours. System friction. Eroding efficiency. Burnout. Too many patients, not enough providers.  It's turning a calling into a transaction. As older healthcare workers retire and fewer new professionals enter the field, th...

One of the biggest trends we've seen in the working world recently is the rise of the Boomerang Boomer—retirees returning to the workforce.  There are many factors driving this trend, and while financial necessity might seem like the obvious reason, it's not the only motivator. Human beings are relationship-forming animals. We're actually driven by purpose, community, and learning, not just money....

America's healthcare system is nothing short of remarkable. We have cutting-edge technology that lets us diagnose conditions we couldn't detect before, treat illnesses that were once considered untreatable, perform groundbreaking procedures, and even scan and edit DNA. But there's a catch. These incredible advancements come at a high cost, and that's led us to a major issue: skyrocketing healthcar...

In a sales-driven industry like recruiting, making decisions based on data and analytics is critical. You can't truly improve a process if you're not measuring it. The problem is, many organizations rely on gut-feel decision-making, and unfortunately, they end up winging it. On a gut-feel level, our prospecting pipeline might look good to us, but drilling down into the data shows us how well we're...

Over the last decade, the way people hire and apply for jobs has changed significantly. We've gone from paper resumes and applying in person, to digital resumes and virtual hiring processes.  Recruiters and hiring authorities used to be able to talk to every candidate, now candidates are lucky to even get a reply. At the heart of much of the change is the fact that we're dealing with a lot more di...

The past decade has seen a major drive to get more people into STEM careers. The main challenge in expanding the STEM workforce isn't a lack of interest; it's the way STEM is portrayed. Many people see it as an exclusive field, accessible only to a select few. But in reality, STEM is all around us, embedded in almost every job and industry.  The key to building our future STEM workforce? Showing p...

In 2023, cybersecurity is a $202 billion industry with hundreds of thousands of jobs. It's hard to imagine that it was once a fledgling sector, but back in 2009 when Al Lerberg chose it, that's exactly what it was.  "Up and coming" was how cybersecurity was once described. Today, it's a dominant, mainstream niche that shows no signs of slowing down, especially when it comes to jobs. Al saw that ea...