You Should Know

Strong communication isn't about using bigger words or speaking perfect English. It's about making ideas clear, building trust, and creating connections across cultures. In a world where teams span countries and time zones, the ability to communicate with confidence and clarity has become one of the most valuable professional skills anyone can develop. In this episode, you'll learn why confidence...

Most employees hear the word “assessment” and immediately think of being judged. Kian Katanforoosh thinks that mindset is outdated. The future isn’t about screening people out. It’s about measuring skills, accelerating learning, and helping people prove what they can actually do. The biggest workforce advantage may not be talent. It may be learning velocity. Skills intelligence, AI readiness, work...

Most people spend years trying to find the perfect career fit. Sarabeth Bickerton thinks that’s the wrong goal. The real problem isn’t fit. It’s belonging. People don’t want to be squeezed into someone else’s box. They want to be seen, known, and valued for who they actually are. The workforce is obsessed with skills and titles while people are searching for identity. Career belonging, professiona...

Only 6% of businesses in Ireland have deployed AI at scale. That’s the wake-up call. This conversation cuts through the AI cosplay and gets real about skills-based hiring, HR transformation, employee trust, governance, automation, and what happens when agents start doing half the work faster than your best ops team. In this episode… Stephanie explains why most companies are stuck in pilot mode, wh...

Most companies say they hire for skill. Carlton Gates says that’s nonsense. From AI screening tools to culture-fit traps, this episode breaks down why recruiting is still more gut instinct than science. Only 10 candidates get reviewed out of 1,000 applicants. AI is filtering your future before a human ever sees your name. Skills-based hiring, recruiting tech, candidate fraud, soft skills, hiring v...

Most companies say they want innovation. Then they build rooms where people are punished for thinking differently. Creativity isn’t rare. Suppressing it is. Josh Linkner connects innovation, leadership, psychology, and business through one brutal truth: most people stop sharing bold ideas because they’ve been trained to avoid mistakes. The result? Safe thinking, mediocre execution, and teams stuck...

The AI shift isn’t coming. It already hit payroll, hiring, benefits, and every broken HR process companies ignored for years. Most teams still think they have time. They don’t. 85% of companies say they’re adapting. Most are just playing with ChatGPT while the talent market, employee expectations, and AI adoption sprint past them. A sharp conversation with Amy Mosher on what HR leaders are getting...

You made it easy to apply. Now you’re buried. Bots, bad fits, fake signals. That’s the game. Recruiting, AI hiring, applicant volume, skills gap, and signal vs noise are colliding hard and most teams aren’t ready. In this episode… you’ll hear what AI is actually fixing, what it’s making worse, and how to spot real talent when everyone looks qualified on paper. Key Takeaways : Easy apply created a...

What if the candidate with the “messy” résumé is actually the one who ramps fastest? Rebecca Kehoe from Cornell University breaks down what HR gets wrong about job hopping, why onboarding matters more than most teams realize, and how performance, culture fit, and career transitions are more connected than we think. In this episode, Rebecca Kehoe shares research on how job hoppers often come up to...

In this episode, Oz Khan (Head of ADP Ventures) joins William Tincup and Ryan Leary to discuss the shifting landscape of HR Tech investing. Learn why the Series A definition has changed, how AI-native startups are disrupting traditional SaaS models, and the strategic logic behind Build vs. Buy decisions at the enterprise level. Episode Overview: Technology constantly changes the "wrapper," but the...

Internal mobility is one of the most misunderstood dynamics in modern organizations. JR Keller brings the empirical lens that most leaders never get. His research at Cornell University’s ILR School unpacks how hiring decisions are made, how managers balance team performance with talent development, and why employees often misinterpret the signals around opportunity. This episode moves past slogans...

Is your AI recruiting strategy actually working, or just scaling bad data? In this episode of WRKdefined, William Tincup and Ryan Leary sit down with Hari Kolam (Findem) and Maveric (Getro) to break down their landmark acquisition and what it means for the Future of Talent Acquisition. The Death of the Static Job Post: Why "intelligent outcomes" are replacing traditional hiring volume. What You’ll...

AI is moving quickly from experimentation to everyday use inside large organizations, especially when it comes to employee experience. Adoption alone is no longer the headline. What matters is whether people trust the technology, understand how it is being used, and can see real outcomes tied to that usage. At scale, those questions carry more weight and more risk. In this episode, the focus is on...

Hiring teams are surrounded by AI tools, but many still aren’t sure what’s actually helping and what’s just noise. The real tension right now isn’t whether AI belongs in hiring. It’s how it gets used, who understands it, and whether it’s improving outcomes or just increasing volume. In this episode, William Tincup sits down with Heidi Laki from Indeed to talk about what’s changing inside recruitin...

Why does the job search feel broken, and can AI actually fix it? In this episode of WRKdefined, William Tincup and Ryan Leary sit down with David Lane, VP of Product Management at Indeed, to pull back the curtain on how the world’s largest job site is using AI to fight "hiring anxiety" and ghosting. The Shift to Career Scout: How Indeed is moving from a static job board to an AI-guided career assi...

In this episode we talk about skills, healthcare talent, community hiring, psychometrics, and workforce equity. A major health system needed a new way to hire in a Chicago neighborhood where life expectancy was thirty years below the national average. Instead of waiting for candidates to come to them, they built Project Equinox and took Plum’s assessment tech straight into the community. What star...

In this episode we talk about frontline work, safety, AI agents, employee experience, and the tech strategy behind keeping 100,000 workers informed, supported, and confident on the job. Trilok Manchanila from ABM breaks down how AI is changing everything from PTO visibility to multilingual policies to safety alerts that actually prevent incidents. This is real-world AI. Practical. High stakes. And...

In this episode we talk about generative AI, talent acquisition, candidate experience, workflow design, and how Oracle is pushing recruiting into the next era. Nagaraj Nadendala, SVP/GM Product Development breaks down the thinking behind Career Coach, why the industry needed a reset, and what it means for recruiters who are nervous about AI. This one hits on memory, scale, model choices, and the m...

In this episode we talk about HR tech, automation, employee experience, sentiment, and workflow design. We sat down with Hubert from Quest Diagnostics live at Oracle AI World and got into the guts of what 56,000 employees really need from HR systems today. This one hits everything from AI-powered scheduling to performance reviews to the messy, very human side of employee sentiment. It’s practical,...

Most companies walk into annual planning blind. They’re scrambling through spreadsheets, missing critical skill signals, and making high-impact decisions without a clear view of their own organization. The result is predictable: reorgs fail, plans stall, and HR gets blamed for problems that start with bad visibility, not bad leadership. In this episode we talk about workforce planning, data visibi...

AI is shifting from assistant to operator. Which means the future of work is less about tasks and more about flow. Talent flow. Data flow. Decision flow. We sit down with Steve O’Brien to unpack what happens when intelligence becomes active in the workplace, and why the next evolution of leadership comes down to trust, clarity, and the courage to let AI run where it wins. In this episode we talk a...

What does it really mean to create a brilliant employee experience? We sit down with Kalifa Oliver, executive advisor and author of I Think I Love My Job, to unpack how organizations can move beyond perks and buzzwords to deliver what employees actually need. In this episode we talk about the difference between employee experience and happiness, how communication breaks down inside organizations,...

Job seekers aren’t playing games in 2025. Between AI, inflation, and ghosted applications, candidates are demanding better. We sat down with Stephanie Manzelli to unpack the latest Job Seeker Nation Report and why it’s more than just stats—it’s a warning sign. From broken trust to burnout, this conversation dives deep into how recruitment is being redefined. In this episode we talk about how AI is...

Long COVID might not be top of mind for execs, but its lingering effects tell us everything we need to know about experience in your organization. In this episode we speak with Lila Nazef, VP of Sales and Marketing at Neocase on why HR still isn’t working, how onboarding sets the tone for everything, and what leaders miss when they treat people ops like admin. There’s a real shift happening—from t...

How do you spot and support high-potential talent before they burn out or walk out? Randi Seran, VP of People at workrise talks about the often-missed signals of employee appreciation, why recognition isn't one-size-fits-all, and how resilience is quietly replacing potential as the new hiring metric. We unpack her hiring playbook and explain why top performers aren’t always your future leaders. Ke...