Let’s face it, recruiting is in a weird spot right now. AI is shaking things up, crypto is doing… what crypto does, and that would be enough, but there’s also an election coming. It’s a lot, and plenty of recruiters are feeling like they’re trying to nail jelly to a wall.
There are just so many new tools! Boy is it easy to fall down the rabbit hole! Benjamin Mena did a Recruiting AI Summit where Jason and I presented, but the vast majority of the event (as intended) was AI tools. This is part of the problem. Nobody knows which of the startups are going to make it, and which aren’t. Here’s a newsflash – most aren’t going to make it, and we’re not qualified to predict. In 1908 there were 253 car companies. Now 10 companies own nearly every make you’ll ever see.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Some recruiters are rolling with the punches and finding ways to make all this craziness work for them.
There’s this quote from Roy Amara “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” Basically, we might be losing our minds over AI right now, but in the long run, it could open up some pretty cool doors. Our 2024 cars blow those 1908 ones away in ways they couldn’t imagine.
So, let’s get weird for a second. What might recruiting look like in 10 years? Here are some job titles that don’t exist yet, but might be all the rage in the future:
- AI-Human Matchmaker: You’d help companies figure out how to get the humans who will play nice with their AI. (The AI is internal, employees come and go)
- Ethical AI Headhunter: Because someone’s got to make sure the robots don’t go all Skynet on us. Or focus on the humans missed by the AI. Companies need people who don’t match the algorithm, and they need advocates.
- Human Specialist: You’d focus on finding people with those uniquely human skills that AI can’t replicate.
- AI Staffer: In a world of self-aware AI models, someone has to rep them on which jobs they’ll be working.
- Workforce Puzzle Master: You’d design entire company structures, mixing full-timers, gig workers, and AI to make it all work.
- AI Agent: On behalf of powerful AI masters, you recruit the people they need for their various missions.
- Skill Shapeshifter: Your job would be keeping the workforce flexible, and constantly reskilling people as the market changes.
Sounds pretty sci-fi, right? But who knows, in a few years, these might be the hottest jobs in town.
Here’s the deal: recruiting isn’t dying, it’s evolving. Yeah, it’s messy and confusing right now. But if we can roll with the changes and figure out how to work with AI instead of against it, we might just end up with cooler, more interesting jobs than we ever imagined.
So, next time you’re feeling overwhelmed by all this change, remember: the robots might be coming, but they still can’t beat us at being human. And in recruiting, that human touch is always going to matter.
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Tricia Tamkin, headhunter, advisor, coach, and gladiator. Tricia has spoken at over 50 recruiting events, been quoted in multiple national publications, and her name is often dropped in groups as the solution to any recruiters’ challenges. She brings over 30 years of deep recruiting experience and offers counsel in a way which is perspective changing and entertaining.