TaPod - for everything Talent Acquisition...

It's your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. This week we cover all kinds of angles, including Uber brutalising their HR Team; 12.5% tariffs imposed by the USA for allowing imports of goods created by modern slavery; Atlassian says AI is making teams slower; the daily commute is dead; businesses spending pay rises on AI; the top 10 in-demand jobs and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us to bring you the Scoop.

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Jamie Leonard – Founder of Recfest – The LARGEST Talent Acquisition event in the world! Imagine over 4000 recruiters in the field at Knebworth, UK – in the biggest and baddest conference/festival on the planet. This year's theme revolves very heavily around human intervention in a world transfixed on AI. With a focus on practitioner delivery and case studies  Thanks to Greenhouse for partnering with us this month. 

It's your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. This week we cover all kinds of angles, including Lauren wants us to stop talking about AI and then doesn't stop talking about it; bad hiring decisions cost $7.3 billion annually; redundancy and then enforcing non-competes – is that fair? Would you call someone a ‘fat, ugly pig' in an interview? Ghost jobs on the increase; the Fair Work Commission hands out a pay rise; Gen Z not lazy but harder to manipulate and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us to bring you the Scoop.

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Rachel Hill, Managing Director at Hill Consulting HRS & Founder at The Recruitment Skills Academy. But Rachel is on a mission. Along with our very own Craig Watson, she has developed the first-ever accredited vocational training for our industry in a Certificate IV in TA and Diploma in TA Management. Not only that, but they are also about to launch the Talent Acquisition Association of Australia – TAAA. This is a member-based industry association to drive the professionalism and standards of talent acquisition in the region. The TAAA will provide guidance and resources, lobby the government, be the voice of internal recruitment and test frameworks around new strategies and technologies. They have already signed on a number of vendor partners who will contribute data, whitepapers and special deals to members. It's high time we are seen as a true profession, and that can only be the case if we take steps to act like one.Thanks to Greenhouse for partnering with us this month. 

It's your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. This week we cover all kinds of angles, including holding grudges at work and what it's costing you; Callam Pickering – APAC Senior Economist at Indeed joins us for an update on job numbers, the Budget and what we can all look forward to… or not; AI already gaming recruiters; Human Capital reduced to a cost line item; the real story behind Bolt firing their HR team; and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us to bring you the Scoop.

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Sue Howse – Managing Partner & Founder at The Human Collaborative. Sue is the foremost commentator in the Contingent Workforce in the APAC region. Sue shares with us what has changed and what has stayed the same in the sector. From P&C to Procurement to TA, the Contingent Workforce can be a minefield of risk and the biggest risk of all is a lack of understanding. If you have non-traditional workers in your business, from casuals to contractors to SOW workers you really need to take a listen to this episode.Thanks to Daxtra for partnering with us this month. 

Get ready for a special episode of Tapod, where we sit down with Christian Ward – Chief Customer Officer at Daxtra. We talk tech in recruitment. And how many recruitment functions are wasting this valuable asset. We talk about how powerful data is for recruiters, how AI supports data processing and where the future lies. We have so much information at our hands – how do we unlock the candidate data vault? Christian's here to let us in on the secret.

It's your weekly episode of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including…  Bunnings Chief wants us to consider hiring reformed offenders; LinkedIn cuts blown totally out of proportion; Tech companies are hiring back laid-off staff; Women suffer more over AI role encroachment and have lost trust in employers; putting on a brave front at work may force you towards the bottle; EY roll back paid parental leave perks and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Bernt Schindler – Head of Talent Acquisition at Holcim Australia and Director at APACAI. AI is threatening to completely change the landscape in TA & Recruitment and Bernt is here to help us navigate the really interesting bits. Lauren and Craig can't seem to agree on anything, and they all take you on a fascinating journey through what's real and what's not. Thanks to Daxtra for partnering with us this month. 

It's your weekly episode of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including…  China bans workers being sacked for AI,  Qantas on track for a little spat with the union, employers rewarding staff who regularly attend the office, data around just how… or if AI is supporting recruitment, skilled migrants underemployed, James Ellis is the Taylor Swift of TA & EB and much moreThanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Tibo Torche – Group Talent Acquisition Manager from Esri (Australia and South Asia). If you've ever checked a rain radar, or dialled before you dug – Esri probably provided the tech – and recruiting in this field is very interesting. We discuss process to tech-stack to AI and future plans. And the end of the day, Tibo has a teamwork-first philosophy and it has enabled him the build a highly successful team. It's a great episode and we learned a lot – you will too.Thanks to Daxtra for partnering with us this month. 

Buckle in for a special episode of Tapod, where we sit down with Craig Watson, (yes you read that right - Craig is a guest), as he launches his new venture, People Orbit AI. Craig has spent the last year embedding himself in all things AI and has some very controversial views on where our industry sits. People Orbit AI has been created to add knowledge, power and value to TA and HR functions as we navigate the new reality. He believes that we are right on the precipice of a ‘Kodak moment', and if we as an industry don't wake from our slumber, we may suffer a similar fate. No one disputes that we are implementing more AI in our workflows to remove the repetitive, boring, adminny (not sure that's a real word) tasks. But businesses are also hiring less staff in many industries while they work out their own tech-led restructures.So if automation is allowing us to get more work done, but there is less work – where does that leave us as a function? With a massive opportunity to step up and grow up – that's where!Who knows roles in businesses better than TA and HR? Who knows what tasks are required to be successful in any role better than TA and HR? No-one… So it makes sense that we take ownership for tasks, roles and workforce planning. That's right, we need to run the workforce re-architecture projects, and we need to make the decisions on whether humans, agents or a combination of both are the right fit. And then WE need to be the ones hiring not only the people but also the automation solutions.Craig has built People Orbit AI to get teams and businesses to that point.It's a fascinating development and you should speak to Craig if you want to learn more…

It's your weekly episode of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including… Lauren sings for us all, candidate fraud on the increase, workplace cocaine use on the up, possible changes to leave entitlements and redundancies, AI stirring up religious objections, money to be invested in apprenticeships and much moreThanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Gareth Flynn – Talent & Workforce Expert, Founder and CEO at TQ Solutions. The world is overwhelmed by AI, but the rate of change continues at a pace we have never seen. We dive really deep, from AI twins to who owns AI agents' IP developed by humans, to how we should put a value on our time, roles that are going to be affected and a whole lot more. We look at countries that are at the forefront and those (hint hint starts with A) that are lagging behind. The most important takeaway is DO NOT ignore AI, no matter how much fatigue you have or how overwhelmed you feel.Thanks to Daxtra for partnering with us this month. 

It's your weekly episode of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including… LinkedIn Best 10 places to work, Hudson Australia enters voluntary administration, Gen Z says no to promotions, 8-hour job interviews, Australian Government finally talking AI, $10k for a skinny dip and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Appy Sarepaka National Talent Acquisition Manager at MSS Security – with the parent group sitting in the top 40 (by volume) employers across Australia.Appy has led some amazing initiatives at MSS Security, including growing the TA team from 2 to 20 over the past 2 years (with approximately 2,000 hires a year), decreasing time to hire from 24 days to 10, navigating the complicated world of compliance and background checking in the world of security, DE&I programs, and the changing world of recruitment. Join us as we unpack all of these issues with Appy.Thanks to PeopleOrbitAI for partnering with us this month. 

It's your weekly episode of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including… Atlassian sacks engineer, unemployment remains steady, employees winning payouts in the UK & Australia, things are pretty bleak for Wrexham Council, ICE recruitment is not up to standard, and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Andrew Fairhurst, Senior Manager of Talent Acquisition at Ashurst. We discuss how recruiting has changed in the Legal Industry, as well as navigating a mammoth global merger. We touch on the positive and the perils with AI, and we check in on Craig, who has had a pretty bleak run of bad luck. A wholesome episode with real takeaways.Thanks to PeopleOrbitAI for partnering with us this month. 

It's your weekly episode of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including… AI reshaping Banking Recruitment, Truck driver sacked for distributing porn, Unilever pauses hiring due to the Middle East conflict, Start-Up Founder delivers a patience-building lesson, worker sacked for chasing down an Easter Egg thief, EY comes up with a great AI agentic partnership, a bar just for those looking to quit their job, and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Tosh Onishi – People & Talent Executive, HR Leader, AI Expert & Global Keynote Speaker. Tosh has recently returned to Sydney after a stint as Head of TA for Okta in Singapore and prior to that over 10 years at Visa in Japan & Singapore.We met Tosh at the Avature Upfront event where he spoke about AI and how current recruitment processes can be exploited using AI. Tosh gives us his views on this, as well as the recent 60 Minutes segment covering North Korean spies infiltrating local Tech companies via deep fake candidates and AI. It's fascinating and it's really happening – are you ready?Thanks to PeopleOrbitAI for partnering with us this month. 

It's your weekly dose of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including snail mail, the ‘new' weapon for candidates, another recruitment tech cyber attack, the latest on layoffs, overqualified candidates, the UK to mandate new pay gap reporting, start-ups paying obscene salaries and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Reegan Kerkin – People & Culture Manager at OceanaGold Corporation and ITA's 2025 Corporate Talent Leader of the Year!Reegan has an amazing story which has recently culminated in being promoted to Global P&C Manager and moving halfway across the world to Charlotte in the USA. An inspirational story and an aspirational journeyThanks to PeopleOrbitAI for partnering with us this month. 

It's your weekly dose of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including… Strikes, strikes and more strikes, the nightmarish state of the job market, Callam from Indeed stops by, 1 in 3 plan to quit, and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Matthew Lant – Head of Recruitment and Employer Brand at AFCA. Now every year at the ITAs there is a team that cleans up. Last year AFCA won Excellence in Employer Brand, Excellence in Candidate Experience and Corporate Talent Professional of the Year. Want to hear how they did it?Thanks to Taly for partnering with us this month. 

It's your weekly dose of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including… Gen Z grads being fired en masse, teachers striking, F2F interviews vs online interviews, working from home challenges, candidate bias, unemployment date – good news or bad? Recruiting AI Agents – WTF? and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Samantha Devlin (Sam to her friends), co-founder and CEO of The Careers Department. With the world agog with the AI revolution… Graduate unemployment at record highs and students questioning traditional pathways, we thought it was time to get to the bottom of it all, and who better to speak to than Sam? The Careers Department has a ton of student-led data, including intention shifts on post-school pathways in school-leavers. It's a fascinating dataset and one that just may contribute to changes in the way we work. And if you are a parent, uncle, aunty or even friend of a student, this is a VERY important interview to listen to.Thanks to Taly for partnering with us this month. 

It's your weekly dose of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including… the dawn of the Concierge Recruiter, job cuts at Meta & Atlassian (AI or AI washing?), WhatsApp used to terminate employees, Jack and Jill hacked and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod we catch up with the ever-brilliant and ever-busy Edan Haddock – Head of Talent and People Experience at Movember, Podcast Host and Community Builder. There is a helluva lot going on at Movember, from a new Global Institute of Men's Health to ‘Joel' the AI agent and a global recruitment responsibility – it's busy, busy, busy! Throw on top of that the Total Talent Podcast; he's barely got time to scratch himself. Hands up if you have an AI Agent reporting directly to you as part of your Talent Team? Edan does, and he'll tell us all about it!Thanks to Taly for partnering with us this month. 

Buckle in for a special episode of Tapod, where we sit down with Peter Treloar – Founder at Taly. Believe us, this is NOT a normal personality profiling solution. From an AI-enabled on-demand org psych to delivering results in video or even podcast form and NO boring reports. It gets the data into your hands when and where you need it. And if you need any further proof, listen to the end, and you will hear an AI-driven podcast unpacking Lauren and Craig's personalities and how they will work together… or implode. It's great stuff!

It's your weekly dose of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including… AI washing, Kyle & Jackie O, women shut out of leadership, a 4-day work week in Victoria, unions pushing for more holidays, it's amazing what you see through Meta glasses, Anthropic's take on jobs exposed to AI, Lauren may just apply for MAFS, and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod we catch up with the amazing Natalie Flynn, Founder of Equidi, to discuss the latest WGEA gender pay gap and all things International Women's Day. We are making baby steps into our pay gap, but it's not enough and we're not sure we're even measuring the right data… What we can be sure of is that in many industries, there are still more opportunities at the ‘top end' of businesses for males, from management to the ‘C-suite'. We touch on AI and its impact on the gender labour market and much more. It's not about cupcakes; it's about action, and it's time we all took action… real action. PS. Who's up for a road trip to Canberra?Thanks to Taly for partnering with us this month. 

It's your weekly dose of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including… Lauren Anderson from Indeed joins us to talk Health Sector,  Tinder the new LinkedIn, most non-competes to be banned, the latest WGEA numbers, Gen Z playing up again, and Square acting like… well… squares.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod we catch up with Kimberley Lawrie, world-famous Talent Leader from brands such as Telstra, Holden, Jetstar, Myer, Aesop, Mars and Cotton On. But right now… Kimbo is in between roles, and we explore the world of the unemployed Talent Acquisition professional. From Candidate Experience to AI in the Recruitment Process to the state of the TA, and even authoring a children's book, we unpack what we all fear – searching for a job... It's compelling and frustrating, but we do it with a smile on our faces! Thanks to Taly for partnering with us this month. 

Get strapped in for a special episode of Tapod, where we sit down with James Ellis—Global Talent Strategy Expert, best-selling author, and one of the nicest people you will ever meet. EB has evolved into Talent Strategy, and here is your chance to come along for the ride. There are a million different gold nuggets of inspiration here… from helping recruiters escape from the cost-centre box... killer candidates over a full funnel… every company has a point of difference and a heap more.But don't take our word for it. Take a listen yourself and then book your seat for the Masterclass in Melbourne in September—that's right James is headed our way, and it will sell out quicker than a Swifty concert. Check out the link in the show notes. Thanks to the team from Video My for supporting this episode and the masterclass.https://events.humanitix.com/james-ellis-master-class?c=tapod

It's your weekly dose of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including… AI FOMO drives risk, Greenhouse talks 'AI Doom Loop', Public wage growth on the up, job ads rise at a rate not seen since 2022, discrimination against the LGBTIQ+ workers on the job increases in Australia, gender pay gap update, Gen Z proven to be a generation of laziness, the heavens open mid-record and much more…  Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod we catch up with Andy Steeds—Head of Talent Acquisition at Capgemini Australia & NZ. It's a great opportunity to revisit Capgemini's fantastic win in the category of Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the 2025 ITAs. From managing pay gap to working within an environment of the global 'anti-movement', Capgemini navigates DE&I in a modest, understated but passionate fashion, ensuring it is at the forefront of strategy and purpose.Thanks to Phenom for partnering with us this month. 

Buckle in for a special episode of Tapod, where we sit down with Cliff Jurkiewicz, VP Global Strategy & Futurist at Phenom. I have to say this was one of the most interesting conversations I have ever had. From early life as a touring rock star to piloting his own plane and dealing with family tragedy, Cliff has had quite the life. And it doesn't stop there… The insights into ‘the death of industrial-age recruitment,' the divorce between HR & Talent and a perfect storm of technological and generational change are mind-blowing. Cliff will certainly be back with us, but in the meantime, enjoy this scintillating chat!Thanks to Phenom for partnering with us this month. 

It's your weekly dose of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including… Breaking News in the breakup of 2 HR Tech juggernauts, AI jobs that are 'safe,' rethinking entry-level pathways, IBM tripling their hiring, work is a situationship, ANZ charging $10 for a sausage sizzle. And much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod we catch up with Adam Buxton—GM Talent Acquisition Transformation at Ventia. We ‘get down and dirty' with the launch of the new Ventia Talent Marketplace—the process in the lead-up, the lessons learned, and the future ahead. It's a real Rec-Tech success story and could help you in your transformation journey.Thanks to Phenom for partnering with us this month. 

It's your weekly dose of the Scoop from Tapod with all of your TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including…  Candidates paying recruiters in the US, MAFS is back! Companies scrambling to rehire humans, Good jobs news from the UK, Women in Tech & Finance subject to AI bias. And much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod we catch up with Amy Schultz—VP Market Development – RPO at Korn Ferry, and weren't we lucky! Are workforce decisions moving closer to operations? Amy thinks so and puts up some very valid points. From best-in-breed to best-in-suite, getting real input into decision-making, taking control of retention and mobility and even TA working within different business silos.As always, it's a must-listen.Thanks to Phenom for partnering with us this month. 

On this special episode of Tapod, we sit down with Lauren Anderson – Senior Strategic Advisor from Indeed to talk about the upcoming Indeed Futureworks In Melbourne on February 19. The theme is ‘Betterverse' how can  we leap forward into the technological future while focusing on the purpose of all of this progress which is to make hiring better? From Lego professionals to Indeed's chief economist to a ‘real life' astronaut, Futureworks is the hottest ticket in town and for your chance to win a seat check out the link in the comments!

It's time for the Scoop from Tapod with all of your weekly TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including… the latest on redundancies, the government announces 30,000 – that's right 30,000 new casual roles across Australia, the latest on return to office, is the 4-day work week quietly eroding productivity? Hiring times pushing out, Gen Z optimistic about career prospects And much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod we catch up with Gareth Flynn—Talent & Workforce Expert and Founder & CEO at TQ Solutions. As we all try to make sense of the past 18 months and what to expect into 2026. The only thing we can be really sure of is that things will continue to change and at an incredibly rapid rate. We talk deeply about AI, the geopolitical state of play, the great convergence, task intelligence, and a heap in between. There is so much to unpack here, and it affects all of us.  Thanks to Phenom for partnering with us this month. 

This week on Tapod we catch up with the ever-brilliant duo of Rich Lewis-Jones and Elle Green from SmartRecruiters. We learn all about the SmartRecruiters-SAP SuccessFactors marriage, new products, the upcoming HireXperience event at Luna Park in Sydney, and a few cheeky predictions for the year ahead. As usual we learned stuff—you will too!Thanks to People Orbit AI for partnering with us this month. 

It's time for the Scoop from Tapod with all of your weekly TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad. We cover all sorts of headlines, including… HR tech acquisitions are on the rise. Who is worried about AI? Eightfold test case before the courts, labour market stats, job scams warning, and is AI outpacing workplace reality? And much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on Tapod we officially kick off 2026 with an ITAs special! We're lucky enough to catch up with Leah McCabe—Talent Attraction Manager from Coles Group—and Fiona Warren—Business Director APAC at Havas Group. Coles Group nabbed 2 ITAs in 2025—Best Use of Video and Best Vendor Solution with Havas Group. We explore the reasons for their success and cover a million rabbit holes, including Parma vs. Parmi, the toastie challenge, DEI, video magic, accessibility, volume with time constraints… this list goes on and on. A great chat, with a really innovative duo.Thanks to People Orbit AI for partnering with us this month. 

It's time for the Scoop from Tapod with all of your weekly TA & Recruitment news from here and abroad . We cover all sorts of headlines including… AI & ICE – a marriage made in heaven, hiring to remain challenging in 2026, job-hugging to continue, Australia's worst boss unmasked, private sector in the job mud, entry-level is no longer entry level and much more. Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

In the last of our Summer Series podcasts on Tapod we catch up with one of the smartest minds in talent & HR—Chad Sowash—co-founder & co-host at Chad & Cheese, ‘HR's Most Dangerous Podcast'. We cover Recfest US, the need for vendors to push their customers front and centre, AI and the future of our industry….. Chad looks at talent through a different lens. He speaks to industry leaders every week and shares with us his unique and very strong views. I might be biased, but I think we can all learn a lot from experts who podcast :)This is an episode where nothing is off the table and there's a lot to digest.‘We've been giving candidates a pretty shitty black hole to jump into…'Thanks to PeopleOrbitAI for supporting the Summer Series.

We're Back for 2026! The team from Tapod brings you all of the weekly TA & Recruitment News. We cover all sorts of headlines including…  AI jitters everywhere, the top jobs in Australia, phoenixism and side hustles, swinging bosses from the UK and much moreThanks for taking the time to listen to us throughout 2025 and just wait to see what we have in store for 2026!.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us on The Scoop. 

This week on the Summer Series on TaPod, we look back to tackle a really important issue – Women's Health in the Workplace. We are joined by the amazing Jess Gibson-Jones and Kaz Thorley. From Periods to Peri-Menopause to Menopause to Miscarriages to Endometriosis to Hysterectomy to Cancer and more, we  highlight how Women's Health Issues are not regarded, or even accepted in many workplaces. It's raw. It's educational. And it's essential that this issue is spoken about… by everyone.Thanks to PeopleOrbitAI for your continued support of TaPod.