HOW TO HIRE IN SOUTH AFRICA IN 2026   Friends, I am back in South Africa, in one of my favourite cities for one of my favourite conferences, Recruiters Unite!   As has become tradition, we're going to do a Brainfood Live on the day the event, to speak to local South African recruiters and discuss the main challenges in hiring in South Africa in 2026. We hope to share knowledge between local recruiters and increase awareness for outsiders on how things roll here in the Rainbow Nation!   A few things we'll cover:

• Macro hiring outlook for 2026
• Understanding South Africa’s labour law framework
• Employment Equity & B-BBEE in practice
• Permanent vs contract vs EOR models
• Compensation benchmarks & pay transparency trends
• Scarce skills and critical talent pipelines
• Remote and hybrid hiring dynamics
• Managing unionised environments
• Immigration and cross-border hiring
• Retention in a high-mobility market

All this and more, as we dive into the nuance of hiring in one of the most dynamic and complicated countries in Africa.   We're on Tuesday 3rd March, 12pm GMT / 2pm SAST Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)     Ep364 is sponsored by Recruiters Unite   It's the event of the year for recruiters in South Africa. Get together with 400 local recruiters and a handful of brilliant experts from overseas and share knowledge as to how recruitment is working today and how it will work tomorrow.   Tickets here

THE AI IN HIRING REPORT 2026   AI now shapes how candidates are discovered, evaluated, progressed, and hired. What began as productivity tooling has become a decision-making layer across the hiring funnel, influencing speed, fairness, quality, and outcomes at scale. As adoption accelerates, the focus has shifted from novelty to impact: what AI is actually doing inside hiring workflows, where it adds value, and where risk is emerging. This session brings those realities into the open, grounded in fresh data from Greenhouse’s 2026 report on the state of AI in recruitment.   The report investigates AI use across the full hiring funnel, including: • Attraction & employer branding – how AI shapes job ads, messaging, and candidate reach • Sourcing – automation, matching, and talent rediscovery inside ATS platforms • Screening & shortlisting – CV parsing, skills inference, and early-stage decision support • Assessment & interviewing – structured interviews, note-taking, and signal consistency • Candidate experience – communication, feedback loops, and process transparency • Hiring decisions - how are candidates evaluated and how offers are personalised and shaped.   All this and more on Brainfood Live On Air.   We're on Friday 27th February, 2pm GMT. Follow the channel here (recommended) and click on the green button (save my spot) to reserve a place!   Ep363 is sponsored by Greenhouse   Want to dive deeper into the results of the Greenhouse AI In Hiring Survey? Discover how hundreds of candidates, recruiters, and hiring managers feel about working with AI in 2026. Read the key findings and actionable insights by downloading here:

FROM TALENT ACQUISITION TO TALENT OPERATIONS is a forward-looking show for TA leaders who can feel the function changing - but need clarity on what it is becoming.     We’ll examine the rise of talent operations as a distinct capability, driven by automation across scheduling, screening, compliance, and workflow management. As logistics are increasingly handled by platforms and AI, the skills that matter inside TA are changing fast. Data literacy is no longer optional. Leaders must understand demand forecasting, funnel diagnostics, quality signals, and cost-to-hire at a systems level—not just at req level.   At the same time, employer branding is making a return to centre stage. In a market shaped by transparency, social proof, and candidate choice, brand and messaging once again shape hiring outcomes. Talent intelligence becomes the strategic core: mapping skills, supply, pay, location, and future demand to inform decisions across the business.   Meanwhile, execution is fragmenting. More organisations are moving actual recruiting delivery to on-demand models—combining RPO, freelance recruiters, and specialist vendors—while internal teams focus on orchestration, insight, and governance.   This livestream will unpack what world-class talent operations looks like in practice, how leading teams are reorganising today, and what capabilities TA leaders must build next.   Viewers will learn how to transition from recruiter-led execution to an operational, intelligence-driven TA model built for scale, flexibility, and impact.   We're with Jamie Leonard, Founder of Recruitment Events Co, Jennifer Candee, Global Head of TA Transformation (IMI), Trine Rulffs, on Friday 20th February, 2pm GMT. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Ep362 is sponsored by Greenhouse   91% of recruiters and hiring managers have spotted or suspected candidate deception in the hiring process. Enter Greenhouse Real Talent™. Cut through spam and misrepresentation in your pipeline, verify a candidate's identity, and quickly identify which applicants are most aligned with your role. Learn more and book a demo today:

REDUCTION IN FORCE: HOW TO LEAD DURING CRISIS!   This show focuses on the practical reality of TA downsizing, told by leaders who have already been through it. Not theory. Not platitudes. Real decisions, real mistakes, and hard-won lessons. We explore how leaders decide when reductions are unavoidable, who to let go, and how to do it in a way that is fair, defensible, and humane—while still protecting the business.   The discussion covers: • Early warning signs that TA capacity is misaligned with demand • Objective vs subjective decision-making in role reductions • Legal and process risks specific to TA teams • Communicating layoffs with clarity, dignity, and credibility • Supporting managers who deliver the message • Handling survivor guilt and rebuilding trust post-reduction • What leaders wish they had done differently   Grounded in recent workforce data and employment best practice, this episode gives TA leaders a clear-eyed framework for making difficult calls without losing their values—or their teams.   Learn how to approach TA layoffs with structure, empathy, and confidence, while minimising risk and preserving long-term organisational trust.   We're with Andrea Marston, Head of Talent Acquisition (Nutanix), Yakub Zolinsky, VP of People (XYZReality), Julia Levy, Global Head of TA (ex-Commscope, Fiserv) & friends on Friday 13th February, 2pm GMT. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Ep361 is sponsored by Maki   At Maki, we help organisations like BNP Paribas, PwC, Booking.com, Nestlé, and H&M transform hiring with AI agents for screening, interviewing, and assessment.   By combining automation, behavioural science, and data, Maki enables talent teams to hire faster, fairer, and smarter.   Our global partnership with H&M saved 250 000 recruiter hours, cut time-to-hire by 4×, and reduced turnover by 22 %, delivering $85 M ROI.   Beyond automation, we’re building a continuous reinforcement system where every recruiter judgment and employee outcome makes our AI agents smarter; creating a unique data moat in HR.   Learn more: makipeople.com

THE STATE OF TALENT INTELLIGENCE 2026   As we barrel through the year 2026, labour markets are being redefined by emerging technologies, shifting skills demand, and data-driven workforce strategies. Organisations worldwide are adopting sophisticated talent intelligence tools to forecast skills gaps, optimise hiring, and build resilient workforces — but staying ahead requires deeper insight and expert foresight. Drawing on the latest research and real-world experience from leading platforms like TalentNeuron, Lightcast, Horsefly, Gartner and Korn Ferry, The State of Talent Intelligence 2026 will provide practical, actionable perspective on where the industry is headed and how you can lead in your organisation.   Our expert panel will dive into the trends transforming talent strategies, from the rapid evolution of AI skill demand and skills-based hiring to the integration of internal and external workforce analytics for strategic planning.  

• The evolving role of talent intelligence platforms and how continuous labour market data is powering strategic workforce planning and skills forecasting.
• AI skills demand and compensation shifts, including insights showing AI-related roles commanding premium salaries in a competitive market.
• Transitioning from job titles to skills-based hiring as organisations seek quality and fit over traditional credential-based approaches.
• Balancing automation with human strategic insight as AI reshapes recruiting workflows and recruiter roles.
• Data analytics driving talent decisions, from predictive labour market insight to internal mobility optimisation.
• Employer branding and candidate experience in the age of intelligent hiring, aligning organisational value with talent expectations.
• Future workforce challenges and opportunities, including leadership pipelines, hybrid work models, and evolving HR capabilities for 2026.

  We're on Friday 6th February, 2pm GMT. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Ep360 is sponsored by Joveo   As the global leader in AI-powered, high-performance recruitment marketing, Joveo is transforming talent attraction and recruitment media buying for the world’s largest employers, staffing firms, RPOs, and media agencies. The Joveo platform enables businesses to attract, source, engage, and hire the best candidates on time and within budget.   Powering millions of jobs every day, Joveo’s AI-led recruitment marketing platform uses advanced data science and machine learning to dynamically manage and optimize talent sourcing and applications across all online channels, while providing real-time insights at every step of the job seeker journey, from click to hire.   For more information about Joveo’s award-winning platform and solutions, visit www.joveo.com.

WHAT RESPONSIBLE AI MEANS FOR RECRUITERS?   What is Responsible AI for Talent Acquisition Teams? is a practical, straight-talking podcast for recruiters who are already using AI—and now need to make sure they’re using it properly.   AI is no longer a future experiment in hiring. It’s embedded in sourcing, screening, assessment, and workforce planning. The real question facing TA leaders today is not whether to use AI, but how to use it in a way that stands up to governance scrutiny, fairness expectations, and growing legal risk. Regulators, candidates, and internal stakeholders are all paying closer attention—and the margin for error is shrinking.   This podcast explores the reality behind “responsible AI” in talent acquisition, cutting through vague principles and focusing on what recruiters actually need to know. We’ll examine why so many organisations still lack formal AI governance, why confidence in bias reduction remains low, and what that means for teams deploying AI at scale. Drawing on 2024–2025 data and real-world TA use cases, the discussion will unpack the tension between automation, efficiency, and human accountability.   Key areas covered include: • What responsible AI really means in a TA context • Governance frameworks recruiters should understand—even if legal owns them • Bias, fairness, and explainability in screening and assessment tools • Legal and regulatory risk, including emerging obligations under the EU AI Act and employment law • The role of recruiters as AI operators, not just end users • How to balance speed, cost savings, and candidate trust • What “human-in-the-loop” looks like in practice   Listeners will learn how to evaluate their current AI stack, ask better questions of vendors, reduce risk exposure, and build hiring processes that are efficient, defensible, and fair.     We're with Martyn Redstone, Head of Responsible AI & Industry Engagement (Warden.AI) & friends on Wednesday 4th February, 12pm GMT. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)     Ep359 is sponsored by Oleeo   AI is now used by 62% of companies for hiring, but rapid efficiency shouldn't come at the expense of fairness. Oleeo and Aptitude Research’s new report highlights a major gap: only 20% of employers have fully established AI governance frameworks, which can lead to unintended bias. To keep things fair and compliant, 85% of recruiters demand final decision-making authority.   Download 'Setting the Standard for Responsible AI: A Guide For Modern Recruiters' today to build a transparent, human-led strategy that uses AI responsibly.

6 x AI USAGE FRAMEWORKS FOR TALENT ACQUISITION   Closing the gap between proclaimed capability of AI vs the practical impact of AI is set to become one of the main stories of 2026, as function leaders in every department scramble to deliver against the expectations of an increasingly impatient C-level.   Are there any frameworks or maturity models which can help?   Brainfooder Soeren Winter has identified 6 AI Usage Frameworks most commonly cited in change management discourse and we're going to apply them Talent Acquisition and see what we can learn. Vital show for anyone interested in accelerating AI adoption, maximising the opportunity window for gains from AI, whilst ensuring the humans in the team, remain in and some cases, above, the loop.     We're on Friday 30th January 2pm GMT / 3pm CET. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Episode 358 is sponsored by Juicebox   PeopleGPT is the leading outbound recruiting platform built on Generative AI. Find talent across 30+ data sources, get interactive Talent Insights, and reach out with personalized AI email campaigns.   Key features include:

1. PeopleGPT (Search): the world’s first people search engine that uses natural language. Describe who you’re searching for and find the perfect match from over 30 data sources.
2. Talent Insights: Visualize your talent pool with 15+ interactive charts. Refine your search and dive deep into stats based on location, employers, job titles, skills, and more.
3. Email Outreach: Maximize candidate engagement with AI-powered email campaigns. Personalize messaging at scale using AI commands, and boost response rates by 40%.

  Get 15% off your Juicebox subscription with code: BRAINFOOD15   Trusted by 400+ companies including Scale AI, Mindbloom, and Patreon. Free trial available. Try Juicebox today

WHY YOU NEED RECOPS TO ACCELERATE AI IN TA   Recruiters are the busiest people in white collar work because there is often no way to accurately forecast resource demands - you never know how long a requirement is going to take to fill or how many hours of time it is going to take to get it done. People are variable and in recruitment, there are people who will impact the state of any project, who are fully outside a recruiters sphere of influence.   This is why AI adoption in Talent Acquisition struggles to move beyond isolated pilots. The operators - the recruiters with headcount targets - are too busy to switch to new ways of working, even those that promise significant efficiency gains. That is apart from one type of TA structure - where Talent Operations has a specialised function in making every other member of the team more efficient.   We're going bold with this one folks - we believe that RecOps is the force multiplier for AI adoption and you need this specialist function in order to migrate to the new way of working. Evidence from RecOps pro's in panel.     We're on Friday 23rd January 2pm GMT / 3pm CET. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Episode 357 is sponsored by Ashby   Drive faster, more confident hiring decisions with native AI-Notetaker   Ashby’s AI Notetaker brings structured meeting data together with emails, notes, feedback, and more. It shortens time to feedback and provides rich candidate context, helping your team align quickly and make faster, more confident hiring decisions.   Spend less time typing and more time hiring with interview notes that practically write themselves.

TOO COMPLEX FOR AI? HOW POLICE SCOTLAND SOLVED THE UNSOLVABLE HIRING PUZZLE   Most recruiters think their organisation is too "unique" or "complex" to trust AI. Then there is Police Scotland. Operating across 13 regions, managing 22,000+ staff, and balancing the hyper-sensitive vetting requirements, their hiring process is as high-stakes as it gets. Yet, they didn't just implement AI—they used it to automate 90% of candidate enquiries and launch a 24/7 support system in just weeks.   Join us for Episode 356 as we deconstruct the PoliceScotland Model with Lorna Allison (ex-Police Inspector & HR Systems Manager). We’re going deep on how to overcome the three biggest barriers to AI adoption:

• The Trust Gap: How to use AI in a highly regulated environment where public accountability is everything.
• The Admin Wall: How they removed the burden of repetitive tasks to let recruiters focus on high-value human assessment.
• The Inclusion Mandate: Why a "judgment-free" AI bot actually improved their pipeline diversity and candidate experience.

The Reality: If you can solve for the complexity of the Police, you can solve for anything.   Wed 21st January 12pm GMT. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Episode 356 is sponsored by Oleeo   AI is now used by 62% of companies for hiring, but rapid efficiency shouldn't come at the expense of fairness. Oleeo and Aptitude Research’s new report highlights a major gap: only 20% of employers have fully established AI governance frameworks, which can lead to unintended bias. To keep things fair and compliant, 85% of recruiters demand final decision-making authority.   Download 'Setting the Standard for Responsible AI: A Guide For Modern Recruiters' today to build a transparent, human-led strategy that uses AI responsibly.

TALENT STRATEGY: WHAT, WHY, HOW AND WHEN   Does your company have a talent strategy?   It's probably the right thing to say that you do, but how much do we know about what a Talent Strategy is really? I asked this question within the Brainfood community and received some outstanding observations, so much so that we have to elevate this to a full discussion on Brainfood Live.   “Talent strategy is how the business ensures it has the capability to execute its strategy and win” - says Lisa Scales, Director of Talent at the Royal Mail.   What does this compose of?   Succession planning. re-deployment investigations, competence mapping and calculating the gap between Core & Strategic competencies, developing a plan for how to close the gap, overseeing the global Talent Acquisition function says Ana Moller,   Where does it live?   On a Github Repo says Mark Deubels (!). But the point is that it should be living document subject contribution by others in the business, presided over by TA / HR   Lets talk Talent Strategy - not only why you need one, but what it actually is, how it is built, what makes it an effective orientating vision and how it informs the recruiting tactics which recruits will ultimately adopt.   We're on Friday 16th January, 2pm GMT. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Episode 355 is sponsored by Maki   At Maki, we help organisations like BNP Paribas, PwC, Booking.com, Nestlé, and H&M transform hiring with AI agents for screening, interviewing, and assessment.   By combining automation, behavioural science, and data, Maki enables talent teams to hire faster, fairer, and smarter.   Our global partnership with H&M saved 250 000 recruiter hours, cut time-to-hire by 4×, and reduced turnover by 22 %, delivering $85 M ROI.   Beyond automation, we’re building a continuous reinforcement system where every recruiter judgment and employee outcome makes our AI agents smarter; creating a unique data moat in HR.   Learn more: makipeople.com

VIBE SOURCING 101: LEARN TO SOURCE FROM THE WEB & YOUR ATS WITH METAVIEW AI AGENT   We are going to look back at 2025 as the year it all changed for sourcing. AI Agents entered the market and immediately began to demonstrate talent acquisition teams could become massively more efficient by leverage the increasable ability of AI Agents to ingest huge amounts of candidate data and instantly return viable results from natural language prompts.   But we can already see that some recruiters are better than others when it comes to collaborating with AI Agents to source candidates. What are those recruiters doing, why do they get better results, what are the behaviours required to get the best out of your AI Agent?   We're going to deep dive how to source with AI Agents, revealing the techniques, the skills and the mentality which will reveal the best recruiters of tomorrow.   It's a mid week special - so we're on Wednesday 14th January, 4pm GMT / 11am ET. Register by clicking on the green button (save my spot) and follow the channel here (recommended)       Ep354 is sponsored by Metaview   Are you ready to supercharge your recruiting teams performance?   Metaview’s AI Sourcing will feel like a cheat code. It’s the first autonomous AI coworker that goes off and does the search for you and brings back spot-on candidates based on your exact brief.   Here’s what recruiters have been saying about it:   “I don’t know how you did it, but Metaview’s AI Sourcing is absurdly good.”   Michael, Partner @ Super Recruiter   “Metaview’s AI Sourcing really helps with niche roles. It surfaces profiles I wouldn’t have found.”   Dea, TA Manager @ Miro   “So impressed by how Metaview’s AI Sourcing turns a natural language prompt into great profiles.”   Leslie, Recruiter @ Cockroach Labs   Metaview gives high-performance teams a genuine unfair advantage in hiring. Join teams like ElevenLabs, Deel, and Pleo — along with 4,000+ others — and try it for free today.