Tim Ahern

🔍 Why Searching Directly on Job Boards Finds Better Candidates Than Using Aggregated API Searches In today’s fast-paced recruiting landscape, automation is essential—but not all automation delivers the same value. If your recruiting team is relying on aggregated API searches provided by job boards, you might be leaving high-quality candidates on the table. Here’s why searching directly within a job board’s native platform yields more relevant candidates than consolidated or API-based searches. 🧠 1. Native Search Algorithms Are Smarter (and Evolving Faster) Each job board (like Dice, Monster, CareerBuilder, or Indeed) invests heavily in fine-tuning its internal search engine. These platforms continuously optimize results using proprietary algorithms that factor in: Search behavior patterns - Resume freshness and engagement metrics - Keyword-context matching - Real-time profile activity When using a job board’s own UI, you benefit from all of this. But when accessing resumes via an API, you get a watered-down, generalized dataset—often lacking these contextual layers. 🔍 2. APIs Are Limited by Design While APIs are convenient, they’re built for interoperability, not discovery. APIs usually provide only a subset of candidate data due to privacy and performance constraints. Resume parsing and keyword matching are simplified—meaning relevance scores and rank ordering are often lost. Real-time results can lag or get cached, showing outdated or less-engaged candidates. In contrast, direct search taps into the most current and complete candidate pool—with richer filtering and sorting options. 🎯 3. Better Boolean, Filters, and Relevance Controls When your recruiters use the job board interface directly, they can: Customize Boolean strings with more precision - Use advanced filters (by skills, titles, locations, work authorization, etc.) - Dynamically adjust queries based on instant feedback from results APIs may expose some filters—but rarely all. That missing granularity leads to broader, less useful results. 💬 4. You Miss Platform-Specific “Signals” Certain platforms reward interaction: - Viewed profiles bubble to the top - Recent activity signals higher intent Premium filters help surface passive but highly qualified candidates These nuanced cues rarely get exposed through an API—and they make all the difference in fast-paced recruiting. ✅ The Bottom Line If your recruiting workflow relies solely on aggregated search APIs, you’re likely getting quantity over quality. For strategic roles or urgent openings, direct platform search consistently delivers more targeted, up-to-date, and actionable results.

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✈️ The Evolution of Direct Sourcing at Southwest Airlines: A Talent Strategy That Soars What started as a simple realization — “We’re paying staffing fees for people who want to work for us anyway” — turned into a transformative strategy for contingent hiring at Southwest Airlines. 💡 Greg Muccio, Managing Director of Talent Acquisition, shared how it began: “I had a person on my team come to me and say, ‘I could recruit for that position,’ and I said, ‘Okay, do it.’” With Phenom already powering full-time hiring, the Southwest team expanded their tech stack to include Phenom Direct Sourcing — bringing contract and permanent hiring into one unified system. 🎯 The impact? ✅ $7M annual savings ✅ 80–85% of contractors now hired via direct sourcing ✅ 12-14 day time-to-fill (and dropping) ✅ Vendor count reduced from 100+ to just ~12 ✅ 33% of contractors convert to FTEs This high-tech, high-touch approach leverages: 🔹 A single career site for all roles 🔹 CRM insights for pay rates, contract history & availability 🔹 Automation that powers silver medalist reengagement 🔹 Clear boundaries with vendors to avoid conflict 🔹 Scalable team structures for flexible resourcing “We’re very blessed to have an incredible tech stack — a lot of it is with Phenom.” — Greg Muccio 🚀 Whether you’re just starting your direct sourcing journey or looking to refine it, Southwest’s success shows what’s possible when employer brand, technology, and process unite. 🧠 Read the full story: https://lnkd.in/eQp85g8d #DirectSourcing #ContingentWorkforce #TotalTalent #HRTech #TalentAcquisition #Phenom #SouthwestAirlines #EmployerBranding

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If you're a TA leader feeling overwhelmed by AI options, this approach will change everything. Three months ago, I sat in a room with TA leaders discussing automation, AI and the future of TA. The same comment kept coming up: "We need an AI playbook. We need a roadmap." That's when it hit me - by the time a playbook exists, the technology would already be obsolete. But here's what would work: a way for leaders to assess their current TA org, then identify exactly where to focus, what to pilot, and how to unlock efficiency gains specific to their setup. So we have built an AI-first TA maturity model. Instead of generic advice, we take a step-by-step approach where we: ➡️ Baseline your current TA operations and capabilities ➡️ Identify your highest-impact efficiency opportunities ➡️ Recommend the right automation and AI moves for your context We developed this from months of working with TA teams across different company sizes and stages. Each team had different pain points, different AI readiness levels and different needs. This makes our offering comprehensive in solving for a range of TA contexts. We also showcase the work we have delivered for companies like bunq, DataSnipper and The HEINEKEN Company so you can see how we delivered tangible results. The companies making progress in unlocking efficiency and effectiveness through AI aren't waiting for perfect clarity. They're assessing where they are, picking the right first moves, and learning as they go. Doeke Geertsma and I released our first version of the TA maturity model last October. Collaborating with him is always a joy! It has been great to put our heads together once again to elevate that thinking further, this time placing AI front of centre in the model. If you're curious about where your TA org stands and what moves make sense for you, then click the link in the first comment to access our AI-first TA maturity model ⤵️

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We had the privilege of hosting Quentin Clark — our board member and Managing Director at General Catalyst — during our recent leadership offsite at Eightfold’s headquarters in Santa Clara. Every moment of this session was filled with profound insights — the kind that make you pause and rethink assumptions. I tried to capture a few, though I’ll admit that taking notes while being genuinely awestruck is not easy! What are the three ills to ward off as companies grow: 1. Companies can get complacent. Current success can hinder future success. A very counterintuitive point: If you exceed the expectation and beat the plan, still be curious. “It still betrays!”.  2. Lowering the hiring bar. B-players hire C-players.  3. Not protecting the brand. What makes Eightfold such a hot prospect?  1. Eightfold was the first one to figure out how to apply ML for solving enterprise business problems - 9 years ago. A huge head start and a moat.  2. Eightfold is building a System of Agents in a world still stuck with Systems of Record. Traditional enterprise software makes you work — you have to pedal. Agentic AI flips that model: the system works for you. It’s a driverless engine, like Waymo.  3. AI used to be an unproven tech a few yrs ago, almost like selling snake oil. Today the AI tailwind is very real and Eightfold is in a position to build on the success rapidly. With so much money invested in AI, will there be a good ROI?  AI is bigger than the Mobile revolution, the Internet, and even the Mainframe era. It surpasses Integrated Circuits in its reach. Think about it — everyone today carries at least five IC-powered devices: a smartphone, a smartwatch, a health ring, earbuds, and often a laptop or tablet. AI will be an even more integral part of our personal and work lives. It took databases seven years to achieve a 10X leap in performance. Large Language Models did it in just three quarters. The acceleration curve of AI isn’t evolutionary — it’s exponential.   What about humans in an Agentic-AI world? Far from diminishing the value of people, Agentic AI raises it. As agents take on the repetitive, administrative, and mechanical tasks, humans are freed to focus on what only they can do — creating, problem-solving, and innovating. In this world, the regard for talent actually increases, because the leverage of each person is amplified. 

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The Unsung Heroes: Why Internal Recruiters Are the True Strategic Architects Elevating the perception and strategic role of in-house Talent Acquisition professionals, particularly in Tech, Product, and Design, positioning them as essential business partners rather than just hiring managers. "In the relentless pursuit of talent, we often outsource, automate, and externalize. But who truly holds the institutional knowledge, the cultural nuances, and the long-term vision for building world-class Tech, Product, and Design teams? It's our internal recruiters. These are the unsung heroes who navigate complex organizational structures, champion our values, and build relationships that external agencies simply can't replicate. They're not just filling seats; they're safeguarding our culture, identifying future leaders, and influencing product roadmaps through strategic hiring. My conviction is that for the top 0.5% of talent, a sophisticated, highly engaged in-house TA team is the ultimate differentiator. It signals stability, expertise, and a genuine investment in people. We need to empower, upskill, and celebrate these professionals as the true strategic architects of our talent ecosystem. Their impact extends far beyond the offer letter. How are you elevating the strategic influence and capabilities of your internal TA teams? #TalentAcquisition #InHouseRecruiting #StrategicHR #TechRecruitment #ProductDesign #EmployerBrand #Leadership #FutureOfWork"

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Shout out to Neil Davies for this detailed analysis for such an important topic. I am an open book to my teams as I admit while we do not know exactly how AI will change our world in TA, we are starting to get clearer into the key areas AI will help and, most of all, if anyone still has doubts AI will revolutionize our work they will be sadly left behind. AI is here, it is real and it will vastly change the day to day work of anyone in TA.

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How do you foster a work culture of continuous improvement in your org? It's not about just getting the brightest minds to sit down together. #Innovation is dependent on repeatable, measurable processes and org structure. ➡️ More insights from Verra Mobility CEO David Roberts in his Fast Company article

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A few posts ago I introduced The Connector, The Architect, and The Strategic Recruiter. There's a fourth role. Most teams don't realize they need it until things start breaking. Hiring slows down. Roles stay open longer. Hiring managers get frustrated. Recruiters feel overwhelmed. And the pressure to do more with fewer people has never been higher. But whether you're scaling or being asked to do more with less, the problem is rarely recruiting capacity, it's the hiring system. Intake resets every time. Interview loops change depending on the manager. Scheduling eats hours that should go to hiring. And candidates are evaluated on completely different criteria until an offer falls apart. Recruiters end up managing friction instead of driving hiring forward. And no amount of headcount fixes that. That's the environment the Talent Systems Builder was made for. You're starting to see this role appear under different titles. Talent Engineer. Head of Talent Transformation. Recruiting Operations Lead. The title varies. The job is the same. The Talent Systems Builder doesn't run recruiting. They build the system recruiting runs on. And increasingly, that system is AI. Not AI as a tool recruiters use. AI as the infrastructure itself. Structured intake. Standardized interview architecture. Automated screening and scheduling. Real-time analytics and capacity modeling. This used to require a team of specialists. Now it requires one person who knows how to design the system. This is why the role is emerging now. Not because companies suddenly care about recruiting operations. Because AI makes it possible to build a hiring system that actually holds up under pressure. And someone has to architect it. The difference between 20 hires per recruiter and 40 isn't talent. It's the system. Strategic recruiters improve hiring decisions. Talent Systems Builders build the system that makes better hiring possible at scale. When both exist in the same organization, recruiting stops behaving like a service function and starts behaving like a business capability. And once you have the system, the next step isn't better execution, it's prediction. That's Talent Intelligence. And that's where this series is headed. Follow Peoplyx for recruiter reality checks and career intelligence. If you're part of a TA team, I've built free tools specifically for recruiters and TA leaders at peoplyx.com. #talentacquisition #recruitingleadership #recruitingoperations

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