Talent acquisition has always been slow. Adoption is slow. Change is slow. Processes are slow. Even as the world rapidly evolved around us, TA remained stuck in sort of the same place for years.
It feels like that’s changed. AI made sure of that.
Now, it really feels like change is the only constant, and you really can’t be moving fast enough. The best organizations are not only using AI in recruiting currently, but they’re also following trends and thinking a year, two years, three years ahead. The reality is that the best talent teams will evolve very quickly, using AI as a foundation to attract better talent, faster.
And if you’re only thinking about today, tomorrow, or even this year, it honestly might not be enough. You might already be falling behind.
One of the things I’m finding when talking to most talent leaders is that they see the benefits of AI, and they are working toward implementation at some level within talent acquisition. But the total focus is almost always on how we will use AI for maximum impact — never is there a thought on how we will use our people with AI for maximum impact. This is a huge miss. You can’t just be thinking about people anywhere, but you also can’t just be thinking about AI. You need to be looking ahead and envisioning a world where you have both humans and AI to do TA work. The question is: Who does what for maximum efficiency?
The best organizations are not only using AI in recruiting currently, but they’re also following trends and thinking a year, two years, three years ahead.
I’ll give you an example of an organization who did this well: 7-Eleven.
Recently, 7-Eleven went through a massive AI transformation in talent acquisition. After acquiring Speedway, they found themselves with two very different talent tech stacks and two very different recruiting processes. It’s an easy call to go down to one stack. It’s a much harder call to determine which stack and which process. Or better yet, maybe a new tech and new process that fits even better — true transformation. I won’t get into the full details (you can read the case study from my friends over at The Josh Bersin Company here), but essentially they completely reimagined the structure of their recruiting team to maximize both their talent and their technology. Their result was 40,000 man-hours per week savings. Read that again! Between recruiting and store leaders, they used AI to do roughly 95% of all previous recruiting tasks done by humans. Look, massive organizational change is never easy. But 7-Eleven is proof that there’s so much untapped potential here.
You need to be thinking big. What is your absolute ideal process for recruiting? What do you really want your top recruiters spending time on? Now go do that. Because it’s actually possible now. It might take time. A year or more, potentially. But it’s worth it — you can no longer go quarter to quarter with your strategy. You need to see an ideal future state for your talent acquisition team (in 2026 and beyond) and start working towards it. So, where do you start?
Step 1: Do the research!
How are your competitors and your industry looking to use AI? “But, Tim, what do you expect me to do, just call up my peer at the competitor?” Yes. You’ll be surprised at what people are willing to share with each other as everyone goes through this learning and transition. Don’t think they won’t. You aren’t asking them to share trade secrets. We all basically hire the same. Let’s help each other out. If that doesn’t work, call your tech vendor. Paradox has thousands of clients across all industries, so their team actually knows how other teams are using AI and what’s working and what’s not.
You need to be thinking big. What is your absolute ideal process for recruiting? What do you really want your top recruiters spending time on? Now go do that.
Step 2: Create your future state!
Design the perfect talent acquisition vision for your organization. If you had no barriers, how would you want to attract and obtain talent? What would you do differently than you do now? What are the pinch points in your current process? What is the pain your operators are feeling? What is the pain your candidates are feeling? From there, create that vision and share it with your recruiting team and with your operations team. Get IT and finance involved by sharing this vision with them. Gather insight. Let them scoff at your big, audacious ideas, because there’s actually tons of ROI proof points (like 7-Eleven) you can use to win them over. This has to be big and bold. If your vision is to automate 95% of your recruiting process. Cool! It probably should be, depending on the types of roles you’re hiring for.
Step 3: Find your partners!
Maybe it’s Paradox. Maybe it’s Paradox and your HCM provider. Maybe it’s a combination totally new to you. Sit them down together and tell them your vision. Let them pick it apart and tell you what they can do and what they can’t do. Ask them to go away with your vision and come back with solutions and partners they need to make it happen for you. I’m always amazed at the capabilities of my tech partners when I begin to treat them like a partner and less like a vendor. Like you, they want to be wildly successful and show off the great work they can do. I tend to find they’ll go above and beyond when I let them into the tent, and not make them wait on the outside.
Step 4: Get your financial commitments!
This is tricky. Finance usually only cares about the bills it has to pay. They’ll see you want to buy some AI, and they might be, “Awesome! We agree!” But they’ll forget about the part where you said, “Hey, remember the vision? All the cool stuff! The better talent? We’re going to keep our people doing that cool stuff!” The increase in quality of hire and the increase in tenure has massive value to any operation. It also costs money to create this. Honestly, if you just want to create a hiring machine to get you warm bodies to show up, AI can do that pretty easily. But, after that initial savings, your executives won’t be happy. Because it’s not about just the machine. It’s about creating a machine and creating a sustainable process that delivers high quality at high speed. The high speed is easy to deliver, but if it’s low quality, it will fail. I don’t let my financial partners off the hook. I want to hear them tell me I have my funding for my tech and I have my funding for my manpower. This is how I build the future.
Step 5: Execute!
This is by far the hardest step.
Most transformations fail because of a lack of execution. It’s not because you don’t want it badly enough or you’re not willing to put in the work. It’s because organizations fight change and transformation with every ounce of energy they have, and most don’t even know they’re fighting it! The problem is we all get wrapped up in our own process, our own tech, and our own vision, and we tend to see someone else’s vision as a threat to ours. We want you to succeed, but not at the expense of my vision succeeding. This is why organizational dynamics is so hard!
You have to power through this. There will be some compromises along the way, but don’t lose your vision. Find ways to help others on their path in exchange for help with your path. The best leaders have a knack for this type of negotiation. It’s genuinely focusing on the win-win, not the win-lose.
So, what’s your vision going to be? See you in 2026.
