Welcome to the official limited podcast series from SHRM Talent 2026, recorded live at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas. In collaboration with SHRM, WRKdefined created this 33-episode series, which captures real conversations shaping the future of hiring, recruiting, talent acquisition, HR technology, leadership, workforce planning, candidate experience, AI at work, and the evolving world of work. Across the series, WRKdefined sat down with HR practitioners, talent leaders, consultants, analysts, creators, founders, and technology providers to explore what’s actually happening inside modern HR and recruiting teams. No corporate theater. No overproduced sound bites. Just smart people sharing pra...
Latest episodes
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13 min
AI Is Making Hiring Easier. So Why Is Everyone More Frustrated?
Applying for a job has never been easier. Finding the right candidate has never felt harder. Tina Robinson argues that recruiters and candidates are trapped in an AI arms race wher…
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8 min
Recruiting Fraud Is Exploding. Most Companies Aren’t Ready for It
Hiring has always involved a little deception. AI turned it into a completely different game. Philippe Beucher argues that recruiters now face a challenge they’ve never seen before…
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9 min
Corporate Training Is Still Teaching People the Wrong Way
Most workplace learning is built around convenience, not science. Three-hour presentations. Endless slides. Mandatory training sessions nobody remembers. Marcy Baughman explains wh…
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8 min
The Best Recruiters Don’t Fill Jobs. They Solve Business Problems
The best recruiting teams don’t fill jobs faster. They help businesses make better decisions. Paul Norman explains why too many recruiters are still measured by recruiting metrics…
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7 min
Recruiters Don’t Have an Applicant Problem Anymore. They Have a Trust Problem
The recruiting funnel is overflowing, but confidence is disappearing. Mike Peditto explains why recruiters are battling fraud candidates, AI-generated applications, and record inbo…
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10 min
Recruiting Has an Alignment Problem Nobody Wants to Admit
Companies say there’s a talent shortage while millions of people are looking for work. Jim Stroud breaks down the disconnect sitting underneath modern hiring and why recruiting tea…
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10 min
Your Employees Have More Brand Power Than Your Marketing Team
Most companies are still treating branding like a billboard problem while their employees are becoming media channels overnight. Roy Abdo explains why polished corporate messaging…
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5 min
AI Made Applying Easier. Recruiting Got Harder
AI was supposed to fix recruiting. Instead, it made every resume look the same. That’s the mess recruiters are dealing with right now. More automation. More applications. More nois…
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11 min
Your One-on-Ones Are Failing Because You Keep Asking the Wrong Question
“How’s it going?” might be the most expensive question managers ask. Joe Rotella argues that vague conversations create vague performance. Employees leave one-on-ones frustrated, m…
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19 min
Your Employees Are Telling You Why They Stay. Are You Listening?
Most leaders spend more time asking why employees leave than why they stay. Njsane Courtney argues that’s backwards. The answers companies need are already sitting inside the organ…
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15 min
Your Leadership Playbook Expired 20 Years Ago
Too many leaders are managing a 2026 workforce with lessons they learned in 2006. Krishna Powell argues that the biggest leadership challenge today isn’t attracting talent. It’s un…
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10 min
The Best Candidates Aren’t Always the Most Qualified on Paper
Resumes have never been perfect. AI just made the problem harder to ignore. Philip Nash argues that companies are spending too much time chasing credentials and not enough time eva…
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21 min
Time-to-Fill Is Broken. Nobody Knows What Great Recruiting Looks Like
Most recruiting teams are hitting their metrics and still getting told they’re failing. Tim Sackett argues that’s because the metric everyone tracks most obsessively might be the o…
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10 min
How Employees Leave Says More About Your Culture Than How They’re Hired
Most companies spend years perfecting recruiting and almost no time thinking about offboarding. Sarah Rodehorst argues that’s a massive mistake. The way employees leave a company c…
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10 min
Recruiting Doesn’t End When Someone Gets Hired
Most companies obsess over attracting talent and spend far less time thinking about what happens next. Chad Sorenson argues that real talent management starts before someone joins…
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21 min
Everyone’s Talking About AI. Almost Nobody Knows What Adoption Actually Means
Ask ten HR leaders about AI adoption and you’ll get ten different answers. Cole Napper argues that most AI conversations are broken because people are talking about completely diff…
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9 min
AI Is Turning Recruiting Into a Trust Problem
Every candidate suddenly sounds polished. Every resume looks optimized. Every interview answer feels rehearsed. Isela Conley breaks down what hiring leaders are quietly struggling…
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9 min
HR Is Under More Scrutiny Than Ever. Are You Ready to Prove Your Decisions?
The days of “trust us, we investigated it” are over. Jackie Schafer explains why HR teams are facing increasing pressure to document decisions, prove fairness, and back every concl…
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14 min
You’re Hiring for Skills. The Best Companies Hire for Potential
Most organizations are still measuring the wrong things. They hire for today’s job description while the role changes six months later. Art Jackson argues the companies winning the…
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10 min
HR Doesn’t Have an AI Problem. It Has a Trust Problem
AI adoption isn’t failing because of technology. It’s failing because companies still don’t know what problem they’re solving. Every HR platform suddenly has “AI” slapped on the ho…