TaPod - We Talk Talent Acquisition.

It’s your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. This week we cover all kinds of angles including, WFH laws might just be unconstitutional, recruiter rocks up for an interview straight from Vegas, talent gaps driving jobs offshore, bots keep interviewers on their toes, over 1 million holding down 2 (or more) jobs in Australia, man pretends to hallucinate in a job interview, AI work colleagues described as genius, sociopathic five-year-olds and much more. And hey, don’t forget to check out upcoming events. Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us to bring you the Scoop.

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Jake Ellul, TA Manager at Consolidated Power Projects, all the way from Adelaide. They are doing great things at CPP – moving from a recruitment delivery function to a full strategic workforce partner. We talk tech, ‘C’ suite buy-in and transformation. And it all starts with trust and relationships.Thanks to Smart Recruiters for partnering with us for this episode. 

It’s time for all the best TA & Recruitment News from here and around the globe with the Scoop. Presented by the number 1 TA podcast in APAC – TaPod.We cover all kinds of drama including, the job market is broken according to Wired, strikes and more strikes in Australia and NZ, North Korean spies infiltrate US Government, Fair Work pass on costs for AI slop, the FBI open to hiring prostitutes and much more.Big thanks to Indeed for supporting the Scoop 

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Deepak Singh, Culture & DE&I expert at Mission and Rhythm. Deepak really knows his stuff, having been named in the top 12 at the HR Influencer Awards 2026. According to Deepak, great culture comes from great leadership, and that is the place we need to focus on to generate meaning in the workplace. Most of us are carrying a lot of work weight and stress due to many issues, including changes in DE&I policy, changes driven by AI and unstable economic conditions affecting culture, and it’s time for leaders to really stand up. A really interesting chat!  Thanks to Paradox for partnering with us for this episode. 

Join us for a special Tapod episode, where we catch up with Adam Godson – GM Talent Acquisition Products at Workday and former CEO at Paradox. We talk new products, enhancements, and updates at Workday. As well as touch on the excitement of the Workday/Paradox marriage. Adam is super excited with where HR Tech is headed and gives us great insights into what the next couple of years might look like – join us.

Welcome to TaPod’s 600th episode! It’s your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. This week we cover all kinds of angles, unemployment on the up, Workday valuation is through the roof, KPMG shrinking under scandal, interviewer catches candidate out, Fair Work Commission hands out new rules, LinkedIn profile edits creating risk, FedEx workers to strike, Google doesn’t trust its own AI, and much more. And hey, don’t forget to check out upcoming events. Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us to bring you the Scoop.

This week on Tapod, we catch up with the brilliant Jo Vohland, Director, Curator & Event Host from ATC. And today we are all about the 2026 State of TA Report. With almost 250 Talent Teams contributing to a 41-page report and 18,000 data cells. It is chock-full of information from maturity levels, to the impact of AI, to what’s driving industry-wide redundancies, to restructuring, to skills, advisory, tasks and outcomes, to what a future talent function may look like. This episode gives you a blueprint to model your Talent Strategy on. And don’t forget ATC ‘Uplift’ is very close – get your tickets now! Thanks to Paradox for partnering with us for this episode. 

It’s your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. This week we cover all kinds of angles, including Harvard finds women on Ozempic have better work prospects, Lauren goes whack on Oracle, digital literacy required in 90% of all roles, Hobart is Australia’s best city for career growth, 24% of AI job interviews happening in the middle of the night, Lunar the AI Agent dismisses human employee, recruitment and Chinese spies, global youth unemployment skyrockets. And much more. And hey, don’t forget to check out upcoming events. Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us to bring you the Scoop.

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Emi Beredugo, Senior Manager – Recruiting Enablement @Elastic, Non-Executive Director, Advisory Board Member, Speaker & Podcaster and most importantly a bloody fantastic person. We talk AI and specifically what’s next for TA. Emi is very, very clear—we need to stop prompting and start building—but what should we be building? And more importantly, where the bloody hell do we start? Here’s the road map. And if your leaders aren’t your champions… start there… and start soon. Thanks to Paradox for partnering with us for this episode. 

On our special TaPod does Recfest UK series, we catch up with Lia Manafova - Talent Tech Strategy Lead at Sanofi. If you want to hear about a real transformation journey Lia has got a story for you! Integrating Paradox (a Workday company) into their business saved 38.6 minutes via email applications and 84.5 minutes via WhatsApp while still focusing on candidate experience, and fully automated scheduling runs in 8 seconds! And that’s just for starters. Join us in the glorious UK sunshine as we unpack this fantastic transformation. 

It’s your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. This week we cover all kinds of angles, including Deel and Rippling in new drama, the EU AI Act in force, job ads on the up, Lauren gets political, Craig has marbles in his mouth, the candidate putting cricket ahead of Saturdays, AI users maybe working longer hours, and candidates getting smarter… or are they? And much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us to bring you the Scoop.

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Professor Toby Walsh – Australia’s preeminent expert on AI and Chief Scientist at UNSW. Described by The Australian as the ‘rock star of the digital revolution’, Toby has appeared this year on 60 Minutes, The Today Show and delivered an address to the Australian Press Club. His soon-to-be-released 5th book – ‘God AI – Boom or Doom?' What to expect when machines outsmart us' – focuses in on how to navigate the anxiety of the AI age and talks about existential risks posed by our accelerating efforts to realise an AI-powered future. AI moves quickly, from the newly announced Office of AI to rogue agents to using the technology to support your career; we cover it all. And who better than Professor Toby Walsh to help us navigate this brave new world?Thanks to Paradox for partnering with us for this episode. 

Join us for a special Tapod episode, where we catch up with James Ellis – global branding expert and best-selling author. We discuss James new book – Becoming Choosable – written specifically for TA and employer brand leaders. James has so much energy and knowledge and for the first time ever in Australia, you can join him for a Talent Strategy Masterclass in Melbourne on September 2nd. It’s a hands-on half day workshop where James works with you, not at you, to build the foundations of a talent strategy that actually holds up. Brought to you by the amazing team at Video my (link to tix in comments) – this is really must-attend… no really. 

It’s your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. This week we cover all kinds of angles including, possibility of Victorian WFH law changes, Australian workers staying put in record numbers, NZ upgrade Holiday Act, SA botch their recruitment drive, Oracle lay off those with earned equity, ATO have an AI whoopsy, tech bro has potential candidates ink up and much more. Don’t forget to check out the upcoming events.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us to bring you the Scoop.

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Natalie Badaway – or ‘Nat Bad’ as we like to call her (thanks Denise Pereira, for the nickname). Nat is busy as Talent Acquisition Specialist at Andromeda (a really cool robotics company) and co-organiser at the Melbourne Talent Meet-Up. We are all very aware of the pressure and anxiety our industry has been under over the last 18 months. With the rise of AI, war in Europe and the Middle East, global tariffs, increased inflation and interest rates all affecting hiring levels and redundancies across our sector, we are all feeling it. And this is why Community is so important. Nat talks us through the how and why. If you do not attend 'meet-ups' in your city, it’s about time you bloody did! No-one understands our industry like our community, and if you need support, we are all here for you.Thanks to Paradox for partnering with us for this episode. 

 Join us for a special Tapod episode, where we catch up with Lee Seymour – Founder and CEO at XRef. We discuss the shadow of AI – the good, the bad and the outright fraud. The transitional recruitment market we currently find ourselves in and the challenges associated with the current environment. And we drill down on on xref.me – your verified digital resume that’s powered by verified references. It’s a game changer.

It’s your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. This week we cover all kinds of angles, including emerging roles in AI, Ghost Jobs crack down in the US, economic updates with Callam Pickering, firing a time traveller in the UK, China making hiring decisions based on zodiac signs, and workers nostalgic about life before AI. Don’t forget to check out the upcoming events.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us to bring you the Scoop.

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Matthew Lant – Head of Recruitment and Employer Brand at AFCA, and David Macciocca – Founder & CEO at VideoMy. We dig deep on the AFCA-nites ambassador program, and it’s a ripping example of how an EB program comes to life. From targeting specific candidate profiles to telling stories via real internal employees, the results are amazingly successful. We look at the partnership between AFCA and VideoMy and how that generated results that resonated all the way up to the C-suite. In a world where we rely on third-party technology, AFCA now hires over half of their talent from channels they own themselves.Thanks to VideoMy for partnering with us for this episode. 

It's your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. This week we cover all kinds of angles, including fashion brand changes their parental leave program, job ad results in zero applications, teachers striking… and miners striking, Indeed launches Career Scout, another job ad calls for 10 years of Claude Code experience, Deel and Rippling continue to rumble, AI firm calls for masturbation consultants, and much more. Don’t forget to check out the upcoming events.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us to bring you the Scoop.

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Emma Cassidy, Group Head of Talent Acquisition & Workforce Solutions at Ampol. We hear a lot about transformation, but in Emma’s own words it’s been ‘A huge year of transformation for Ampol’—in this episode we focus in on the contingent workforce. From knowledge retention to classification to visibility to a new career website to employing a new model to workforce redesign to task intelligence to working collaboratively across the business, what we see is a true transformation success story and a blueprint for other Talent Teams to follow.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 the latest on WFH legislation, candidates being judged on their drink order, Fair Work laying down the law, Meta goes early… too early, strange things are afoot at Wollongong Uni, Hudson in more of a pickle, Hiring Manager disses his staff during an interview, and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us to bring you the Scoop.

On this very special episode, the team at Tapod come to you all the way from Recfest UK as we catch up with Robby Perdue - VP of Product Management at Greenhouse. A lot has been going on at Greenhouse, and we get right down and dirty with features, updates and releases. We discuss all the key issues, including the AI 'doom loop' and how technology can actually help. We discuss whether the 'new phase' of recruitment challenges are AI or human-led as well as ethical AI and we talk about some amazing new Greenhouse features - Voice AI and MCP integrations. And for this special episode we have released a video version - see comments if you want to check out our ugly mugs!Thanks to Greenhouse for your support of Tapod.

This week on the Scoop we do things a little differently. The team from Tapod has travelled to the UK to attend Recfest. We ask vendors about their experience with AI and how some candidates are gaming and failing – hope you enjoy!Thanks to Indeed for continuing to support the Scoop.

This week on Tapod, catches up with Elaina Chan, Senior Manager of Global HR Automations at IBM. Elaina we walks us through the process and journey one of the largest technology businesses on the planet has undertaken to transform. From identifying opportunity and the key use of ethical AI, this is a blueprint for other businesses to use when undertaking their own journey.Thanks to Greenhouse for partnering with us this month. 

This week on Tapod, we start building towards the excitement of the ITAs 2026. And we are joined by the ever-fabulous Kelly Murphy – Head of Talent Acquisition from Story House Early Learning – who walked away with not one… but two ITAs last year – (but between you and me, only one of them made it safely home to the hotel). SHEL won Excellence in Onboarding and Best Careers Website, and we go through what makes a good submission great. And hey… if you haven’t secured your tickets to this year’s event, it’s creeping up very, very fast, so bloody well get on to it!Thanks to Greenhouse for partnering with us this month. 

It’s your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. This week Kimbo Lawrie returns as guest host and we cover all kinds of angles, including Ghost Jobs, Deep Fakes, what’s wrong with interview processes, toxic workplaces, PwC talking in riddles, careers with the highest divorce rates, candidate referral horror stories  and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us to bring you the Scoop.

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Sarah Prince, Managing Director at the Migration Agency. With the recent budget and the ongoing discussions around underemployment in the immigrant population, it’s a fantastic time to check in with an industry expert. We cover the disconnect between budget and government announcements in terms of the need for the skilled migrant population to deliver essential services like Aged Care and Health Care and the reduction in net immigration. We talk about qualifications and the challenges around many skilled migrants sourcing opportunities at the level they are trained at. It’s a really interesting discussion. 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 have a guest host and cover all kinds of angles, including fake applicant beats 261 rivals, Deloitte disruption forecast, doom jobbing, token maxxing or lily padding, IKEA replaces 8,500 roles, but it’s not what you think, World Cup productivity sinkhole, the back door reference and much more.Thanks to Indeed for partnering with us to bring you the Scoop.

This week on Tapod, we catch up with Denise Pereira – Senior Global Talent Sourcing Partner @Zendesk, Founder @KaleidoSource, Podcaster @CraftySourcer and bloody Industry Legend! Denise has some very strong views on how AI has changed the role and will continue to change the role of the Sourcer. There are 2 overarching themes in this episode – 1: if you don’t change and evolve to include AI in your day-to-day, you will not survive… And 2, there always needs to be a person in the loop. Grab a listen; there are nuggets aplenty!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 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.