What’s up, everyone?
Check this out. The world of HR and TA is moving quickly. This week, WRKdefined is headed to Indeed FutureWorks in Phoenix. If you’re there, keep an eye out and come say hello. We’ve also got a number of shows heading to RecFest in Nashville later this month.
This week, we’re getting into Google’s AI hiring mess, why people are interviewing for tattoos, and the 19% AI gap inside the workplace.
We’re also talking about something every HR team has dealt with. Trying to get HR and IT on the same page without chasing people through Slack, email, and whatever spreadsheet someone created three years ago. Deel put together a guide to help both teams clean up the requests, timelines, and ownership behind the employee lifecycle.
Let’s get into it.
HR and IT touch almost every part of the employee lifecycle, but most teams are still managing those handoffs through Slack messages, emails, and tribal knowledge.
Deel put together a guide to help both teams clean up requests, timelines, and ownership before something important gets missed. Download the guide here.
AI is Eating Entry-Level Jobs
See the full episode of the BARF here. This week we got into Google’s AI Hiring is Broke, Job Interviews for a Tattoo, and The 19% AI Gap.
Top 4 Shows this week
The Talent Revolution: Beyond Dashboards: Using Data Analytics to Drive Business Outcomes with David Turetsky | EP30
HCL Review Podcast: Shifting the Lens: Moving From Individual Blame to Organizational Accountability in Workplace Mistreatment
HR Mixtape: Vibe Teaming: How HR Turns AI Experiments into Real Adoption
SpeakEasy HR: 7 Unbreakable Laws of Leadership
The BARF
Columbia House is shutting down after 71 years
For decades, Columbia House convinced people to buy 12 CDs for a penny and then spend the next three years trying to cancel. It was confusing, slightly predatory, and somehow still better than most modern subscription models. Pour one out for a truly unhinged piece of American business history.
Candidates are more likely to apply when job descriptions are accurate
Monster surveyed 1,000 employed workers and found that 78% would be at least somewhat likely to abandon an application if the job description was unclear. Candidates apparently want to understand the job before spending 45 minutes retyping their résumé into your ATS. Wild concept.
Google insiders warn candidates about its AI hiring filters
Google DeepMind employees reportedly warned candidates that the company’s application system could incorrectly screen them out or take too long to route their résumés to a human. The workaround was a second form designed to make sure an actual person saw the application.
Google. DeepMind. AI. And the solution was basically, “Please fill out another form so a human can rescue you from our technology.”
The AI employment gap for young workers has widened to 19%
Stanford found that employment among workers ages 22 to 25 in highly AI-exposed occupations is now 19% below where it would be if it had kept pace with less-exposed jobs. That gap was 15% last year, and the change appears to be coming primarily from fewer young people being hired, not more people being laid off.
We keep waiting for AI layoffs when we should be watching the missing hires. If AI removes the beginner work, employers need to figure out how beginners are supposed to gain the experience required for everything that comes next.
What do you get for tattooing a startup’s logo on yourself? A meeting.
Y Combinator-backed startup LemonLime brought a tattoo artist to an event and offered instant interviews to anyone willing to get a company tattoo. Seven people got tattoos, although not all were job seekers or chose the company logo.
The CEO later apologized, deleted the post, and offered to pay for tattoo removal. What is the most ridiculous thing we’ve convinced candidates they need to do to prove they want a job?
Companies that roll back DEI don’t perform better financially
Researchers compared S&P 500 companies that maintained their DEI commitments with those that pulled back. They found no meaningful financial advantage for the companies that rolled their programs back.
People can argue about DEI all day, and they will. But customers are still going to buy the shit they need from whoever has the right product at the right price.
Your coworkers are becoming “meat proxies” for AI
A “meat proxy” is someone who takes an AI-generated answer, copies it, and sends it to another human without checking, editing, or adding a single original thought. The employee has not been replaced by AI. They’ve volunteered to become the API connection between AI and everyone else.
Does AI make mediocre employees better, or does it just make mediocrity faster and easier to distribute?
Yep. Love the combo of these topics/articles - AI eats the work you can look up and spares the work you can only learn by doing. Early career folks turn into "meat proxies" unless we're providing real mentorship and apprenticeship reps to develop judgment.