RECRUITMENT & RETENTION

Morning Brew Inc.

To egregiously misquote Charli XCX: I think the job board is dead, so now we’re advertising on s-o-o-o-o-o-cial media.

The job market is a nightmare. Many employers are overwhelmed by endless AI-written and submitted job applications, and job seekers are frustrated by endless ghost jobs. Now, some employers are questioning the value of job boards, looking for other ways to reach top candidates.

Enter social media. At least half of US adults visited social media sites including YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram in 2025, according to Pew Research Center. These platforms’ reach, coupled with their efforts to purge bots from their sites, seems to have appealed to some employers. In recent years, they’ve increasingly turned to social media to get their jobs in front of real humans.

“We’re all in on social really being the dominant recruitment media in the next few years, and a lot of that actually ties to where we see active job search moving, which is away from humans on job boards and really to agent-led job searches,” Adam Stafford, CEO of recruitment marketing firm Recruitics, told HR Brew.

For more why social media is the next frontier for job ads, keep reading here.—PM

      

Sponsored By General Assembly

Enterprise layoffs may have actually upgraded the talent market for SMBs.

General Assembly shares that 81% of SMB HR leaders say cutbacks at larger companies have made recruiting and retention easier, and 47% have already hired from those firms in the past year.

But—surprise, surprise—AI’s playing a part in this shift.

30% of SMBs are actively hiring more people because of opportunities created by AI adoption. 67% of SMBs plan to hire additional roles by the end of the year, and 72% are building AI training into onboarding.

On the flip side, 2 in 5 SMB HR leaders have passed over an otherwise qualified candidate because they lacked AI skills. Ouch.

General Assembly can help your org build the practical AI skills that attract, develop, and retain the people who drive growth. Explore their AI talent research.

DEI

Getty Images

Deloitte agreed to a $21.5 million settlement with the Department of Justice (DOJ) over claims that the company violated the False Claims Act.

The DOJ alleged Deloitte, a government contractor, committed fraud because of its DEI initiatives. It claimed, among other things, that the company took race and sex into account during hiring and promotions.

Deloitte did not admit to, and the government did not prove, any wrongdoing, but the settlement marks another win for the Trump administration in its ongoing efforts to eliminate DEI in the public and private sectors.

For more on the settlement, and the Trump administration’s targeting of employers over DEI practices, keep reading here.—KP

      

Sponsored By Deel

Flexible pay is finally having its moment. No matter how much a company wanted to offer it, flexible pay was typically too complicated to implement in practice. But not anymore. Advances in payroll solutions have made it easy to adopt. Get the details in our recent article with Deel.

HR STRATEGY

HR professionals hold everyone else’s feelings all day, which means that their own feelings are put on the back burner—leaving them burnt out.

In this episode of HR Brew’s People Person podcast, host Kate Noel gets honest about her own burnout and brings in two guests who’ve been in the same place: Eliana Goldstein, founder of Goldstein Coaching, and Amina AlTai, executive coach and author of The Ambition Trap.

Skip the candles and bath salts—this one’s about community care, nervous system regulation, and why chasing the next goal without ever looking back at how far you’ve come is a fast track to crashing out.

For more from our conversation with Goldstein and AlTai, keep reading here.—LH

      

Sponsored By ezCater

Tastes lemon squeezy. Food for the workplace is a whole lot easier when it’s all in one place. ezCater’s singular platform lets you see, track, and manage every order and dollar. It’s also integrated directly into your tech stack, so food for work becomes predictable and easy to manage. Zest up your office lunch.

work perks

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Job postings for a “forward-deployed engineer” have increased 730% on Indeed and 12x on LinkedIn in the last year as employers’ desired tech talent shifts from those who can write code to those who can help customers integrate their AI tools. (the New York Times)

Quote: “The way to stand out in this moment is to be fundamentally human.”—Bryce Strauss, CEO of software firm Nominal, on the telltale signs that candidates aren’t using AI during interviews (the Wall Street Journal)

Read: Cybersecurity professionals’ workloads have increased due to AI, creating a wave of burnout across the profession. (Bloomberg)

^{*A message from our sponsor.}

Jobs

More focus, less fluff. CollabWORK filters out the noise and delivers jobs that actually match what HR Brew readers are looking for. Click here to see the full board of curated roles.