Episode 37 - AI in Recruitment: What’s Working, What’s Hype

AI is everywhere in recruitment, but what is actually working right now and what is just hype?

In this episode of The Tech Savvy Recruiter, Belinda Kerr and Andrew Rodger sit down with Martin Herbst, CEO of JobAdder, to unpack the real impact of AI on recruiter productivity, candidate selection, and client relationships. With more than 20 years of experience scaling SaaS marketplaces, Martin shares how smart agencies are cutting admin by up to 50 percent, using AI inside their CRM workflows, and building stronger talent communities without losing the human connection.

You will learn where recruiters are wasting time, how to avoid shiny tech distractions, and why the future of recruitment is not about replacing people but freeing them to focus on what matters most.
Perfect for recruitment agency owners who want practical, no-nonsense insight into using AI to grow faster and recruit smarter.

Questions:
When you zoom out and look at the industry where it’s up to now as a whole, how would you describe the current state of play of AI adoption in recruitment? What are recruiters actually doing with AI today versus what’s still largely theoretical? 2:55-3:15

If we're thinking about the practical gains with AI at the moment without kind of losing the human connection, but what should we be thinking about from a practical perspective right here, right now? What are you seeing across your customer base? What are people doing? What sort of habits are they engaging? How are they engaging with the way that you've got JobAdder moving through? 11:41-12:00

We're starting to see things like fake CVs and these sorts of things. How big a problem are they going to be? Are there going to be things that counter them before they get too out of control? 14:54-15:03

What about when it comes to data too? There's a profuse amount of data available now and it's relatively inexpensive to harness. Do you feel like there's an opportunity for people to be using that more so and better as well? 21:20-21:33

You've mentioned Adder intelligence. I'd love to get a glimpse behind the scenes a little bit around how the team's approaching or how they approach designing it and the ongoing modifications and enhancements. And I guess what core principles that you use to ensure that it's useful, trustworthy, and it's got that genuine improvement on what we need it to do for our day to day, to move that human back into the human stuff as we were just talking around, rather than the admin things. 22:28-22:54

What do you think the next couple of years, the crystal ball of six months is a long time at the moment, but the next couple of years will look like for recruiters. And what should we be gearing up for? 28:50-28:58

What about on the client side? How many are going to be losing clients because they can just do it themselves with more tools? 30:05-30:12

Connect with Belinda and Andrew:

LinkedIn Belinda Kerr
linkedin.com/in/belindakerr

Recruitment Garage
https://recruitmentgarage.com/

LinkedIn Andrew Rodger
linkedin.com/in/andrewrodger

recMate
https://www.recmate.com.au/