TaPod - We Talk Talent Acquisition.

On our special TaPod does ATC series, we catch up with James Whitcombe – Founder of The Candidate Coach and Director at SMAART Recruitment. Recently James applied for roles at Australia’s 100 largest companies, and his findings are amazing. Segmenting the process to the application, the application received the email and the rejection email; he was able to pinpoint successes and failures with candidate experience. There are some crazy stats, and comes with a warning that if you are not trying to apply for a role at your own organisation, you risk falling into the traps that are affecting your bran...

On our special TaPod does ATC series, we catch up with Meredith Johnson – Chief Product Officer and Carin Van Vuuren – Chief Marketing Officer at Greenhouse. We discuss the AI Doom Loop, Greenhouse Dream Job, helping job seekers to stand out, candidate fraud, brands that stand out, training to use new technology and AI ethics. It’s a fascinating discussion covering all the issues we, in TA, are facing every day. 

It’s your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. We have all kinds of stories, including One Nation shenanigans, latest unemployment figures, Public Service wants a pay rise, Bikies running recruitment in Adelaide, HR becomes RR, a happy little recruitment romance in China 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 Kevin Wheeler, live from the ATC as he delivers his Fearless Forecast, and are you in for a treat!

In his unique way, Kevin doesn’t hold back on what’s in store for the future of recruitment. He forces us all to take a good long hard look in the mirror and face the challenges of changing demand, AI and evolution as we help define our industry. If you are in recruitment and weren’t lucky enough to be at ATC, this is unmissable listening.

Than...

Join us for a special Tapod episode, where we get under the hood of Australia's new home for TA – the Talent Acquisition Association of Australia – the TAAA. Launched 2 weeks ago as Australia’s only professional association for Talent Acquisition we were hoping for 400 members in the first year and we are close to 500 in the first 2 weeks! We are all about raising professional standards, training pathways, lobbying and advocacy for the government and much more. We already have some amazing partners, including Indeed, Avature, CXC Global, Workpro and Testgrid. So join now – free for TA professionals and TA Teams in the fi...

It’s your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. We have all kinds of stories live from ATC 2026 including,  Microsoft getting a slap and a hug on the same day, Amazon still laying off staff while investing in AI, Lauren from Indeed joins us to speak EB, Upwork and Apple have some great new jobs, small business prioritising retention, gender pay gap hits AI Agentsand 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 Annalise Neal, Senior Talent Partner at Culture Amp who won the Enterprise Talent Professional of the Year Award at the 2026 Internal Talent Awards. Exceeding her personal target by 25%, Annalise describes herself as process-obsessed and loves looking for efficiencies. From reducing times to hire by 33% to building talent pools to changing hiring manager thinking, Annalise tells us the proof is in the metrics. Working across engineering, Culture Amp’s graduate program and AI evolution, Annalise shows us what a high-performing talent professional looks like in 2026.

Thanks to Greenhouse for partnering wi...

It’s your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. We have all kinds of stories, including fun and frivolity in Hobart, police recruitment in the mud, plenty on LinkedIn, data centre recruitment thriving, ADF improving the trade drain, Snoop Dogg recruits an ice cream taster, 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 Kimberley Manning, Director of TA – Australia & NZ at Delaware North, and Aaron Smith, co-founder & CTO at Check Work Rights, who won the Best Vendor Solution Award at the 2026 Internal Talent Awards sponsored by TaPod. Championing compliance is a real point of difference in Delaware North’s GTM, and with over 7000 employees, this can be a huge challenge. Join us as we breakdown ‘Check Intelligence’, AI and compliance fraud. 

Thanks to Greenhouse for partnering with us for this episode. 

It’s your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. This week Lauren is off, and Bonnie is back and misbehaving. We have all kinds of stories including, working for free is not on, candidates prefer to interview with bots, Christmas comes early, Aussies scrambling for second jobs, the ‘profiler’ is the recruitment superhero we all need, Gen Z looking for new roles 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 Kristy Glew and Jessica Raslan from Each, who won the Excellence in Candidate Experience Award at the 2026 Internal Talent Awards sponsored by Havas People. Servicing over 36,000 applicants, CX is a real focus for the team at Each. From their recruit and onboard hub to support hiring managers, to over 70 language translations, to accessibility enhancements to a careers website redesign and much more.

Thanks to Smart Recruiters for partnering with us for this episode. 

It’s your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. This week Craig is off, Bonnie jumps into his seat, and we are in for a bucket of fun, including Gen Z turns up to interviews with an iced coffee, Fair Work in the news again, Virgin cancels flights over cabin crew resourcing, changes to skilled migration visas, brutal UK numbers for over 50 job seekers, transgender social worker wins case  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 Emma Cassidy – Group Head of Talent Acquisition & Workforce Solutions at Ampol. In a triple threat, Ampol won the Enterprise Talent Team of the Year, and the Best Contingent Workforce Program at ITAs’ 2026… throw in Emma’s own individual award for Enterprise Talent Leader of the Year and it was an exclamation point on a year of transformation and success. Join us as we breakdown these winning submissions across, EVP revamp, careers site upgrade, tech implementation, workforce structure and redesign,  AI enablement and more. It’s the industry benchmark and you really need to hea...

It’s your weekly TA & Recruitment news blast with the Scoop from TaPod. This week we cover all kinds of angles including, AI redundancies being hired back, Japanese are getting recruitment creative, non-compete clauses being removed under legislation, WFH changes stall, crazy reason a candidate was rejected, surge in AI-generated applications pushing recruitment processes out, judge blocks Trump culture-fit question 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 Rebecca Houghton, Australia’s leading Middle Management Expert, Founder of BoldHR, Speaker, Best-selling Author and a brilliant person to boot!

Today, we’re discussing the ‘B-Suite Benchmarks Report', the only comprehensive study of Middle Managers in Australia. We drill down on a variety of statistics, causes, risks and remedies including 21% of Middle Managers are operating in the ‘AI-Risk zone’, 63% report high frustration and influence takes over from burnout as the primary leadership challenge… And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Join us as we place ourselves firmly in ‘the midd...

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 st...

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 ticke...

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 b...

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...

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...

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...

 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 h...

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 t...

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...

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...