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The recruitment industry moves fast. Almost daily, it seems like there’s a new best practice to follow or an emerging tool to bring into your recruitment workflow.
But as a recruiter, it’s hard enough to keep up with all the admin that comes with the job, never mind staying on top of industry trends.
This is where following the right recruitment influencers can be really invaluable. These experts are so in the know about the industry that they’ll be talking about recruitment challenges you need to overcome before you’ve even had a chance to experience them yet!
Get the right people on your radar – whether that’s by following them on LinkedIn, signing up to their newsletter or subscribing to their podcast – and you’ll stay in the know without having to put in the graft.
To give you some direction, here’s a list of the top recruitment voices I follow right now.
Matt Alder
Matt Alder is what he calls a ‘talent acquisition futurist’ - a recruiting expert who is constantly looking much further ahead than the rest of us to advise us all on how technology and trends will impact the TA space.
He hosts one of the longest-running weekly recruitment podcasts I know – the Recruiting Future Podcast – which has totted up 600+ episodes and over 2 million downloads since it began back in 2015.
On the show, Matt invites leading practitioners and thought leaders to discuss the future of talent acquisition and how AI technology will impact the recruitment industry. He also runs a monthly newsletter, Recruiting Future Feast, that’s worth subscribing to as well.
Matt is not just a podcaster either; he's a prolific writer, engaging speaker, and consultant, known for his thought-provoking content and actionable advice. He has co-authored a number of books, including Exceptional Talent and Digital Talent which focuses on innovation in talent acquisition and HR technology.
Hung Lee
Hung Lee is one of these people who is always five steps ahead of everyone else when it comes to identifying trends and new strategies in the TA space – particularly when it comes to recruitment technology.
Hung was co-founder of recruitment technology company Workshape, but has since moved on to become a very respected full-time recruitment influencer. His combined technology and TA background means he’s an expert at bringing external intelligence and applying it to the recruitment world; what you might call ‘recruitifying’ technology trends and best practices.
He runs the excellent Recruiting Brainfood podcast and a popular (35,000 subscribers) weekly newsletter that goes out via Linkedin too. Of all the newsletters in this list, Recruiting Brainfood is the one to subscribe to if you want to stay ahead of the recruitment tech curve.
Jim Stroud
Jim Stroud has been consulting in sourcing and recruitment for more than a decade, and can count the likes of Google and Microsoft as previous clients.
He’s spoken numerous times at Sourcing Summit and SourceCon, and now works in-house for SourceCon as Editor of the global event, where he’s responsible for growing the SourceCon community.
It never fails to surprise me how much ground Jim Stroud covers. Somehow, it’s like he has triple the number of hours in the day than the rest of us. Aside from running an award-winning blog, an HR podcast, a future of work video series and publishing a number of HR-related books, he posts regularly on his LinkedIn so we can all try to keep up with his brain!
Stacy Donovan Zapar
Stacy Donovan Zapar is Founder of The Talent Agency – an established boutique recruiter training, sourcing and TA consulting firm.
She’s been in the recruitment industry for more that two decades and has supported major employers like Zappos, Amazon and Netflix with their recruitment and staffing strategies.
Stacy is an influential voice on LinkedIn, and has had a lot of recognition for her contribution to the HR forum over the years. For example, she’s been recognised as one of the 100 HR Tech Influencers four times and recently earned the title of TA Trendsetter of the Year by SHRM.
She also runs a sourcing network called The Sourcing Squad which is worth checking out.
Kasia Tang
Kasia Tang is a sourcing expert with more than 27,000 followers on LinkedIn. So really, the numbers speak for themselves!
She manages Poland's largest recruitment community, the Recruitment Open Community Polska. Naturally, this means she mostly posts on LinkedIn in Polish. But thanks to that handy little ‘translate’ button, it’s still easy to follow her content – and it’s certainly worth doing that.
Kasia’s specialism is social recruiting, but she’s also a more generalist sourcing trainer who is really knowledgeable in all things recruitment tech. She runs a popular recruitment blog and recently published a sourcing book, Super Source Me.
Her approach to sourcing – which she emphasizes is ‘more than finding profiles online’ – encourages us to be constantly curious, continuously learning, and experimenting with new practices. This makes her an excellent recruitment influencer to follow, as she’s always full of new hacks and ideas.
Greg Savage
Greg Savage has been a recruitment influencer and well-known industry speaker for decades (40+ years, so that’s not even an exaggeration!). In this time, he’s earned something of a legendary status amongst agency recruiters.
Greg is a trusted advisor, the founder of four recruitment companies, and somehow finds the time to travel the world as a regular keynote speaker at international recruitment conferences and events all year round.
Over the years, I’ve seen Greg make multiple predictions about the recruitment industry in his LinkedIn feed that always turn out to be right. He shares his extensive recruitment knowledge with followers on his LinkedIn and through his blog, The Savage Truth, which is really popular amongst recruiters and agency owners. You can sign up to his weekly newsletter too.
Greg also runs an online recruitment training program, has published multiple books, eBooks and online recruitment training material, all of which you can access on his website.
Bill Boorman
Bill Boorman is probably one of the most well-known figures in recruitment. If you’ve ever attended any large-scale recruitment conference in the UK, you’ll have seen Bill Boorman on stage somewhere in his signature black hat and beard.
Unlike the other influencers in this list, Bill delivers most of his value at recruitment conferences. He’s spoken at most of the leading recruitment and HR events globally and has hosted over 100 events across 65+ countries worldwide. He also organizes a brand of #TRU events globally, which is a not-for-profit, open source networking event.
Bill’s main expertise is in recruitment technology, operating as a consultant to talent technology companies and advising on investment in the sector.
While Bill doesn’t have a podcast or newsletter to subscribe to, he is often invited to share his expertise as a guest on other recruitment podcasts, so it’s worth keeping an eye out for him in the feeds of recruitment podcasts you already listen to.
Dualta Doherty
Dualta Doherty is an agency recruiter and Managing Director of global high-billing rec2rec agency, the Doherty Group.
But the reason that Dualta is a recruitment expert to keep on your radar is that he’s extremely on the ball with adopting new technology to reduce recruiter admin. He was the first person I saw advocating that agencies use virtual recruiters and recruitment automation to lighten admin workload – something that’s considered normal practice now in 2024.
His podcast, The Recruitment Startup Podcast is also worth a listen, and he also runs a great YouTube video series too.
Lucinda Carney
Lucinda Carney is a psychologist-turned-HR expert based in the UK. As founder and CEO of Actus Performance Management Software, she speaks often about how corporations can use technology to create a superior workplace culture.
On LinkedIn, Lucinda shares insights on trends, strategies for improving workplace culture, and ways to enhance recruitment and retention efforts too.
As well as running her HR software business, Lucinda runs the popular #HRUprising podcast, which has previously hit number one in the Apple Podcast buisness charts. She also just published her first book, How to be a Change Superhero, which seeks to guide business leaders and HR professionals to workplace change.
Through these platforms, and her LinkedIn, Lucina provides invaluable insights and tools, practical tips and evidence-based practices, aiming to enrich workplaces worldwide.
Meghan M. Biro
As the CEO and Founder of TalentCulture, Meghan M. Biro is renowned for her expertise in talent management and HR technology.
She’s gathered a massive 50,000 LinkedIn followers over the years, using her platform to regularly post about workplace culture and share her thought leadership pieces, which she’s contributed to major publications such as Forbes, SHRM and Huffington Post, amongst others.
But if you want a quick dive into Meghan’s content, I recommend you tune into her podcast, the #WorkTrends podcast. On this weekly show, she invites guests to discuss topics like the role of generative AI in recruitment, and how businesses can use HR data to overcome various business challenges.
Marcel van der Meer
Marcel van der Meer is a global sourcing trainer with a reputation for being one of the best in the business. He offers bespoke training (in Dutch as well as English) to businesses looking to improve their sourcing techniques and get better results from core tools like LinkedIn Recruiter.
Marcel speaks at all the main global sourcing events, including SourceCon and the Sourcing Summit and has spoken at multiple other recruitment events, including RecFest. He posts daily on LinkedIn and his content is always super valuable.
As you would expect, he posts mostly about technology hacks for sourcing candidates and sometimes shares free downloadable guides, like this one on how to use AI tools for recruitment.
Marcel also runs an active Facebook community called BadAss Recruiters and Sourcers that has almost 7k members - it’s definitely worth checking it out.
Join the recruitment community
Following these expert recruitment voices isn’t just about listening to what they have to say and applying it to your work as a recruiter. It’s also about becoming part of the inspirational recruitment communities that these influencers have built.
The more attention you pay and proactively apply the recruitment hacks and trends these leaders share with you and apply them to your daily processes the more engaged you’ll become as you start to reap the benefits of taking this free expert advice.
And if you’re interested in seeing regular insights on how AI is impacting the recruitment industry, follow Carv on LinkedIn.
