Skip to main content

From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.

By subscribing, you accept our Terms & Privacy Policy.

☕ Main character energy
To:Brew Readers
Talent acquisition may be entering its glow-up era.
October 20, 2026View Online | Shop
Newsletter Logo

Presented By

Sponsor Logo: LHH

Hello, hello! If you need some validation about your own job performance, remember that someone out there was in charge of hiring Katie Zacharia, the White House press secretary who lasted just five days on the job.

In today’s edition:

🤝 Every hire matters

🤖 What happens in Vegas

💬 People person

—Adam DeRose, Lance Holt

RECRUITMENT & RETENTION

New JD for TA

LinkedIn CEO Dan Shapero at Talent Connect explaining new jobs and hiring research

HR Brew

Recruiting and talent acquisition (TA) may be entering its glow-up era. The days of just filling open reqs are numbered and companies are beginning to ask more from recruiters in an AI-enabled era, according to new research from LinkedIn.

Some 75% of talent pros say their job is harder than ever amid external, internal, and technological changes to the way work gets done. But a LinkedIn survey of HR and talent leaders also found that 85% believe talent acquisition “is entering its most influential era.”

Talent pros “are main characters in the story,” LinkedIn CEO Dan Shapero said during the company’s Talent Connect customer event in New York City. “How we show up with our teams, how we hire great people, how we lead our organizations is going to shape people’s lives at a time when the labor market and the world of work is going through so much change and is so uncertain.”

LinkedIn is dubbing this new era for recruiting the rise of “talent orchestration,” a new remit focused on coordinating all the people, AI tools, data, and processes involved in how work gets done.

For more on how talent pros’ may see their job description change, keep reading here.—AD

Sponsored By LHH

Get ahead of the severance shift

Sponsor: LHH

Word on the street (read: new 2027 data from LHH) is that organizations are bracing for more layoffs but less severance.

Want all the details? You can be the first to get the 10th edition of LHH’s Severance & Separation Benefits Benchmarks Study as soon as it drops. Here’s a sneak peek of the data they found:

  • 69% of organizations expect layoffs or RIFs over the next 12 months.
  • 38% of organizations have trimmed their severance packages.
  • 79% of organizations now offer outplacement to nonexempt employees.

Looks like changes in the workforce are on the horizon. Make sure you’re ready for it with this new report from LHH.

Get first dibs here.

TECH

HR Brew X HR Tech

HR Tech

HR Brew

The annual HR Technology conference is set to begin this week in Las Vegas, and HR Brew is headed to the Strip to check it out again this year. We know AI is top of mind. The conference sessions focus a lot on operationalizing AI and the tech and data that’s needed to succeed, proving AI’s ROI, and HR’s responsibility to redesign work that fits enterprise-wide AI orchestrations. But we all know the AI story isn’t the same for every HR leader or for every company, and we’ll be at the Mandalay Bay with one big question burning brighter than the rest: Where’s AI actually changing how work gets done and what’s still blowhard AI hype?

What’s new and consequential. We’re hoping to see what’s emerging as best practices for real impact, not just flash. As AI implementation is a major focus, we’ll chat with vendors about their latest AI-powered platforms and tools, but we’ll also look beyond the buzzy claims or tee’d up demos to better understand what’s genuinely transformational for HR. We know by now it’s the people that make the transformation possible, not simply the tech.

Shark tank. We’ll also meet with startup founders (who love to talk about their startups) and put you on to any must-have transformative tools you’re not hearing about from your HCM vendor or your HR transformation consultant. Some startups will also compete in a Shark Tank-style pitch fest this year and we’ll try to better understand what unique problems in HR—from job descriptions to employee exits—that folks are trying to tackle in the startup space.

HR and espionage. Tech is remaking everything…including global espionage (potentially, accidentally?).

For more on what we’ll be keeping an eye on at HR Tech, keep reading here.—AD

Sponsored By Paradox, a Workday Company

Sponsor: Paradox, a Workday Company

Frontline hiring, sans the desk. More than half of JLL’s over 112k employees work trades like HVAC and boiler operations. As for the hiring process? It meets candidates by text. AI replies to nearly all 1.5m yearly applicants, allowing screening time to fall by 70%.1 Start building your strategy around your workers, one person at a time.

HR STRATEGY

Fractional HR

Fractional HR is showing up everywhere, from LinkedIn feeds to HR conference panels. But what does it actually mean?

On this episode of HR Brew’s People Person podcast, Kate Noel, SVP and head of people operations at Morning Brew Inc., speaks with Elles Skony, founder of the Fractional People People community, about what it means to be a fractional HR leader, how the job differs from consulting or advising, and where such professionals are finding work.

“Fractional’s been around,” Skony said. “It just hasn’t been as well known I think as now.”

For more from our conversation with Skony, keep reading here.—LH

Sponsored By DoorDash

Sponsor: DoorDash

The secret to get your people back in the office: food. Just ask DoorDash for Business. They tapped the minds of 1,000+ decision-makers to get their takes on workplace meal programs. Grab the white paper to read up on the role of meals at work.

work perks

A desktop computer plugged into a green couch.

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: The ROI of an MBA has changed little since last year, but the cost hasn’t, with rising tuition, expenses, and loan interest rates requiring an investment as high as $305,000. (Bloomberg)

Quote: “If you need predictable hours, a defined playbook, or frequent direction, this isn’t for you.”—Ryan Batra, a VP of talent at billionaire Vinod Khosla’s venture firm, advertising a job opening for a chief of staff role with strenuous requirements that have become commonplace in Silicon Valley’s modern work culture (the Wall Street Journal)

Read: Netflix laying off 1,000 workers and ousting its chief content officer last week may have been surprising to some given its claimed the lion’s share of the streaming market. But a look under the hood shows that stagnating viewership and poor stock performance are to blame. (the New York Times)

The scoop on severance: Get the first look at LHH’s Severance & Separation Benefits Benchmarks Study, packed with new 2027 data. The main metric they found: more layoffs, less severance. Sign up to get all the deets ASAP.*

*A message from our sponsor.

Jobs

Now Hiring

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.

Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Instagram YouTube TikTok

Written by Adam DeRose, Lance Holt, and Paige McGlauflin

ADVERTISE//CAREERS//SHOP//FAQ

View our privacy policy here.

Copyright © 2026 Morning Brew Inc. All rights reserved.
22 W 19th St, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10011

From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.

By subscribing, you accept our Terms & Privacy Policy.

A mobile phone scrolling a newsletter issue of HR Brew