Mid-Year Talent Tech Check-In: What Four Industry Leaders Are Seeing in Talent Acquisition Right Now

The first half of 2026 has been another period of significant change for Talent Acquisition. Organisations continue to navigate economic uncertainty, pressure to reduce costs, changing candidate behaviour, and the rapid emergence of AI-powered tools. At the same time, many organisations have now completed major Talent Tech implementations and are shifting their focus from transformation projects to operational efficiency and optimisation. 

To understand what is really happening on the ground, we spoke with four experienced talent leaders working across different industries and operating environments. 

Michael Abel has spent more than two decades in Talent Acquisition, including 14 years with engineering giant Worley. During that time he has led global Talent Acquisition functions, major technology implementations and transformation programs, specialising in recruitment operations, process design and Talent Tech. 

Sandra Lim has led Talent Acquisition functions and designed recruitment technology, processes and operating models across scale-ups, large enterprises, Government and the brewing industry. A well-known figure within the Australian TA community, she recently founded Enchanted Table, combining her love of books, food and community through curated retreats. 

Loren de Laine began her career with recruitment pioneer Morgan & Banks before moving into senior Talent Acquisition leadership roles with organisations including Johnson & Johnson, American Express and Allianz. She is currently Regional Director of Talent Acquisition at CHEP, where she continues to focus on building strategic Talent Acquisition functions that integrate closely with workforce planning and broader HR strategy. 

Tosh Onishi began his career in technology support before moving into recruitment, eventually leading Talent Acquisition across Asia Pacific for organisations including Visa and Okta. Having spent more than a decade living and working across Singapore and Japan, Tosh brings a unique regional perspective on Talent Acquisition, technology adoption and the increasingly complex regulatory environment facing multinational employers. 

While their experiences differ, several common themes emerged. Technology is certainly changing recruitment, but many of the biggest challenges facing Talent Acquisition today are not technology problems at all. They are process, capability and organisational design challenges that technology alone cannot solve. 

AI is Creating New Challenges Rather Than Removing Old Ones 

It would be impossible to discuss the current state of Talent Acquisition without talking about AI. We’ve spoken at length in the past on the concept of the “AI arms race”, but what stood out from these conversations was not excitement about the technology itself, but the practical challenges that AI is creating throughout the hiring process. 

Sandra highlighted the dramatic increase in application volumes many organisations are now experiencing. Prior to COVID, a typical professional role might attract around 100 applications, with a significant proportion being reasonably aligned to the role. Today, that same role may attract two or three times as many applicants, many of whom have used AI tools to optimise their resumes and applications around keywords and job descriptions. 

As Sandra explained, "You build AI to help with the screening, but where is the line and where do you stop?" 

The result is an emerging cycle where candidates use AI to create applications, organisations deploy AI to manage growing application volumes, and recruiters find themselves trying to determine how much of the candidate's submission reflects their own skills and experience. While AI can undoubtedly improve efficiency, none of the leaders we spoke with viewed it as a complete solution. 

Instead, they consistently emphasised that AI works best when applied to repetitive, transactional and administrative tasks. The more organisations attempt to automate relationship-building, assessment and decision-making, the greater the risk that they lose the very elements that differentiate strong recruitment outcomes from poor ones. 

This challenge becomes even more pronounced as organisations continue to experiment with AI agents, automated screening tools and conversational interfaces. While the technology continues to evolve rapidly, the governance, process design and operating models surrounding these tools are still catching up. 

Tosh believes this caution is well founded. While AI-assisted matching has delivered significant productivity gains, particularly in reducing screening times, he argues that some of the highest value opportunities lie elsewhere. Rather than allowing AI to make hiring decisions, he sees greater potential in using it to improve interview documentation, maintain accurate candidate records and support recruiters with market insights and hiring manager briefings. These applications improve consistency and productivity while carrying significantly less legal and ethical risk. 

He also raised concerns around AI-led interviewing, particularly where conversational AI may unintentionally disadvantage neurodivergent candidates. As governments increase scrutiny of automated hiring decisions and legal challenges emerge around AI-assisted screening, organisations are likely to become even more cautious about where they allow AI to participate in recruitment decisions. 

The Value of Good Recruiters is Increasing, not Decreasing 

One of the most interesting observations from all three interviews was that while technology is changing recruitment activity, it is arguably increasing the value of highly skilled recruiters rather than replacing them. 

Michael observed that finding people is no longer the difficult part of recruitment. Access to candidates has never been easier. The challenge is converting the right people, influencing hiring decisions and navigating increasingly complex stakeholder environments. 

"Finding people isn't the problem," Michael noted. "Converting them is." 

Twenty years ago, sourcing was often the bottleneck. Today, LinkedIn, CRM platforms, AI-powered search and talent intelligence tools have made finding potential candidates easier than ever. Winning them is becoming the difficult part. That shifts value away from simply identifying talent and towards influencing candidates, advising hiring managers and navigating increasingly complex hiring decisions. 

Tosh has observed a similar shift across Asia Pacific. While organisations continue to recruit, many Talent Acquisition teams have been scaled back over the past three years and are being asked to deliver faster hiring with fewer resources. Recruiters are not only carrying significantly larger workloads but are also expected to learn, experiment with and implement AI tools while maintaining service levels. As he put it, "the pressure to fill jobs quickly is the highest I've ever seen in my career." 

Sandra echoed this sentiment, particularly for mid-level and senior hiring. While AI and automation may have a growing role in high-volume recruitment environments, she remains convinced that experienced recruiters add value through candidate engagement, stakeholder management and assessment. 

"You need to be able to hand on heart say to the manager that you've vetted them properly," she explained. "If you're adding value to the hiring manager, AI will have a much harder time coming after your job." 

There’s a strong belief that the future belongs to recruiters who understand both people and business outcomes. Technology may change how work gets done, but it does not remove the need for influence, judgement and relationship-building. 

Cost Pressures Continue to Reshape Talent Functions 

Another theme that emerged was the ongoing pressure organisations face to reduce costs and increase efficiency. 

Tosh described the current market as one of the longest periods of sustained uncertainty he has experienced. Unlike the relatively rapid recoveries following the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID hiring boom, organisations across Asia Pacific have experienced a prolonged cycle of hiring slowdowns, restructures and cautious investment. Recruiters continue to see headlines announcing layoffs while simultaneously watching Talent Acquisition roles being advertised, creating an environment where businesses still need to hire but with significantly leaner teams and tighter budgets. 

That uncertainty has also started influencing candidate behaviour. Tosh recalled one senior candidate declining an offer, not because of the role itself, but because they were concerned about the potential business impact of newly announced tariffs. It was, in his words, the first time macroeconomic policy had directly influenced a candidate's acceptance decision in his career. 

Many businesses are exploring outsourced recruitment models, augmented delivery teams and greater use of technology to achieve productivity gains. In theory, these approaches can deliver efficiencies. In practice, the impact is often more complicated. 

Michael described how periods of uncertainty can create defensive behaviours within organisations. Teams become more territorial, collaboration declines and individuals become increasingly focused on protecting their own responsibilities. At the same time, organisations often underestimate the operational consequences of removing capability from Talent Acquisition teams. 

Sandra pointed to a familiar pattern that many TA leaders have experienced throughout previous economic cycles. When organisations need to reduce costs, Talent Acquisition and Learning & Development functions are frequently among the first areas impacted. 

"There is still this perception that HR can do recruitment, but recruitment can't do HR," she noted. 

The challenge is that this often overlooks the specialised nature of Talent Acquisition. While generalist HR professionals play a critical role, effective recruitment requires a unique combination of market knowledge, stakeholder management, candidate engagement and process expertise. Organisations that remove this capability frequently discover that the work still needs to be done, often through agencies or external providers at a comparable or greater cost. 

Loren raised a similar concern, observing that reducing dedicated TA capability can create a false economy. The cost savings may appear attractive initially, but organisations often find themselves spending more elsewhere while simultaneously reducing their ability to attract and secure quality talent. 

Simply put: TA has the soft skills required to be HR generalists but may lack the subject matter expertise – why not simply teach them that? 

Technology Is Rarely the Problem 

Despite all the discussion surrounding AI, automation and Talent Tech, the interviews repeatedly returned to a surprisingly familiar issue: organisations still struggle to maximise the value of the technology they already own. 

Michael described implementation projects that often feel disconnected from operational reality. Technology decisions are frequently driven by executives, project teams or vendors rather than the people performing the work every day. The result is that systems are implemented successfully from a project perspective but fail to address the practical challenges experienced by recruiters, hiring managers and candidates. 

"We've sometimes had the wrong people in the room," Michael observed. "The executives are there, but not always the people doing the work." 

Loren shared a similar perspective from within a large enterprise environment. Rather than pursuing an increasingly complex technology ecosystem, her organisation has focused on extracting greater value from its existing Workday investment. The priority has been streamlining processes, improving adoption and ensuring users complete workflows correctly so that meaningful data and insights can be generated. 

This is a challenge many organisations continue to face. Large amounts of effort are invested in selecting and implementing platforms, but comparatively little attention is given to optimisation after go-live. Features remain unused, processes evolve independently of system design and data quality gradually deteriorates. Over time, confidence in reporting declines and organisations find themselves questioning whether the technology is delivering value. 

In reality, the issue is often not the platform itself. It is the absence of ongoing governance, process review and continuous improvement. 

In highly regulated environments, optimisation is also about reducing organisational risk. Tosh explained that across markets such as Singapore and Japan, recruitment processes often carry significant legal obligations around candidate documentation, hiring decisions and record keeping. Every rejected candidate may require documented justification, and AI-assisted screening introduces new governance questions around fairness, transparency and accountability. As organisations continue adopting AI, maintaining clear processes and human oversight will become just as important as improving efficiency. 

Talent Acquisition Is Becoming More Integrated With Broader Workforce Strategy 

One of the more positive themes emerging from the conversations was the growing integration between Talent Acquisition and the broader HR function. 

Loren reflected on how much of the industry's current discussion around strategic partnership is not actually new. Many experienced TA leaders have spent years advocating for earlier involvement in workforce planning, organisational design and business strategy discussions. 

What appears to be changing is the broader recognition of the value that Talent Acquisition can contribute beyond simply filling vacancies. 

Rather than focusing exclusively on requisition management, organisations are increasingly connecting recruitment with internal mobility, workforce planning, capability development and succession planning. This shift requires closer collaboration between Talent Acquisition, HR, Learning and Development and business leaders. 

As Loren explained, the objective is not to make Talent Acquisition more important than other HR disciplines. It is to create a more integrated workforce strategy where all functions contribute to long-term business outcomes. 

Technology can support this evolution, but only if organisations remain focused on the outcomes they are trying to achieve rather than becoming distracted by new features and capabilities. 

What Does This Mean For Talent Leaders Right Now? 

If there is a single message that emerged consistently from these conversations, it is that most organisations do not have a technology problem. They have an optimisation problem. 

Many Talent Acquisition functions have spent the last several years implementing new platforms, redesigning processes and introducing new tools. The next phase is ensuring those investments are actually delivering the intended outcomes. 

As candidate behaviour changes, AI capabilities mature and organisational priorities evolve, Talent Acquisition leaders need to continuously assess whether their processes, workflows and technology remain fit for purpose. Questions that may have been answered during implementation often need to be revisited 12, 24 or 36 months later. 

Are recruiters and hiring managers using the system as intended? Are workflows still aligned to business requirements? Is data being captured consistently enough to support meaningful decision-making? Are there manual activities that could now be automated? Are recruiters spending their time on high-value work, or are they still buried in administrative tasks? 

These are exactly the types of questions that sit at the heart of Talent Tech Solutions' Maintain & Improve approach. 

Technology implementation is not the finish line. It is the starting point. Organisations that consistently review, optimise and improve their Talent Tech ecosystem are typically the ones that generate the greatest return on investment over time. They are also the organisations best positioned to adapt as new technologies, changing candidate behaviours and shifting workforce expectations continue to emerge. 

If your organisation has recently completed a Talent Tech implementation, is questioning adoption levels, or simply wants an independent view of how its current processes and technology are performing, it may be time for a health check. 

Learn more about our Maintain & Improve services at https://www.talenttech.co/services or contact the Talent Tech Solutions team to discuss how we can help you optimise your technology, processes and operating model for the next phase of Talent Acquisition.