Regular readers of the ERE Weekly will be familiar with Jenn Tardy’s articles on diversity recruiting. Her latest, about finding and fixing bias with AI, is a must-read.

I’m excited for Jenn, because she just published her new book, The Equity Edge: How Addressing Bias in Recruiting and Retention Drives Success.

The book breaks down the barriers that often get in the way for underrepresented job seekers and employees. Jenn walks through each stage of the hiring and retention process—finding, attracting, engaging, selecting, and developing talent—and explains how bias shows up and what to do about it. She covers everything from “underexplored biases” like pedigree and professionalism, to why your employment brand should stand apart from your corporate brand. It’s a practical, straightforward guide for anyone who wants to build a fairer, more effective hiring process.

Last week, I asked our ERE community whether you'd be interested in joining a Discord server to share resources and stay connected between events.

The results are in — and more than half of you said yes!

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes, I'm already on Discord!

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Yes, I'd give it a shot

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Maybe

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ No

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I don't know what Discord is

If I’m being honest, I’m not sure if the talent acquisition professionals are going to embrace Discord as a hub for our community, but I’ve gotten increasingly frustrated with the algorithms on LinkedIn and Facebook determining what messages and information from our groups get seen and shared.

So I went ahead and set it up an experiment to see if there is a better way. Our new community space is ready, and you can join it now.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

— David

P.S. If you found this newsletter valuable, chances are your colleagues will too. Feel free to forward it along—and if it landed in your inbox by way of a friend, you can subscribe here to get the next one directly.

Featured Story

AI Fluency Pays – But It’s Not Creating More Jobs

Research from PwC shows that companies are eager to adopt the technology and are paying top dollar for AI-savvy talent, but instead of creating a hiring boom, AI is boosting productivity so employers simply don’t need to expand headcount. Even fields once seen as safe from automation, like healthcare and education, are being reshaped. Workers aren’t resisting the change — many see it as a tool to make their jobs better — but the shift is real, and it’s happening fast. (ERE)

More Recruiting Insights

Sam Altman Claims Meta Tried to Poach OpenAI Staff, Offering as Much as $100M Signing Bonuses. Think your company offers generous hiring bonuses? On a recent podcast hosted by his brother Jack, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that Meta has offered some top engineers signing bonuses as high as $100 million. (Uncapped)

How Corporate America's war on DEI created a feeding frenzy for AI ethics jobs. Jim Stroud makes the case that the boom in AI ethics presents an opportunity for DEI professionals displaced by the current cultural and political climate. (ERE)

Trump’s Conflicting Messages on Workplace Raids Leave Businesses Reeling. The Trump administration’s flip-flop on ICE worksite raids highlights a chaotic tug-of-war between economic reality and hardline immigration politics. (NYT)

Beeline Acquires MBO Partners. With this deal, Beeline adds support for independent workers to it’s portfolio of services to manage contingent labor, consultants, gig workers, and payrolled professionals. (Beeline)

1 in 3 U.S. Workers Hesitant to Take Vacation Due to Layoff Fears. Workers are stressed. According to this survey of over a thousand workers, nearly 29% say layoff concerns make them hesitant to use vacation days. (LiveCareer)

2025 Fair Pay Impact Report. Employee perceptions of unfair pay are getting worse, even when the data shows that wage growth is growing faster than inflation. The growing disconnect between how employees feel about their pay and the underlying data reinforces a general perception that everything is getting worse, even when it’s not true. (Payscale)

Conferences

ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit

San Diego, CA

November 4-5, 2025

The ERE Recruiting Conference is the premier independent practitioner-led recruiting event that provides actionable insights for talent acquisition professionals. Join fellow colleagues to discover practical ideas, best practices, and case study solutions from leaders who share your toughest recruiting challenges — and have experience overcoming them. (ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit)

Webinars

Rebooting Campus Recruiting: Fixing Bottlenecks, Burnout, and Broken Workflows

June 26, 2025 | 2:00 PM EDT | 1 Hour

A webinar designed for early-career recruitment teams, featuring expert speakers from Oleeo, McKesson, Best Buy, and PPLBOTS. They share actionable strategies to modernize campus recruiting—prioritizing candidate volume, streamlining scheduling and offers, reducing recruiter burnout, and improving offer acceptance — all while operating on a tight budget. (ERE)

AI-Era Candidate Risks: How TA Leaders Protect Quality of Hire (and Their Jobs)

July 16, 2025 | 2:00 PM EDT | 1 Hour

AI in hiring enables candidates to game resumes and interviews, making it hard to understand the skills of the person behind the screen. We will discuss balancing automation with human oversight, using automated checks across public sources to uncover red flags like threats or fraud, and preserving the integrity and safety of hiring processes. (ERE)