Before the public release of ChatGPT 3.5 ignited global interest and reshaped global business strategies, LinkedIn’s team got an early look at the tool to explore its potential and likely impact on their business. With parent company Microsoft’s multi-billion-dollar investment in OpenAI, they now had a direct line to emerging generative-AI capabilities. The demo led to a reimagining of the way that LinkedIn could deliver solutions for their customers, ideas that would evolve into Hiring Assistant, the company’s agentic-AI tool for recruiters.

At LinkedIn’s scale — roughly $15 billion in revenue in 2023, the most recent publicly available figure — introducing a new product requires extended testing. A feature that might break quietly at a startup could disrupt workflows for hundreds of thousands of recruiting professionals who rely on LinkedIn daily. The OpenAI connection gave LinkedIn a head start, testing Hiring Assistant internally, then expanded to a pilot program involving a handful of customers in October 2024. Hiring Assistant became generally available to all customers in September 2025 as an add-on to LinkedIn Recruiter.

What Hiring Assistant Does

Hiring Assistant uses agentic-AI to analyze job descriptions, intake notes, and job postings, translating them into role qualifications, and matching them to candidate profiles on LinkedIn. It then can help to write InMails to those candidates, automating parts of the outreach process. Recruiters can also designate a “perfect” candidate, and hiring Assistant will infer their skills and find similar profiles. Over time, it adapts to each recruiter’s and organization’s specific preferences.

The product has automated pre-screening capabilities and can ask initial screening questions set by the recruiter. LinkedIn reports that this capability has reduced the average response time from 3.5 hours to just 8 minutes.

Early Results

In an age where application fraud is rising and AI actors are a thing, LinkedIn COO Daniel Shapero emphasized trust as a central theme in his Talent Connect keynote, citing over 90 million verified members on the platform.

He also shared preliminary metrics from Hiring Assistant pilots:

• 62 percent fewer profiles viewed per InMail accept

• 69 percent higher InMail acceptance rate

• 48 percent reduction in time per application

• Four hours less recruiter time spent per role

While those numbers are company-supplied and not independently verified, I spoke to several TA leaders whose teams have been using the product, and their experiences were largely positive, with cost as the main pain point.

What Comes Next

LinkedIn plans to extend Hiring Assistant’s scope in 2026. Upcoming features include:

• Creating job profiles from conversational prompts rather than static requisitions

• Integration with Microsoft Teams for candidate sharing within existing workflows, and adding the ability to join recruiter–hiring manager intake calls to capture context and adjust the search

• Integration with ATS partners to evaluate internal as well as external matches

• Language support expansion to French, German, Spanish, and Dutch

The product looks solid, but many of the features in Hiring Assistant resemble what other companies showed in demos at the HR Tech Conference a few weeks ago. The real difference is scale. LinkedIn is the dominant platform enabling hiring, and Hiring Assistant will be widely used almost from the start. As Shapero put it, “We have the opportunity to make an impact on the world of work when the world needs it.”

— David

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Featured Story

LinkedIn Data Points to a Frozen Labor Market

At the Talent Connect Summit, LinkedIn shared internal data that adds further evidence that the global labor market is in trouble. (ERE)

More Recruiting Insights

Amazon made news in multiple ways this week, from automation, to layoffs and internet outages.

Amazon layoffs loom: 15% of HR team expected to be cut as AI push accelerates. Amazon plans to cut about 15% of its HR department while it accelerates integration of AI into it’s infrastructure. The move tracks with Andy Jassy’s message that AI efficiency will shrink corporate headcount and follows earlier layoffs at AWS. (My Northwest)

Amazon Plans to Replace More Than Half a Million Jobs With Robots. Amazon’s drive for efficiency does not end with HR, and according to this article they intend to replace more than half a million warehouse worker jobs with robots by 2033, even as sales are expected to double. (NY Times)

Amazon brain drain finally sent AWS down the spout. What is the cost of the thinning of the ranks throughout Amazon? Corey Quinn argues that the lost organizational knowledge in Amazon’s engineering ranks was responsible for this week’s AWS outage that brought down large parts of the Internet. (The Register)

Workday’s acquisition of Paradox is complete. One of the biggest deals of the year in HR Tech has now officially been finalized. (Josh Zywien)

Kroger to hire 18,000 workers for 2025 holiday season, fewer than last year. Kroger is reducing its seasonal hiring this year, with roles spanning cashiers, baggers, deli and bakery clerks, and pharmacy techs. (Reuters)

Gartner HR Research Finds Foundational Pillars of High-Performing Business Culture Have Been Eroding Since 2022. The number of employees viewing their own organizations positively has been dropping steadily for years. One more sign of a frozen labor market. (Gartner)

Conferences

ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit

San Diego, CA

November 4-5, 2025

The ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit is the premier independent, practitioner-led event for TA professionals.

Join virtually to explore actionable insights, real case studies, and proven best practices from recruiting leaders tackling today’s biggest challenges.

(ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit)

Webinars

Managing Change in Unprecedented Times

October 24, 2025 | 2:00 PM EDT | 1 Hour

Join Aaron Barlin of Elynndí for a practical, thought-provoking session that introduces the concept of “change languages” — six unique ways people interpret and respond to change. Whether you’re guiding your team through new tech rollouts, onboarding in a volatile market, or making a career shift yourself, knowing your change language can dramatically improve your approach. (ERE)

Maximizing Talent Acquisition Efficiency Without Burning Out

October 29, 2025 | 2:00 PM EDT | 1 Hour

In this webinar, we’ll break down what’s actually working for lean, effective TA teams right now. From building outbound strategies that don’t rely on increasingly expensive InMails, to identifying which technologies can truly drive efficiency, you’ll get practical strategies for navigating today’s challenges while planning for what’s next. We’ll also cover how to strengthen workforce planning through reskilling, internal mobility, and better use of your existing tools — all without burning out your team. (ERE)

Making Sense of Talent Metrics for Smarter Hiring

November 12, 2025 | 2:00 PM EDT | 1 Hour

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the “metrics maze” of modern recruiting, you’re not alone. The pressure is coming from every direction: burned-out teams, pipelines filled with AI-generated resumes, and constant demands to prove the ROI of your tech stack. Mastering recruiting analytics today means moving beyond surface-level activity to uncover meaningful insights. This session will help you refocus on the data that actually moves the needle and build a more efficient, human-centered hiring process. (ERE)

The State of Candidate Experience 2025

November 19, 2025 | 2:00 PM EDT | 1 Hour

The latest CandE Benchmark Research shows that it’s one of the worst candidate markets in recent memory. Candidate resentment – the percentage of candidates who told us they wouldn’t engage a business and brand again due to a poor candidate experience – has never been higher globally. However, there are employers that delivered and sustained a quality candidate experience this year, from pre-application to onboarding. In this Webinar, Kevin will share the latest insights from the 2025 CandE data. (ERE)