Hello, HR Pros!

This week we unpack four emerging trends—from the quiet decline of early career hiring to Meta’s stealthy comp shift. We cover scenario planning in uncertain times and share a practical guide to boost interview attendance.

Also, if your team’s lagging mid-month, your payroll system might be draining more than dollars. Let’s dig in ✨

📰 Upcoming in This Issue

• 📉 Early Career Hiring is Down 73%—Here's How to Rebuild It for the AI Era

• 💸 Inside Meta's New Compensation Philosophy

• 🎯 How to Stop Ghosting and Get Top Candidates to Show Up

• 🧭 Scenario Planning Amid Radical Uncertainty

📣 Trending HR News

• Meta to spend hundreds of billions to build AI data centres in the US (BBC)

• Indeed and Glassdoor to cut 1,300 jobs amid AI integration (Reuters)

• US salary budgets remain flat, with 3.5% increase unchanged (WTW)

• Starbucks employees to return to the office 4 days a week — or take a voluntary exit (CNBC)

📉 Early Career Hiring is Down 73%—Here's How to Rebuild It for the AI Era

This isn't just another hiring freeze. A staggering 73% drop in entry-level roles is rocking tech across Europe—and AI automation is a key culprit.

But this Ravio piece flips the panic into a call for reinvention: instead of cutting junior roles, companies should redesign them for an AI-augmented world.

Key Takeaways:

• 📊 Entry-level hiring collapse: Marketing, People, and Engineering saw over 70% declines in junior hiring, signaling deep disruption.

• 🧠 AI-native talent, underutilized: Younger employees often grasp AI tools faster—but aren’t getting roles that leverage this fluency.

• 🔄 Reverse mentoring unlock: Let juniors teach AI, while learning business acumen from senior teammates—mutual upskilling at scale.

• 📈 Rethink comp frameworks: Junior hires might bring expert-level AI skills—comp plans need to reflect technical depth, not just seniority.

🔍 Read the full 2,171-word article here

⚙️ HR Systems Quietly Causing Frustration? Let’s Fix Them

If managing employee data feels scattered, slow, or frustrating, you're not alone. Many HR teams quietly switch to HRIS tools designed to reduce complexity. Here are two recommendations for this week:

• BambooHR simplifies HR tasks with intuitive onboarding, easy-to-use employee self-service, and ready-to-run HR reports—dramatically reducing manual admin.
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• Rippling automates employee onboarding (in just 90 seconds), instantly syncs data across HR, payroll, and IT, and centralizes global employee management.
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💸 Inside Meta's New Compensation Philosophy

Meta’s not shouting it from rooftops, but it’s quietly tweaking how compensation works—from bonus structuring to negotiation psychology.

Levels.fyi breakdown reveals how Meta’s Y1-centric offers and reduced negotiation room reflect a broader shift across tech: pay early, reward late, move faster.

Key Takeaways:

• 💼 Better first offers, tighter range: Meta now gives close-to-final offers upfront—leaving less room for post-offer negotiation.

• ⏳ Speed-to-close matters: Time from team match to final offer has dropped by 2–3 weeks—efficiency is now a comp strategy.

• 📉 Y1 vs. Y4 tension: Meta still uses even 25% vesting, unlike others front-loading equity. Y1 negotiations now require smarter framing.

• 🧮 Strategic data presentation: Candidates must repackage their compensation asks—framing around Y1 value, not year-over-year drop-offs.

🔍 Read the full 1,318-word article here

🌎 Simplify Payroll & Compensation with Patriot: 30 Days Free + 50% Off for 3 Months

Managing payroll can be complex, but Patriot Software makes it straightforward and affordable. With a user-friendly interface, Patriot allows you to run unlimited payrolls, offers free direct deposit, and provides unmatched US-based support.

Their Full Service Payroll even handles federal, state, and local tax filings and deposits, giving you peace of mind.

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🎯 How to Stop Ghosting and Get Top Candidates to Show Up

You can't hire who doesn’t show.

I read this article by Dr. John Sullivan which outlines a sharp checklist for increasing interview attendance—especially from employed candidates, who ghost the most but are often the most valuable.

Key Takeaways:

• 📅 Embrace self-scheduling software: Candidates drop off early when scheduling is difficult—automate it with online tools to reduce friction.

• 🎥 Prioritize electronic interviews: Virtual interviews increase attendance and can be recorded, reviewed, and scheduled around work hours.

• ⏰ Offer after-hours flexibility: Interviewing after work or on weekends shows empathy and boosts show-up rates from time-crunched professionals.

• 🔍 Survey for missed interview insights: Postmortem surveys reveal why top candidates bail—use this data to tweak and optimize continuously.

🔍 Read the full 2,092-word article here

🧭 Scenario Planning Amid Radical Uncertainty

In a world where forecasting feels like fortune-telling, MIT Sloan offers a smarter way to navigate: scenario planning.

This article isn’t just about building hypotheticals—it’s about developing resilience, testing leadership, and prepping teams for divergent futures.

Key Takeaways:

• 🔮 Resilience over accuracy: Scenario planning isn’t about predicting—it's about stress-testing your strategy against extremes.

• 🧠 Bias-proof planning: Diverse cross-functional teams ensure you aren’t designing futures through one lens or leadership echo chambers.

• 🎲 Embrace improbable futures: Use extreme but plausible outcomes to challenge assumptions—like supply chain freezes or AI-induced restructures.

• 📅 6-month refresh rule: Plans should evolve with the world—revise scenarios regularly as tech, markets, and geopolitics shift.

🔍 Read the full 2,543-word article here

The bottomline

From reinventing how we hire entry-level talent, to decoding new comp strategies, to rethinking interview attendance—we’re not just responding to trends, we’re shaping them. So pause, plan, and then get moving—your future workforce is already evolving.

Want help navigating it? You’ve got this newsletter. See you next week ✨