Hello, HR Pros!

Hiring’s never been harder—or more intriguing.

AI is changing how candidates present themselves. Early career programs are drowning in grads with identical resumes. New HR skills like “People Analytics” are becoming full-blown job titles. And if you’re still reporting on “time to fill” without aligning with your stakeholders...you’re playing the wrong game. Let’s get into it!

📰 Upcoming in This Issue

• 📊 Meet HR’s New Favorite Metric: The HERO Index

• 🤖 AI May Be Hurting Candidate Authenticity—Here’s How

• 🌳 How HR Skills Became HR Jobs

• 🧠 Fewer Jobs, More Graduates: Why Behavioral Assessments are Essential to Smarter Hiring

📣 Trending HR News

• Astronomer CEO Andy Byron resigns after viral Coldplay ‘kiss cam’ controversy (CNBC)

• George Mason University Faces Investigation in Trump Administration's Anti-DEI Crackdown (US News)

• 58% of Gen Z workers say their job is a ‘situationship’ (HR Dive)

• HR-themed phishing emails among most-clicked in Q2 (HRD America)

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📊 Meet HR’s New Favorite Metric: The HERO Index

Let’s face it—everyone from hiring managers to candidates has their own pet peeves with recruiting. But what if we could align all those perspectives into one cohesive scorecard? Enter the HERO Index. This article lays out a stakeholder-centric system to help talent teams stop chasing reactive metrics and start showcasing real impact—across Recruiters, Hiring Managers, Candidates, and the Business.

Think of it as a strategic flex: it shifts the narrative from “How many hires?” to “How well did we deliver for everyone involved?”

Key Takeaways:

• 🎯 Recruiter NPS is a metric now: Ask “Would you recommend our process?” to gauge internal recruiting team satisfaction and improve enablement.

• 📉 Time-to-hire alone is a trap: Without quality of hire, speed becomes a vanity metric that fails your hiring managers and candidates.

• 💡 Business alignment matters: HERO factors in “hire by target start date” and “spend per hire” to link TA performance to revenue outcomes.

• 📈 Score it all in one index: The HERO Index lets you weight metrics across stakeholders, track trends, and drive smarter tradeoffs.

Read the full 1,426-word article here.

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🤖 AI May Be Hurting Candidate Authenticity—Here’s How

Turns out, the very tools designed to make hiring smarter might be pushing your best candidates to play it safe. This article digs into new research showing that when job seekers know AI is watching, they showcase analytical skills and suppress creativity, empathy, and intuition. The result? A talent pipeline that’s sharper on paper—but potentially duller in real life.

If AI's assessing your candidates, it may also be reshaping them.

Key Takeaways:

• 🧠 Candidates “code-switch” for AI: Knowing they’re being assessed by AI, applicants suppress soft traits and over-index on analytics.

• 🧍Less diversity, more sameness: This behavior creates talent pools that look similar—and possibly overlook emotionally intelligent hires.

• 📉 Validity of AI assessments at risk: If inputs are skewed by candidate self-censorship, are you really measuring potential—or conformity?

• ⚙️ Hybrid + transparency helps: Combine human review and explicitly communicate what AI evaluates to counteract these shifts.

Read the full 1,199-word article here.

🌳 How HR Skills Became HR Jobs

It started with data, and now it’s blossoming into a whole new category of HR jobs.

This article traces how People Analytics, Workforce Planning, and Talent Intelligence evolved from niche HR skills into full-fledged job functions—each with rising demand, strategic influence, and salary premiums to match.

Each branch may be distinct, but their root system is the same: human capital data. It’s no longer about whether you need these capabilities. It’s about how deeply they’re embedded in your org.

Key Takeaways:

• 🔍 Skills precede job titles: Analytics and planning first appeared in job descriptions—long before they were roles.

• 📈 People Analytics is leading: By 2024, it represented 50% of job postings vs. just 20% in 2015—an explosive shift.

• 💰 Salaries outpaced HR norms: These roles now command a premium, reflecting the strategic value of data-driven HR.

• 🌐 Skills diffuse, then consolidate: Talent Intelligence is still emerging, showing the lag between hype and formal adoption.

Read the full 1,125-word article here.

🧠 Fewer Jobs, More Graduates: Why Behavioral Assessments are Essential to Smarter Hiring

This article breaks down how Early Careers programs can smartly screen thousands of fresh grads—not with GPA filters, but with behavioral science.

One company got 30,000 applications for 500 roles. The secret to finding top talent? Assess how they think and behave, not what they’ve done.

Because when every resume looks the same, it’s time to get smarter, faster, and fairer.

Key Takeaways:

• 🎯 Resumes aren’t enough: Most grads lack job history—behavioral traits like learning agility and focus are better success predictors.

• ⚖️ Built-in bias mitigation: Harver’s assessments reduce unconscious bias by removing subjective resume-based criteria from early screening.

• 🎮 Gen Z craves gamification: Pymetrics’ mobile-first, game-based assessments keep applicants engaged while testing real job-relevant behaviors.

• 🌍 Real-world impact: Standard Chartered and Sage saw improved engagement and diversity after implementing Harver’s behavioral assessments.

Read the full 875-word article here

The bottomline

If this week’s edition had a theme, it’s this: Metrics matter more when they’re human.

Whether it’s designing fair AI assessments, aligning recruiting goals across stakeholders, or turning skills into roles—the HR function is moving fast and breaking silos.

Use these insights to revamp your hiring practices, experiment with smarter tools, and rethink what success really looks like. And remember—when in doubt, measure what matters to people.