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- Recruiting Fixes, CPO Trends, and Building a Culture That Works
Recruiting Fixes, CPO Trends, and Building a Culture That Works
Inside: Facebook launches updated job listings in the US
The HR Takeaways
October 17, 2025
Hey HR Pros,
This week, the conversation around HR’s future is louder—and smarter—than ever. As organizations grapple with AI’s real costs and capabilities, one theme runs through every insight: HR is no longer a support function—it’s the engine of transformation.
From reimagining job structures and feedback cultures to redefining how people and AI collaborate, the latest research is clear: the best HR leaders aren’t waiting for disruption—they’re designing for it. Let’s dive into this week’s big ideas shaping the next era of work ✨
📰 Upcoming in This Issue
💰 Pay to Apply: A Controversial Fix for AI-Spammed Recruiting
💬 Building a Company Culture That Encourages Feedback
🌍 WEF: Chief People Officers Outlook
💻 Remote (US) HR Jobs of the Week
✨ Helpful Resources
🎁 Top HR tools & offers curated for The HR Takeaways readers
🌍 The ultimate global payroll provider comparison for HR
📣 Trending HR News
Recruiting is drowning in data — and not the useful kind.
With job applications up 45% year over year (much of it sent by AI bots), HR teams are overwhelmed by spam resumes and “applicants” who don’t exist. Dr. John Sullivan reports that 20% of employers are now considering “pay-to-apply” fees — a small charge designed to filter out low-intent and AI-generated applications before they ever hit your ATS.
It’s a provocative idea, but one grounded in pragmatism: pay-to-apply, referrals, and candidate caps may soon be the new firewalls of recruiting.
Key Takeaways:
🚫 Spam crisis: AI agents send 50+ resumes a day for $13/week, creating massive noise in candidate pipelines.
💸 Pay-to-apply model: Charging $10–$25 per application discourages bots and low-effort candidates, improving application quality.
🤝 Referrals win again: Emphasizing employee referrals cuts spam, improves fit, and reduces recruiter workload.
⚙️ Rethink your process: Limit monthly applications, disable “easy apply,” and add human verification (like reCAPTCHA) to protect your ATS.
Organizations don’t grow by giving more feedback—they grow by asking for it first.
Harvard Business Review highlights how “ask-first cultures” outperform traditional feedback-heavy ones by reframing input as curiosity, not critique. When employees proactively seek feedback, it signals humility, normalizes learning, and builds trust across levels. The shift isn’t about bravery in giving feedback—it’s about creating safety in receiving it.
For HR, it’s a blueprint for embedding feedback-seeking into daily work, manager rituals, and performance systems.
Key Takeaways:
🔄 Flip the feedback script: Asking first turns feedback into a co-created conversation and increases performance by improving relevance and timing.
🧭 Start from the top: Leaders who openly ask for input model humility, signaling that growth outweighs perfection.
🏆 Reward curiosity: Recognize feedback-seeking as a performance strength—celebrate it in debriefs, reviews, and promotions.
📅 Make it routine: Embed simple rituals like the two-by-two check-in (two strengths, two improvements) to normalize ongoing feedback loops.
WEF’s inaugural CPO Outlook shows near-term caution but a long-term mandate to redesign work. 42% of CPOs expect no change in labor conditions over 6–12 months, while priorities pivot to revisiting org structure, culture/purpose, and AI deployment.
On AI, leaders rank cross-functional deployment, mapping task impact, and job redesign as immediate actions; opportunities cluster around automating admin work, career development, and embedding AI in workflows.
Capability-wise, 100% rank business acumen and strategy among top success factors for the people function—signaling HR’s central role in transformation.
Key Takeaways:
🧭 Reset the org chart: Make job and structure redesign your top lever; pair with culture/purpose work to sustain adoption, not just announce change.
🤝 Co-own AI with tech: Prioritize joint design and governance, map role/task impact, and redesign workflows before tooling sprawls.
📈 Upskill before you automate: Biggest risks are slow adaptation and skill atrophy; stand up reskilling and internal mobility alongside automation wins.
💼 Business first HR: Elevate HR’s influence—leaders put business acumen, stakeholder influence, and digital fluency at the core of future CPO success.
🤔 Still Think a 401(k) Is Too Much for a Small Team?
A lot of HR teams avoid offering retirement plans because they assume the admin load isn’t worth it. Human Interest’s 401(k) makes that assumption outdated.
Here’s how it simplifies everything:
📋 Automated Setup & Compliance: Plan setup, DOL filings, and testing handled for you
💸 Payroll Sync: Integrates directly with your payroll to reduce manual work
📊 Transparent Pricing: Flat fees, no hidden costs, no surprises
📈 Employee Self-Service: Enrollment, contributions, and investment changes made easy
Get peace of mind on compliance and give your team the benefit they’ve been asking for.
💻 Remote (US) HR Jobs of the Week
Senior Talent Business Partner at Airbnb | Salary: $200-250k
Director, People Consultant at Pinterest | Salary: $175.9-362.2k
Head of People at Relay | Salary: $180-250k
HR Business Partner at Coinbase | Salary: $176-207.1k
The bottomline
If there’s one takeaway from this week’s reads, it’s that the pace of change won’t slow—but our response can get smarter. Whether it’s building ask-first cultures, shaping AI governance, or redesigning org structures, HR’s real power lies in turning complexity into clarity.
So as you close out the week, ask yourself: Is your HR strategy ready for the organization you’ll need next year, not just the one you have today?
See you on Tuesday—same time, with sharper insights.
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