Intellectual curiosity beats best practices

Joey Axel Gold made it simple: if a process takes 70 days, the first question is "why?" His approach to budget cuts isn't about saying yes to impossible targets. It's about understanding which roles drive profitability and doubling down there.

"The lack of budget is not an excuse, the lack of knowledge, that's where the problem is."

Joey was clear that the top quality every TA professional needs is intellectual curiosity, the willingness to question everything and dismantle broken processes before layering on solutions.

Culture fit limits you, culture add expands you

Meghan Harrison reframed something most teams get wrong.

"Stop using the phrase culture fit. It limits you. Frame it as a culture add."

Culture fit looks for similarity, culture add looks for people who fill gaps, bring diverse perspectives, or are smarter than you. She pushed further: the future of TA isn't about acquisition at all. It's total talent. A strong recruiter should be able to look at a sales exec and see the potential head of HR. That shift, from seeing people as candidates to seeing them as dynamic, developing humans, changes the entire function.

Do the work before you need to

Christopher Redmond brought something practical from the gaming industry. When hiring slows down, most TA teams freeze. He introduced the split process: hiring managers talk to great people before roles open. They build warm pipelines proactively. "When a role finally opens, we can hire in seven days." That's not about speed hacks, it's about changing when the work happens. He also pushed back on AI hype.

"AI cannot get a candidate excited about the role. It cannot build trust. It's the human job."

Intake meetings are where everything breaks

Christiana pushed everyone to slow down at the beginning.

"The intake meeting is the most misunderstood part of hiring. If you rush it, you spend the rest of the process cleaning up the mess."

Most companies treat intake like a checkbox: title, salary, go. But that's where misalignment starts. She also challenged the hero mentality in TA. If an exec says same goals, half the budget, something is wrong with the decision-making, not the execution.

The takeaway

Five principles came out of these conversations. Start earlier: the intake is where everything begins or falls apart. Question everything: if a process takes 70 days, ask why. Automate the repetitive, protect the human: let machines do what they do well, but trust, excitement, and connection are human jobs. Think total talent, not just acquisition: the best candidate might already work for you. Systems should learn: every hire should make the next hire better.

The companies that win in the next five years won't be the ones with the biggest budgets or the largest recruiting teams. They'll be the ones that build smarter foundations, ask better questions, and let their systems learn.