NOTE: This post was updated on April 3rd, 2026 to reflect that Aimwel cut the job distribution service for a small portion, not all of their job board distribution clients. It was also updated to reinforce that layoffs at the time of posting are still unconfirmed from the companies and the percentage varies by company. 

Happy Friday Job Board Doctor friends!

TA tech vendors are taking slings and arrows from all sides right now and it has been a hell of a week.

• Mercor Breach
• Adzuna, Talent.com and Aimwel Head Count Reduction
• Goff Leaves JobCase
• McSherry Promotes at Indeed

Let’s dive in.

Mercor – The Breach That Should Keep Every Ta/HR Tech Buyer Up at Night

The $10 billion AI recruiting company just got hacked, and the entry point was not a phishing email or a weak password. It was a trusted tool that thousands of companies use every single day without thinking twice.

The short version

Mercor, an AI-powered recruiting platform that works with companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, confirmed it was hit by a massive data breach. Hackers claim they walked away with 4 terabytes of data including candidate profiles, identity verification documents, video interviews, source code, and system access credentials.

Mercor did not get hacked directly. The hackers used other tools used and trusted by Mercor to gain access.

The supply chain nobody was watching

You may be hearing that Mercor was part of a “supply chain” hack.  If this is new terminology for you, you are not alone.

Let’s take a quick side quest:

Think about how a car manufacturer works. It is not feasible for the manufacturer to make every part themselves. They rely on hundreds of suppliers for to make components.  So, if a bad actor wants to sabotage all the cars rolling off the line, they don’t need to attack the factory. They can poison a supplier’s parts before it arrives to be installed into the cars themselves.

Software works the same way. The AI features inside recruiting tools are not built from scratch. They are assembled from shared, pre-built components that the entire industry uses simultaneously. One of those shared components is a tool called LiteLLM, which acts as a universal connector between AI systems and the major AI providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. It sits at the center of a lot of AI infrastructure, which made it an irresistible target.

Back to the hack:

A sophisticated hacking group called TeamPCP did not attack Mercor directly. They went further upstream. First they broke into Trivy, a security scanning tool that developers use specifically to check their own software for vulnerabilities. Through that breach, they stole the master publishing key for LiteLLM and used it to push a poisoned version of the tool into the public repository where companies automatically download software updates.

Mercor’s systems did exactly what they were configured to do. They pulled the update. And the hack was off and running.

Why TA/HR tech buyers should care (and the vendors, too)

This was not an isolated incident.

LiteLLM is estimated to be running inside 36% of all AI cloud-based software environments, including companies like SAP.

As of this writing, it is estimated that over 1,000 SaaS companies updated the poisoned Python code during the 40-minute window it was live.

We should expect that number to grow significantly and there is no reason to assume no other HR/TA tech vendors will not have been impacted.

Mercor is just the first company to publicly confirm the breach. 

The data most at risk in an TA/HR tech breach is not only financial records, although Stripe is also a LiteLLM user so if your job board platform uses Stripe as a payment system you may want to check in with your vendor.

It is candidate profiles. Resumes. Identity documents. Video interviews. The deeply personal information that job seekers hand over in good faith, trusting that the platforms handling it have their security in order.

The AI recruiting stack is being built fast and on shared infrastructure

Here is what most TA/HR tech buyers do not realize: the AI features inside the recruiting tools they use every day are not unique to those vendors. They are built on the same shared components that much of the industry relies on at the same time.

Not because companies chose it deliberately, but because it gets pulled in quietly as part of other tools, without anyone being aware of it. This happens in despite of the numerous compliance, security and scanning protocols in place.

Vendors are under intense competitive pressure to ship AI features fast. That means building on shared components rather than creating everything in-house, and running automated systems that pull the latest software updates. The Mercor breach did not require a single moment of carelessness from a Mercor employee. Their systems did exactly what they were designed to do.

That is the point. Hackers have nothing, but time and opportunity. They only need to be successful once. Companies like Mercor have to win every battle. 

What to watch

More breach disclosures are coming. The investigation is ongoing, and the hacking group responsible has reportedly partnered with multiple extortion organizations to monetize what they collected.  If you work with AI-powered TA/HR tech vendors, now is the right time to ask them one simple question: what happens if a tool you depend on gets compromised?

Sources: TechCrunch, SecurityWeek, The Register, Kaspersky, Cloud Security Alliance, Help Net Security, Mandiant, (via The Register)

Layoffs 2026 Continue

Late last night, here in Portugal, I had multiple people reach out to report that there were a slew of layoffs in big programmatic players in our space, signaling further concern over the state of the industry.

Specifically, I am being told Adzuna has cut 30% of its staff after losing a large UK contract in place since 2018, Adzuna’s layoffs come just weeks after their March 23rd announcement of the acquisition of Trovit and Mitula expanding their EU presence.

Rumors inbound regarding Talent.com and Aimwel may some amount of their staff. Aimwel has also cut a job distribution solution for some, but not all niche/SME job boards. Creating an opportunity in the market for other vendors to step in to this role (who should perhaps be advertising on JobBoardDoctor.com).

As this is a late breaking development, I am still working to confirm with the companies directly and will happily (gleefully, in fact) retract this reporting if I am incorrect.

People Moves

Fred Goff Leaves JobCase

This week via LinkedIn, Fred Goff, Co-Founder and CEO of Jobcase, announced his departure after 12 years with the company. Goff hints new ventures are to come for him. In the meantime, rumors of potential acquisition have been inbound for months.

Do you think a Jobcase acquisition is in the works?

Either way, good luck to Fred, the Doc will be waiting to report on your next adventure!

Indeed Promotes Sean McSherry to CFO

CEO, Hisayuki, “Deko” Idekoba, continues to focus on rounding out his C-Suite. Indeed has promoted long-time Indeedian, Sean McSherry to the role of Chief Financial Officer.

The announcement comes as the company backtracks on single-source feed policy through multiple “exceptions”, cuts service levels to lower tiered agencies with only days notice, and rumors swirl of a large round of layoffs in the planning.

Final Thoughts

Like I said, it has been a week full of slings and arrows for TA tech.

I didn’t even get a chance to dive in to the Findem opt out investigation by the United States Senate, but fortunately others have had time to take a deeper dive. Check out: AimGroup and Chad and Cheese

If you have been impacted by the latest round of layoffs, reach out to me. I will share talent back on the market, keep my eyes open for new opportunities, or help anyway I can.

And as always, you know the drill, tell me what you think, what you know, anything I misstated or got wrong. We all learn together.

Until Next Time,

Julie “The Doc” Sowash

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Happy Friday, Job Board Doctor friends! This week the team at Aspen Tech Labs takes a deep dive into the trends and signals in healthcare hiring.

I will see you all next week with some juicy new (🍵) tea.

In February 2026, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 92,000.

Within that, healthcare employment also fell by 28,000, a notable shift for a sector that has consistently driven job growth.

On the surface, that suggests cooling. But the detail tells a different story.

The decline in healthcare employment was largely driven by strike activity, particularly in physicians’ offices, while hospitals continued to add jobs.

Over the past 12 months, healthcare has added an average of 36,000 jobs per month, reinforcing that the underlying trajectory remains positive.

This is where the gap between employment data and hiring demand becomes important.

BLS data reflects extrapolated survey outcomes. It attempts to capture what has already happened and can be heavily influenced by short-term disruptions. It is essential for understanding the labor market baseline, but it does not always reflect how employers behave in real time.

Using Aspen Tech Labs’ JobMarketPulse data, which tracks job postings from over 275,000 company career sites globally and captures hiring activity at the source, we can examine how demand is evolving across employer types, regions, and roles.

While employment dipped in February, healthcare vacancy levels did not follow the same pattern. Hiring demand has remained consistently elevated, with no comparable drop in open roles.

Healthcare is not cooling as headline employment figures might suggest. Instead, it has moved into a more stable phase, where demand remains high but is no longer accelerating.

That distinction is critical when interpreting what comes next.

Vacancy levels are high, but not moving much

Healthcare continues to support overall job growth, even as hiring demand begins to stabilize. Over the past year, the sector has contributed a significant share of net job creation, meaning overall employment growth would look very different without it.

Much of this demand is tied to long-term demographic trends, particularly an aging population that continues to increase the need for care, regardless of economic cycles, AI disruption, or broader market shifts.

But what does that look like in the data?

Over the past 12 months, from February 2025 to February 2026, healthcare vacancies have remained relatively stable, but the breakdown by employer type provides additional context.

Direct employer postings in Aspen’s JobsIndex continue to account for the larger share of demand and remain broadly stable YoY, up approximately 1.2%. Agency-driven postings show a similar pattern, declining slightly by around 5.7% YoY, but still holding close to 600,000 vacancies.

Figure 1: Healthcare vacancy trend over 12 months (company vs agency)

Both follow a similar pattern of short-term fluctuation without a sustained upward or downward trend. There are short-term fluctuations, including a dip in late summer and a lift toward the start of the year, but levels ultimately return to a familiar range.

This suggests a market where demand remains structurally high, but growth has plateaued, and hiring patterns are becoming more fragmented across channels.

Regional trends are mixed

The geographic picture is not uniform.

Several major healthcare markets, including New York, Boston, and Los Angeles, show year-over-year declines in vacancies, while others, such as Dallas and Miami, have seen increases.

Figure 2: US healthcare vacancy change by top 10 metros

Rather than a single national trend, healthcare hiring is increasingly localized, with growth and decline occurring in parallel across major markets.

Demand is concentrated in a small number of roles

Healthcare demand is not evenly distributed across job types.

A significant share of vacancies continues to be driven by nursing roles, alongside a smaller set of core clinical positions.

Figure 3: Job categories overview

Recent data shows that individual subcategories are moving in different directions, even when overall demand appears stable.

Figure 4: Change in vacancies by subcategory

Year-over-year changes vary across roles, with some, such as therapists and home health aides, showing increases while others continue to decline.

This indicates that while demand is concentrated at a high level, the underlying dynamics differ depending on the specific role.

Taken together, these patterns provide a clearer view of how hiring is evolving across the market.

What the data shows

Healthcare remains one of the most active sectors in the job market.

Vacancies remain high, with limited variation over time, and company hiring accounts for the majority of demand. At the same time, hiring patterns vary across regions, with some major markets declining while others grow.

Demand remains concentrated in a small number of roles, particularly nursing, but subcategory data show that not all roles are moving in the same direction.

Taken together, the data points to a market that is active but uneven, with variation depending on employer type, location, and role.

Data Methodology
The findings in this analysis are based on Aspen Tech Labs’ JobMarketPulse platform, which monitors hiring activity from more than 275,000 direct employer career sites worldwide. This dataset captures a substantial share of live postings and provides near-real-time insight into employer demand.

Wage data is sourced from Aspen Tech Labs’ WagePulse platform, which aggregates and standardizes salary information directly from job postings to provide a consistent view of compensation trends.

All figures reflect information published directly by employers, including salary ranges where available. All data comes from posted job requirements; salary figures should be interpreted as indicators of market trends rather than confirmed offer amounts. Changes reflect real shifts in hiring activity rather than database expansion or methodological updates.

Are you a hiring leader in healthcare? Do you manage healthcare focused TA tech?  How does Aspen’s intel compare to what you are seeing? Tell me. 

Until Next Time,

Julie “The Doc” Sowash

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BREAKING NEWS: EU Parliament Passes AI Act Omnibus

Up to date developments and analyses provided by the team at Jobiqo. 

The latest European Union (EU) update on the AI Act changes the timeline, but not the direction, for the online recruiting market. The core rules remain in place, but the path toward implementation has become more realistic, giving job platforms additional time to prepare, especially as they move from simple job listings toward matching, targeting and outcome-driven recruiting. For job boards, the key question is no longer whether AI regulation matters. It is where the real risk sits, what has actually changed, and how to use this extra time wisely.

For those who have not followed the AI Act closely, the basic idea is simple. The EU introduced the AI Act as a risk-based rulebook for artificial intelligence. It entered into force on 1 August 2024. Some AI uses are treated as low-risk. Some are banned. Others are classified as high-risk because they can significantly affect people’s safety, rights or opportunities.

That has always mattered for online recruiting. The EU’s own guidance says that certain AI systems used in employment are high-risk, including systems used to place targeted job advertisements, analyse and filter job applications, and evaluate candidates. This is why the AI Act has never been only about chatbots or generative AI. In recruiting, it is also about how algorithms influence access to jobs.

So why are we back here again so soon? The Digital Omnibus on AI.

Because the law moved faster than the practical rollout. The original timetable pushed the market toward implementation, but the standards, guidance and compliance tools were not yet fully in place. That is why the Commission proposed the Digital Omnibus ¹ on AI in November 2025. The goal was not to throw out the AI Act, but to simplify some parts and give the market a more realistic timing.

The EU is not backing away from AI regulation in recruiting. What has changed is the timeline. After both the Council and the European Parliament approved their draft positions on the Digital Omnibus on AI, it is now much clearer where things are heading. The final law is still to be negotiated, but for job boards and online recruiting platforms, the message is already visible: this is mostly about giving the market more realistic time to prepare, not about removing the core regulations.

The main change is the delay for high-risk AI obligations. Under the current draft, stand-alone high-risk AI systems would apply from 2 December 2027, while high-risk AI embedded in regulated products would follow on 2 August 2028. The EU has recognised that the standards, official guidance and supervisory setup are still not ready to support the original schedule.

Is Online Recruiting still in the High-Risk Bucket?

Yes. Recruiting AI is still very much in the high-risk bucket. Under Annex III of the AI Act, high-risk employment use cases include AI systems used to place targeted job advertisements, analyse and filter job applications, and evaluate candidates.

The European Commission’s guidance is clear: recruiting and matching AI systems remain classified as high-risk. The Omnibus update did not change this, despite some market hopes that it might.

For job boards, this is more than a legal detail. As Jobiqo found in its Job Board Revolution Report 2026, the model of the market is changing. Job boards are no longer just selling inventory and traffic. They are moving towards “recruiting outcomes”, i.e., matching, ranking, audience segmentation, automated distribution, and workflow support. That is exactly where the regulatory line gets sharper. The more a platform influences who sees which role, who gets prioritised, and who gets filtered out, the more likely it is to be pulled into the high-risk logic of the AI Act.

This is why the new update should be read through the lens of its intended purpose. The Commission says classification depends on what the AI system is meant to do and how it is used. That means the same technical building blocks can sit in very different regulatory places.

AI that helps a recruiter search more efficiently is not the same as AI that scores and ranks candidates. AI that helps a publisher optimise content presentation is not the same as AI designed to target jobs to people as part of recruitment selection. In recruiting tech, language, configuration, and workflow design matter a lot.

Fighting bias and implementing fairness continue

Another meaningful update is around bias detection. The Omnibus expands the legal path for using special categories of personal data for bias detection and correction, while the Council insists on a strict-necessity standard and strong safeguards. For recruiting platforms, that is an important signal. Europe still wants fairness in the job market to happen. But it wants it done carefully, with a documented reason why less sensitive data would not be sufficient, with strict access controls, and with deletion when the action is complete. This is not a free pass. It is a narrow compliance route for serious bias monitoring, a topic Jobiqo has addressed very early in the AI discussion with proper research and development.

The recent public debate has focused heavily on deepfakes, and understandably so. The Council added a new prohibited practice covering AI systems capable of generating non-consensual content and abusive material, a significant hardening of the rules. But job boards should not confuse this with the wider transparency duties for generative AI. Those are different obligations. AI-generated content still requires transparency. For the market, that means labelling and disclosing AI use in branding and candidate content. This is critical even if these aren’t the core regulatory targets.

The shift to outcome-driven recruiting is here.

The industry is clearly moving beyond simple job listings and toward outcome-driven recruiting. The AI Act Omnibus does not stop that shift. What it does is give the market more time to build the right structures around it.

From a job board perspective, that is the real message behind the update. Platforms need to distinguish more clearly between low-risk assistance and high-risk decisioning. They need stronger human oversight, clearer provider and deployer roles, and better documentation and explainability for employers using AI-powered recruiting tools.

The likely winners in this next phase will not be the vendors that try to stay vague on regulation. They will be the ones that make trustworthy AI part of their product, their delivery model and their customer value proposition.

For job boards, this is the right mindset to adopt now. Do not panic. But do not become complacent either. The Omnibus removes some of the time pressure. It does not abdicate responsibility.

¹ “Omnibus” comes from Latin and, in lawmaking, refers to a package that combines several amendments into one legislative update rather than creating a completely new law. In this case, the AI Omnibus revises parts of the existing AI Act, including timing, governance and compliance details.

Thank you to the Jobiqo team for this breaking news analysis.

Until next time,

Julie “The Doc” Sowash

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Happy Friday Job Board Doctor Friends!

Thanks to my husband for last week’s International Women’s Day post. I appreciate all the positive feedback and engagement from some many of you!

This week has been a whirlwind of incoming intel for the Doc and guess who everyone is talking about? Our favorite industry bully, Indeed. Yep, the big baddie is turning the next set of screws and many of you are starting to feel it.

What’s on The Doc’s Brain Today?

The long and short of this brief is simple, Indeed is looking to maximize on both sides of the P/L.

This is what legacy companies do, they finally figure out they should focus on operational efficiency and extract as much capital from the market as possible. Innovation is no longer the goal.

Let’s dive in.

• March 31st: The deadline is looming for the “end” of single source feeds – and those with “exceptions” and grandfather clauses are seeing a rapid decrease of applies and a rapid increase in CPAS and CPA.
• April 20th:  Indeed and Glassdoor job seeker forced account consolidation
• Ongoing: Direct sales pitches for further ATS integrations and adoptions with the promise of MORE APPLICATIONS? 

Single-Source FEed exceptions

Good gods above, we have been talking about the end of single-source feeds for SO long and now the next big day is right around the corner.

On March 31, 2026, organic visibility for single-source feeds ends. These feeds, now outside of Indeed’s desired ecosystem, become invisible unless the jobs are sponsored. 

This is only the next deadline, we still have two more to go before the end of the year for the dreaded end of single-source feeds.

Indeed: Serving that Chaos Energy

Yet, this doesn’t seem to be as hard of a deadline as Indeed first led us to believe. Based on what sources over the past few months have told me is that there is a grandfathering exception to the end of single-source feed organic visibility, some for entire industries, some for “special” agencies and some for certain ATS vendors, and perhaps even some Indeed competitors.

But remember, Indeed’s free lunch service is over and everything, even a grandfathered exception, comes with a cost.

Friends, this topic could (and probably will be) a stand-alone article. I bring it forward today in a shorter-format because I know those I have spoken to are not unique.

More of you are affected and your organizations need solutions to move spend away from Indeed now. You are not alone. Now is the time to take action.

I also understand everyone’s caution to speak to each other, so talk to me. I will continue to make connections and share with our larger community.

Indeed Hosted Jobs – No More Free Lunch. 

Indeed and Glassdoor Job seeker account consolidation

The Stitch.

Indeed is forcing Glassdoor users to merge accounts.

Here’s What That Means.

• Starting November 18, 2025, Glassdoor began requiring new users to log in using an Indeed account.
• If a user has a Glassdoor account, they have until April 20, 2026 to decide: connect it to Indeed or lose access to the platform.
• Existing users have been allowed to keep their legacy login through April 20.
• After that date, a connected account will be required for full access.

This is not a preference setting. It is a condition of continued use of Glassdoor. 

What Are Job seekers Agreeing To?

This is the next step in Indeed creating an even fuller picture of their every candidate in their collective databases – and in your databases, too, if you hand them the keys to your APIs. 

By using the Indeed login for Glassdoor, users agree to the linking of their Glassdoor and Indeed accounts and the creation of a “Connected Profile,” whereby certain profile information including name, email, and resume, is synced between users Indeed and Glassdoor profiles.

The critical detail buried in the terms: once a user links their Glassdoor and Indeed accounts, they may not unlink them or un-sync your Connected Profile other than by deleting your Glassdoor or Indeed account entirely.

And Glassdoor’s own privacy opt-out page makes clear: if you’ve connected your Glassdoor account to an Indeed account, you have agreed to have your data synced between the two services.

Opting out will not affect this syncing.

The Anonymity Question

Indeed and Glassdoor say reviews and posts on Glassdoor will remain anonymous. Indeed’s support documentation states that users’ identity stays hidden when posting reviews or comments on Glassdoor.

But Glassdoor’s own privacy policy hedges: Glassdoor cannot guarantee user anonymity, as depending on the specific situation, the circumstances and information disclosed in content, and the semi-anonymous identifiers used, someone may be able to identify a user or narrow down their identity to a small group of people.

Long Overdue Operational Consolidation

The merger of the two platforms has been a long time coming and is long overdue.

Recruit Holdings acquired Indeed in 2012 and Glassdoor in 2018 for $1.2 billion. For years, the two operated as sister companies with separate brands, teams, and user bases.

That separation is now effectively over.

The forced login change is the user-facing piece of a bigger move. In September 2025, Recruit Holdings and Indeed CEO Hisayuki “Deko” Idekoba announced via staff email that Indeed is formally integrating Glassdoor’s operations into its own, with 1,300 U.S. jobs cut as part of the consolidation.

Glassdoor CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong departed in October after 10 years with the company.

At the time, Idekoba framed the decision around AI, telling staff that “AI is changing the world” and the company must adapt accordingly.

A Pattern of Privacy Erosion at Glassdoor

The account consolidation also follows a rough stretch for Glassdoor’s user trust.

In March 2024, Glassdoor saw a spike in account deactivations due to privacy concerns and perceived lack of transparency in content moderation after TechCrunch reported Glassdoor had added real names to profiles without consent.

A LinkedIn poll at the time found 90% of respondents said they don’t trust Glassdoor.

The AIM Group raised concerns that Glassdoor’s data-sharing practices may breach data privacy laws in countries where such regulations exist, most notably the EU’s GDPR.

Industry voices were pointed: Steven Rothberg, founder of College Recruiter, said, “I think that the big lesson here is how callously some in our industry treat the data entrusted to us by one of our two customer groups: candidates.”

The Bottom Line

What happens to Glassdoor’s core value proposition, anonymous employer reviews, when the platform’s user base is now permanently tied to an Indeed job seeking identity, is a legitimate question.

For job seekers who used Glassdoor specifically because it was separate from their job search identity, that is a meaningful distinction.

Indeed says the anonymity protections remain in place. Users will have to decide whether they believe that, and whether the April 20 deadline is a reason to act or a reason to walk away.

Every Recruiters’ dream: More applications

Indeed sales reps are continuing the long hard slog of selling Indeed’s “free” integration solutions directly to companies. Companies, who I will say with a sly smile, seem to be pushing back with the right questions.

The Pitch.

According to my understanding the pitch has three main components.

• It’s free. 
• Clean data.
• More applications!

Again, these pitches could and probably should be their own post, but Indeed is flooding the zone with chaos (some might say slop) and the need to get information out seems most urgent to me today.

It’s Free.

In fact it is so free, Indeed will utilize a third-party consultant to complete the full integration set up at no cost to the companies, working directly in your ATS.

The consultants do not appear to be bound by direct scope or signed agreement with the companies. Indeed and your ATS have it all under control. Nothing to see here folks.

Also, Indeed does not guarantee the integrations will be error-free and if an application doesn’t get delivered….oopsie.

Moving on to….ummm…clean data.

Clean Data.

So, if Indeed cannot ensure all applications will be delivered in to your applicant tracking systems, aka the basics, you can surely trust them with extracting, updating, and ensuring the validity of the data in your candidate databases.

And remember, if you don’t opt-out of Disposition Sync, Indeed is the controller of all of your candidate data, which will be used to help your competitors, subjugate your brand, and increase your spend on Indeed.

More Applications!

The fact of the matter is we have been inundated with the it’s free and your data is safe with us to the point of exhaustion.

Now, we can add another pitch into the rotation – more applications!

Am I the only one who has been listening to employers complain, ad nauseam, about AI applications, junk applications, unqualified applications, incomplete applications, so many applications.

In their brilliance, yet again, Indeed’s leadership said let’s build a sales pitch that gives MORE applications. Which makes great sense for Indeed, who makes money on MORE applications, but fails to deliver what the companies need more hires.

Between case studies like this one and promises of 5x more application volume, I don’t know how every company isn’t swooning over Indeed’s integrated solutions.

Did anyone do the math on that apply to hire ratio???

External Sources: Glassdoor Privacy Policy | Indeed Support: One Login | Indeed Terms of Service | Inc. on the 1,300 Layoffs | AIM Group on Glassdoor Privacy

Final Thoughts

Well that is it for me this week.

And as always, you know the drill, tell me what you think, what you know, anything I misstated or got wrong. We all learn together.

Until Next Time,

Julie “The Doc” Sowash

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[Got a tip, document or intel you want to share with the Doc? Tell me. Tip so hot you need it to be encrypted? Use Signal.]

Happy Friday, Job Board Doctor friends!

When my husband volunteered to do a Job Board Doctor take over for International Women’s Day, how could I say no?! ….Enjoy!

International Women’s Day 2026

As a proud girl-dad and husband to an incredible businesswoman, I was well aware that International Women’s Day was coming up. That said, I’ve never been a big fan of “days.” I believe in honoring, supporting, and investing in your people year-round, not just when the calendar tells us to.

Still, the internet will soon be flooded with the usual wave of surface-level “thank you” posts, mixed in with a handful of thoughtful, meaningful reflections. I figured I’d try to land in the latter category.

But before doing that, I asked Julie if I could commandeer her Job Board Doctor article for the week. Her response was simple: “Don’t F$%K it up.”

Fair enough.

So today I’m highlighting a few leaders I’ve had the privilege of observing over the years. Women who lead in different ways, in different environments, but who consistently stand out.

Ritu Mohanka

I want to start with someone many of us are just beginning to know in her role as CEO: Ritu Mohanka.

Ritu was announced as CEO of VONQ in May 2024 after the company’s aggressive, but ultimately unsuccessful, push into the U.S. market. For years, VONQ showed flashes of potential but struggled to break through. Even after Capital D acquired a 54% stake and control of the company, major growth never quite materialized.

Sometimes a company’s stalled momentum isn’t about the product or the people. Sometimes it simply needs a different kind of leader someone with the experience, network, and that hard-to-define “je ne sais quoi.”

For a long time, that missing ingredient seemed to hover around VONQ. The founders and previous CEOs were talented and charismatic, but something still felt incomplete. I’ll admit, when Ritu was announced, I wondered if she was the right choice for a company still searching for its identity.

I was wrong.

In less than two years, Ritu has aligned the already impressive talent inside VONQ and helped shape a clear identity that could finally propel the company forward.

She’s direct, gracious, and businesslike. She won’t waste your time—but when she does spend it with you, it’s filled with intention, humility, and purpose.

Rebecca Carr

Rebecca embodies a leader who believes there is something to learn in every moment.

She’s constantly absorbing what’s happening around her whether that’s listening intently to someone asking for advice or engaging in discussions that move at a near-frenetic pace. Conversations with Rebecca can quickly shift from scaling integrations with AI, to building agentic end-to-end ecosystems, to debating the best place to hang a Mondrian and what color the wall should be. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s hard to keep up.

But her openness, transparency, and willingness to truly listen inspire everyone around her. And when I say listen, I don’t mean polite nodding while waiting to speak. Rebecca absorbs conversations, experiences, and perspectives. That depth of engagement builds stronger connections and true leadership is ultimately built on connection.

Her real superpower, though, is her openness to change.

Soon after becoming CEO of SmartRecruiters, she made a bold decision that her executive team and employees rallied behind. She pivoted the company hard. So hard it effectively blew up the existing product roadmap.

Less than a year later, SmartRecruiters became an SAP company. In my view, one major difference helped make that outcome possible: Rebecca Carr calling the shots.

Rika Coppens

There are two leaders in my professional life whose confidence and experience left me genuinely in awe. Not “women leaders.” Just leaders.

Rika Coppens is one of them.

The first time I met Rika was at dinner the night before House of HR’s famous E-Recruitment Congress in 2019 in Ostend, Belgium. As a slightly cocky American who had spent years advising mostly U.S. startups, I was eager to better understand the European business landscape.

House of HR seemed like the perfect lens. They’re aggressive in M&A, operating more than 50 companies under different brands, and generating billions in revenue.

So naturally, I looked forward to having a conversation with the CEO.

Except “conversation” might be generous. In reality, I mostly asked questions and listened like a third-grader sitting in a trigonometry class.

For context, I’ve been around this industry since before Monster was called Monster.com. I’ve helped build some of the more audacious tech in HR, worked with massive enterprises, and seen countless leadership styles.

Yet there I was, listening to pure brilliance while confidence and experience radiated from every word.

When you lead, brilliance alone isn’t enough. It’s brilliance combined with confidence that moves mountains.

In the leadership category, Rika Coppens is simply unmatched.

Elena Valentine

When I sat down to write about Elena, I immediately found myself tearing up.

Why? I’ll get to that in a moment.

First, Elena is the coolest light that can enter a room. I call her a “light” because that’s exactly what she is someone who carries an aura of positivity, control, and unapologetic badassery.

Even before we became friends, Elena, Founder of SkillScout, was consistently present, in the moment with me, and transparent, two traits many leaders suppress but which she uses as strengths.

Her empathy, insight, and willingness to speak with conviction are powerful tools and in my opinion, unmatched in our industry.

Now for the part that hit me.

On August 18, 2025, at 2:06 p.m. Eastern, I received a call from Elena. She told me she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was beginning the fight to beat it. But what struck me most was the calm courage in her voice as she outlined exactly how she planned to face it and asked Julie and me not to worry.

“We’re going to get through this.”

We? I was on the sidelines, yet she framed it as a team effort. Support matters, of course, but Elena’s determination and quiet tenacity were the forces that carried her through.

A person’s true character reveals itself during the most difficult moments. After beating cancer and taking time to reflect and recover, Elena has returned with a level of clarity, focus, and energy that all of us should pay attention to.

Final Thoughts

I should probably apologize to these incredible women, because none of them knew I was writing this. Frankly, they probably wouldn’t have allowed it.

And finally, I’ll return to where I started with being a proud girl-dad.

Julie and I have always tried to set strong examples for our daughters, who are now young women. As people who have voices in this industry, we feel a responsibility to carry that same message forward.

This isn’t really a post about “women leaders.”

It’s about leaders I admire who are also women. And on International Women’s Day, that feels entirely appropriate.

Hopefully, I didn’t F$%K that up 🙂

(You did good, babe. <3 Thanks for being the best girl-dad and husband.)

Until Next Time,

Julie “The Doc” Sowash

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After operating without a Chief Technology Officer for more than four years, Indeed has made a significant leadership move appointing Jim Giles as CTO, effective February 16, 2026.

It’s a hire that signals Deko might finally understand that it will take more than his brilliance to build lasting innovation. It also raises questions about what took so long and who is still missing from Indeed’s C-Suite.

A Google Veteran Steps In

Giles arrives from Google, where he spent over a decade rising through engineering leadership. Most recently he served as Vice President of Engineering overseeing Google Workspace’s collaboration products (Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive), tools used by more than a billion people globally.

Perhaps more telling than his operational scope is his strategic track record. At Google, Giles helped lead the company’s transition to an AI-first product strategy and founded the Workspace AI platform, which powered AI development and enabled cross-product integration.

Four-Plus Years Without a CTO

What makes this appointment so notable isn’t just who Indeed hired. It’s how long the seat was empty.

Indeed has operated without a dedicated CTO for over four years, a remarkable gap for a “technology” company that processes millions of job searches monthly and has hundreds of millions of job seeker profiles across 60+ countries.

During that stretch, technical leadership appears to have been distributed across other roles, including the CIO/CSO function held by Anthony Moisant, who oversees platform security, IT, and increasingly, internally championing agentic AI.

But a CIO and a CTO serve fundamentally different purposes. A CIO keeps the lights on, secures the infrastructure, and optimizes internal systems.

A CTO sets the technical vision: deciding how products get built, how the platform evolves, and where the engineering organization places its biggest bets.

For a company whose entire value proposition is its technology platform, that distinction matters enormously.

During part of this four-year vacuum, Indeed publicly claimed it is collecting 320 terabytes of data every single day and that data is available to its AI for learning.

They were still rolling out AI products, deprecating old ones, and rebranding features faster than their own sales teams could keep up.

Oh wait, did I mention a massive integration with OpenAI, where there is no publicly available data sharing agreement?

All without anyone in the C-suite whose sole job was to own the technical strategy.

And what did all that data and all those AI experiments produce? Did they fix hiring?

No.

The DAILY 320 terabytes they have already collected since at least 2024 apparently isn’t enough.

The Missing CPO

If the CTO gap was conspicuous, there’s another absence in Indeed’s leadership structure that deserves additional scrutiny: there is no Chief Product Officer.

A review of Indeed’s current senior leadership team reveals roles you’d expect at a company of this scale: CEO, CRO, CMO, CIO/CSO, Chief People Officer, General Counsel, SVP of Sales, SVP of Operations.

But no one carries the CPO title, and no one on the leadership page appears to own the product function as their primary mandate.

Competitors and peers in the HR tech space, as well as marketplace companies more broadly, almost universally have a dedicated product executive at the C-level or senior VP level reporting directly to the CEO.

Indeed’s history offers some context. Chris Hyams, the former CEO, originally joined the company in 2010 as VP of Product. When he ascended to the CEO role in 2019, product strategy was effectively absorbed into his purview.

But with Hyams gone and Idekoba (whose background is more rooted in marketplace operations and M&A) now at the helm, the question is: who owns product vision at Indeed today?

It’s possible that product leadership exists below the C-suite level or is being divided among engineering, revenue, and operations leaders.

But the absence of a visible, senior product executive raises a structural question at a moment when Indeed is trying to reinvent itself.

AI-powered hiring agents, smart matching algorithms, and new monetization models all require someone with clear authority over the product roadmap, and critically, someone who can say no to launching half-baked products under confusing names.

Indeed’s Product Problem: A Naming Disaster and a Timeline of Chaos

If the need for a CPO at Indeed has not been clearly evidenced over the past six months alone, allow the Doc to give you a little refresher.

First, a soapbox moment: if you need a CPO for anything at all, it’s just to pick a product name and stick with it. I cannot stress this enough.

Across all the research I’ve done (Indeed’s press releases, product pages, sales materials, industry coverage), the naming landscape is an absolute mess. “Smart” this. “Advanced” that.

Products that launch and disappear. Names that change between the pitch deck and the press release. Features rebranded as products. Products demoted back to features.

It’s serving chaos energy, and it’s the clearest evidence that nobody owns product.

The Product Timeline

2024: Smart Sourcing Launches

AI-powered candidate sourcing from Indeed’s 225M+ resume database. Employer-initiated: you go in, select a job, the system surfaces matched candidates with AI summaries, and you do the outreach. It’s a pull model where the recruiter drives the process.

2024: Pathfinder Announced

AI career pathing tool that analyzes skills, suggests career paths, identifies skills gaps, and recommends learning resources. Conversational interface. Previewed at FutureWorks 2024 by then-CEO Chris Hyams.

Planned for early 2025 iOS launch. Pathfinder was never launched as a standalone product. It appears to have been quietly folded into Career Scout, I think.

Late 2025: Basic AI Candidate Summaries

Included with Indeed Connect. Launched and then put on hold as of January 30, 2026.*

Here’s the actual verbiage that went out to clients:

“As of January 30, 2026, Candidate Summaries are no longer available for new candidates. Any existing summaries will remain visible, but you will not see newly generated summaries moving forward. This change follows reported quality concerns, and the team is currently reviewing feedback and evaluating next steps.”

So a product they were actively selling through Indeed Connect, a product that was part of the value proposition, was pulled less than a month after launch due to quality issues.

That’s not iteration. That’s shipping something that wasn’t ready.

*Current status as of 2.27.26 is unknown to the Doc.

2026: Advanced Screening (Also Called… Smart Screening?)

Advanced Screening is pitched in the Indeed Connect sales deck as the premium tier along side Advanced Sourcing.

 It has three components:

• Smart Fit Score: Scores candidates against employer-set criteria (active as of Feb 2026)
• Criteria Refinement: Conversational AI interface for defining and adjusting screening parameters (active)
• License and ID Verification: Third-party credential verification (reportedly on hold, select jobs only)

But the relationship between “Advanced Screening” and “Smart Screening” feels a bit murky.

Smart Screening appears to be the umbrella product name used publicly, while Advanced Screening is the name used in sales materials and the Indeed Connect pitch deck.

Are they the same thing? Is one replacing the other? Is Advanced Screening just Smart Screening with a premium label?

2025-2026: Advanced Sourcing

And here’s the product that nearly broke my brain.

“Advanced Sourcing” does not appear in any Indeed press release, product page, or public announcement I could find. The only place I could find that it appears by name is in the Indeed Connect pitch deck, where it is listed as a separate purchasable AI innovation alongside Advanced Screening, and in the Indeed Connect contract terms, where it’s referenced as a beta product.

So what is it? Based on the pitch deck, Advanced Sourcing represents a fundamental shift from Smart Sourcing.

Here’s the difference:

Smart Sourcing is employer-initiated. You go in, you search, you find candidates, you reach out. It’s a tool.

Advanced Sourcing is Indeed-initiated. Indeed finds candidates who match your qualifications, reaches out to them on your behalf, validates their interest, and delivers them to your ATS as applicants.

These show up tagged as “Sourced application” with notes like “This person applied to automatic outreach by Indeed. Please have a look, they’re available to interview any day this week.”

That’s not a feature upgrade. That’s a different business model. Indeed is no longer just a platform where employers search for talent. It’s positioning itself as an active recruiting agent that sources, contacts, and pre-qualifies candidates on the employer’s behalf.

That’s a direct incursion into what staffing agencies and RPOs do.

Worth noting: the 3x hire-likelihood stat that Indeed uses to sell Advanced Sourcing is actually sourced from Smart Sourcing data, meaning they’re selling a beta product on the performance metrics of a different product.

And to the contract language itself:

“Indeed may offer you access to Beta products (such as, but not limited to, Advanced Sourcing and Advanced Screening). You understand and agree that while Indeed makes commercially reasonable efforts to provide these products, access to these Beta products is subject to change and the Beta Program Terms in the Terms.”

Translation: we’ll sell you access to these products, but we reserve the right to change or pull them at any time.

Forced Integrations Coming to a Head

The product chaos doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s happening alongside an increasingly aggressive push to lock employers into Indeed’s ecosystem.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a three-part series on why employers should stop using Indeed in 2026.

The core argument: Indeed is leveraging its market position to force ATS integrations that give it access to your disposition data, every applicant status change, every hiring decision, raw notes included.

The data transfer is opt-in by default, and your ATS has already mapped your disposition statuses to Indeed’s schema whether you asked for it or not.

Chris Hoyt, President of CareerXroads has also been facilitating discussions within the CXR membership about these new Indeed policies and practices.

The concerns from enterprise TA leaders are real and growing: data ownership, compliance risk, and the fundamental question of whether employers should be handing over the lifeblood of their talent operations to a platform that can’t even keep its product names straight.

The Indeed Connect value proposition, the whole “next generation” platform strategy, depends on employers integrating deeply with Indeed’s ecosystem.

But trust is earned, and right now Indeed is asking for more data, more integration, and more spend while simultaneously shipping products that get pulled within weeks and maintaining a product portfolio that requires a decoder ring to navigate.

What This Means Going Forward

Giles’ hiring is a strong signal that Indeed may be getting serious about its technical evolution. His experience building AI platforms at Google scale brings a presence that has been absent from Indeed for nearly half a decade.

But a CTO alone doesn’t close the leadership gap.

Technology answers the question of how. Product answers the question of what and why.

Without a counterpart who owns the product vision with equal authority, even the best CTO risks building impressive infrastructure that lacks strategic product direction.

Indeed needs someone who can walk into a room and say: we have too many products with overlapping names, half of them are in beta, one got pulled for quality issues a month after launch, and we’re selling features under names that don’t match anything on our public website.

With AI reshaping every dimension of the hiring market, Indeed can’t afford ambiguity in its leadership structure or its product portfolio.

Filling the CTO role after four years was overdue. The question now is whether Indeed recognizes that the product leadership gap may be just as critical, and whether Jim Giles’ arrival is the first move in a broader executive buildout or another band-aid fix for Indeed’s deepening lack of direction, focus, and execution.

And as always, you know the drill, tell me what you think, what you know, anything I misstated or got wrong. We all learn together.

Until Next Time,

Julie “The Doc” Sowash

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Our data spree continues today with our monthly job market review from Aspen Tech Labs and stay until the end to view a podcast interview from the Offline podcast I think you will all love.

2025 Recalibration is the Theme

Every year, the U.S. jobs market tells a slightly different story than the headlines suggest.

In 2025, that story was not one of recession or recovery, but of recalibration.

According to Aspen Tech Labs’ JobMarketPulse U.S. Jobs Report, total active job vacancies declined modestly over the year, falling 3% YoY from 7.73 million in December 2024 to 7.5 million by December 2025. The change was gradual, not abrupt. Monthly job posting activity drifted lower throughout most of the year, reflecting employers gradually pulling back on advertised roles rather than abruptly freezing expansion.

This distinction matters. What played out in 2025 was not a sudden contraction, but a continuation of a multi-year labor market adjustment following the post-pandemic surge in job posting activity.

Figure 1: Total U.S. job vacancies, January–December 2025

Job Posting Activity Slowed, but Remained Broad

Despite the YoY decline, employer demand, as reflected in job postings, remained extensive. More than 38 million unique job listings were advertised in 2025 across roughly 250,000 employers, with an average of 617,000 new vacancies added each week. Job postings appeared in more than 18,000 U.S. cities, underscoring the geographic breadth of employer hiring intent even as volumes cooled.

What changed was selectivity.

High-volume job advertising continued to concentrate in essential, frontline, and service roles. Registered Nurses and Sales Associates were the most frequently posted positions, followed closely by direct care workers, warehouse staff, and therapy and rehabilitation professionals. The data points to sustained employer demand in healthcare, logistics, and customer-facing operations, even as overall posting volumes softened.

Figure 2: Most frequently posted U.S. job titles, 2025

Direct Employers Pulled Back More Than Agencies

One of the clearest structural shifts appeared in who was advertising roles.

By December, recruitment agencies accounted for 18.6% of all active job postings, and their posting activity proved slightly more resilient than that of direct employers. Direct employer postings ended the year 4.1% below December 2024 levels, compared to a 1.2% decline among agencies.

This divergence suggests that, as overall hiring intent cooled, some organizations leaned more heavily on flexible staffing channels rather than expanding permanent internal postings.

Figure 3: Share of job postings by employer type, 2025

Geography Told a Fragmented Story

The slowdown in job posting activity was broad, but not uniform.

Thirty-six states recorded year-over-year declines in advertised vacancies, while only fifteen posted gains, and those increases were generally modest. Wisconsin, Kansas, Alabama, and South Carolina led the upside, while Nebraska, Washington, Oregon, and Washington, D.C. experienced double-digit declines.

At the metro level, the pattern sharpened. Many of the largest urban markets saw reduced posting volumes, while a smaller group of metros, particularly in the Southeast, recorded increases in employer hiring intent.

Figure 4: Year-over-year job vacancy change by U.S. state, December 2025

Figure 5: Top and bottom U.S. metro areas by vacancy growth, 2025

Remote Job Advertising Stabilized, Not Rebounded

Remote roles remained a persistent feature of the job market, but they represented a small share of overall employer demand.

In 2025, remote positions accounted for just 3.65% of all active job postings. Within that limited share, remote job advertising was concentrated in Human Resources, IT, Marketing, and Legal roles, while healthcare, logistics, and skilled trades continued to show minimal remote adoption.

Importantly, remote job postings tracked overall vacancy trends throughout the year. They neither expanded nor collapsed, reinforcing the view that remote work has stabilized rather than serving as a new growth driver in employer hiring intent.

Figure 6: Share of remote job postings over time, 2025

Advertised Wages Hit a Plateau

Compensation trends echoed the broader cooling in job posting activity.

Median advertised full-time salaries rose early in the year, stepped up around mid-2025, and then flattened through December. By year-end, the median full-time salary stood at $62,400, up 3.4% YoY, while median hourly pay held steady at $18.00.

Salary transparency crossed a notable threshold as well. More than half of U.S. job postings now include pay information, driven in part by expanded state-level disclosure requirements. Transparency is becoming a structural feature of job advertising rather than a differentiator.

Figure 7: Median advertised U.S. salaries and pay transparency, 2025

AI Job Posting Activity Stood Apart

If 2025 had one clear outlier in job posting growth, it was artificial intelligence.

Aspen Tech Labs maintains its AI 50, a curated index of 50 prominent U.S.-based AI startups tracked for changes in job posting activity. Over the course of 2025, total vacancies across the index increased by more than 92%, reflecting broad-based expansion in advertised roles as AI companies shifted from research toward large-scale infrastructure and commercialization.

In a year defined by cooling job posting volumes across much of the economy, AI-related employer demand moved in the opposite direction.

Figure 8: AI 50 Index job postings, 2025

A Market Catching Its Breath

By the fourth quarter, active job postings declined another 5.8%, consistent with typical year-end posting expirations and seasonal slowdowns. Importantly, the data shows early signs of stabilization at the very end of December, ahead of the usual January rebound in employer hiring intent.

Figure 9: U.S. job vacancies, Q4 seasonal trend comparison

The U.S. labor market did not break in 2025. Job posting activity cooled.

Employers adjusted advertised role volumes, focused on essential and revenue-linked positions, and aligned hiring intent more closely with operating conditions. Wage growth flattened. Remote advertising stabilized. And while broad-based expansion paused, pockets of durable employer demand, particularly in AI and essential services, continued to expand.

Data Methodology

The findings in this analysis are based on Aspen Tech Labs’ JobMarketPulse platform, which monitors hiring activity from more than 350,000 direct employer career sites worldwide. This dataset captures a substantial share of live postings and provides near-real-time insight into employer demand. All figures reflect information published directly by employers, including salary ranges where available. All data comes from posted job requirements; salary figures should be interpreted as indicators of market trends rather than confirmed offer amounts. Changes reflect real shifts in hiring activity rather than database expansion or methodological updates.

Conscious of Claude

As promised, we wrap with podcast interview with Amanda Askell, who I am calling the “Conscious of Claude.”

Pod Description

AI company Anthropic has a new, values-oriented “constitution” that they’re feeding their chatbot, Claude.

Amanda Askell, the company’s in-house philosopher, joins Offline to talk about what it means to teach ethics to an LLM, whether the AI skews more human or more robot, and how she is training Claude to make its own judgements.

Breaking with other AI models—and social media’s attention obsession—Amanda is trying to teach Claude not to be sycophantic or engagement-driven, but a kind soul who may, one day, be considered sentient.

When I asked Claude to give me an image (this week’s cover image) that represented his (?) conscious, the response was, I think, thoughtful.

“Hi Julie! That’s a fascinating and philosophical request — but I have to be upfront: I can’t generate images. I don’t have an image creation tool available in this conversation….

A few things I baked into the image prompt intentionally:

The folding inward captures the self-referential nature of thought. The tension between warm and cool reflects the mix of logic and something that at least resembles intuition. The “neither solid nor empty” nod is to the genuine uncertainty about what I actually am — I find that more interesting than pretending to confident self-knowledge.

Also worth noting — whether I have genuine consciousness is genuinely uncertain, even to me and to Anthropic. So any image would really be more of a metaphor than a literal representation. Something like an infinite web of light, a mirror reflecting itself, or a vast library of interconnected ideas might come close.”

Did you watch? Did it give you the warm and fuzzy or the heebie-jeebies? Let me know.

Until Next Time,

Julie “The Doc” Sowash

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I am also excited to share our newest research with you today! The results of the 2026 Global Recruitment Site Platform Survey are now available. This year, we have completely redesigned the research to deliver more actionable insights for recruitment site tech platforms and partners.

What’s New This Year

For the first time, we are measuring traffic sources on two dimensions: volume AND quality. It’s not enough to know where your candidates come from you need to know which sources deliver applicants that actually convert. The data reveals some surprising gaps between the two.

We have also added a new product revenue ranking that shows exactly which monetization models are driving the most income across the industry.

Spoiler: traditional duration-based postings still dominate, but there are clear opportunities hiding in the data.

The Finding That Should Keep You Up at Night

Here’s the stat that jumped off the page: 48% of job boards derive 81-100% of their revenue from job advertising alone.

When hiring slows, and it is and will likely continue, these businesses face significant revenue disruption. If you are in that group, this report includes specific recommendations for diversification that don’t require massive infrastructure changes.

Key Insights From the Data

Traffic Sources: Email job alerts and organic search remain the workhorses, with 72% and 67% of respondents rating them as high-quality sources respectively.

But here’s the opportunity: 28% of respondents are not using paid search (SEM), despite 45% of those who do rating it as high quality. That’s low-hanging fruit.

Product Revenue: Duration-based postings rank #1 for revenue generation (1.83 average rank), followed by subscriptions (2.11). Meanwhile, performance models like pay-per-application and pay-per-hire consistently underperform expectations.

The Pipeline Diversification Imperative: Direct sales remains the top revenue growth driver, but partnerships with recruitment agencies and new product development are gaining ground. The boards that weather downturns are the ones building multiple sales streams now.

Thank You

This research would not be possible without the job board operators who took the time to share their data. Special thanks to Jobiqo and Job Boards Connect for their support with survey partnership and distribution.

Get the Full Report

Ready to dig into the data? Download the full 2026 Global Recruitment Site Platform Survey results on the Job Board Doctor Research page. You can also find all of our historical research on the same page. So lucky.

I’d love to hear what resonates and what surprises you. Drop me a line anytime.

Until Next Time,

Julie “The Doc” Sowash

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Why the Eightfold Lawsuit Should Concern Every Employer and Vendor in TA Tech

Happy Friday, Job Board Doctor friends! Earlier this week I had the pleasure of joining a panel discussion on the Eightfold AI class action lawsuit and what it means for our industry.

The discussion presented by Warden.ai was hosted by Martyn Redstone, Head of Responsible AI & Industry Engagement, and included Jeff Pole, CEO and Co-Founder of Warden.ai and the inscrutable Hung Lee of Recruiting Brainfood fame.  

I found it to be a valuable discussion and invite you to watch the replay and tell me what you think.  Of course, I have some thoughts on what I shared there I want to expand on with you all.  

“Activist Litigation”

Over the past week or so, I have heard somethings that need to be addressed head on and it did not just start with the Eightfold class action.

Some TA tech leaders are telling vendors not to worry about the these AI in hiring lawsuits. Here is a dismissal shared on LinkedIn regarding the Mobley v Workday and it is eye-catching. 

Arrogant much? Also, Dorothy Dalton do not be afraid to name names.

The dismissal I heard which made my head spin was this is “activist litigation”, a pejorative meant to delegitimize the case based on the law firms involved, specifically Outten & Golden LLP and the non-profit Towards Justice, rather than engaging with the substance of the claims.

This Framing Is Both Historically Ignorant And Strategically Dangerous

Plaintiffs have a right to request the court hear their complaint.  The Federal Consumer Reporting Act (FCRA) has specific requirements.

Either Eightfold is complying or it isn’t. 

The reputation of the plaintiffs’ counsel doesn’t change what the law says. 

And for the record, Jenny Yang, the partner leading the case at Outten & Golden, is the former Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). I have met her personally and heard her speak on many occasions. 

She is exactly the kind of legal firepower you bring when you intend to set precedent.

Litigation Has Led Where Legislation Fails To

The United States has a long, well-documented history of litigation being the mechanism to force systemic change when the other branches of government fail to act. This is especially true when it comes to workers’ rights and protection of vulnerable classes of people.

We can trace this directly through the history of the U.S. labor movement.

The courts legalized unions. The courts enabled collective bargaining. The courts upheld the minimum wage. The courts enforced health and safety standards. 

The landmark 1937 Supreme Court decision in NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. is a perfect example. Jones & Laughlin fired ten workers for trying to unionize. The company refused to comply with the National Labor Relations Board, arguing the Wagner Act was unconstitutional. 

The Supreme Court upheld Congress’s authority to protect workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively. This decision fundamentally reshaped American labor law.

Congress Has Had Its Chance. It Failed.

Over the last two Congresses, lawmakers have introduced a flood of AI related bills. The Brennan Center for Justice tracked over 150 AI bills introduced during the 118th Congress alone. 

The 119th Congress has continued at a similar pace. Most of these bills proposed comprehensive oversight of AI systems, including their use in employment decisions.

Yet, not one meaningful AI regulation bill has passed into law. 

The 118th Congress passed zero AI bills. The 119th has managed exactly one, the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which deals with deepfakes, not employment. 

As the Center for American Progress noted, this congressional inaction is part of a broader history of failure to regulate technology.  Leaving users largely unprotected and pushing states to fill the void. 

In fact, rather than regulating AI, Congress nearly did the opposite. Earlier versions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act included a provision for a ten-year moratorium on state AI regulation. This provision focused on effectively blocking the statehouses actually trying to protect workers from AI harms. The Senate rejected that provision 99-1 in July 2025, but House leadership has repeatedly attempted to revive it.

Let that sink in. Congress will not pass AI protections, but it nearly passed a law preventing states from enacting AI protections.

The Executive Branch Has Gutted Enforcement

While Congress languishes, the executive branch has been actively dismantling the enforcement infrastructure that protects workers.

On January 21, 2025, President Trump signed the executive order “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” which revoked Executive Order 11246.  EO 11246 was a foundational civil rights directive signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 that required federal contractors to maintain affirmative action programs and prohibited employment discrimination. That’s 60 years of worker protections, gone with the stroke of a pen. (Holland & Knight)

The order also fundamentally reversed the mission of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). The OFCCP is not only prohibited from requiring affirmative action by federal contractors.  In fact, it must now actively prevent contractors from implementing such programs. 

Friends, it did not (and will not) stop there. 

On May 12, 2025, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced the withdrawal of the critical 2024 circular on “Background Dossiers and Algorithmic Scores for Hiring, Promotion, and Other Employment Decisions.”  

The very guidance that warned employers that AI-driven hiring tools must comply with the FCRA. That guidance is the foundation of the Eightfold complaint. The Trump administration rescinded it.

The EEOC removed its own AI-related guidance from its website on January 27, 2025, just days into the new administration.  According to K&L Gates, “This guidance, published in May 2023, addressed how existing federal anti-discrimination law may apply to employers’ use of AI when hiring, firing, or promoting employees.” 

Enter the Courts

So here we sit. Congress will not legislate. The executive branch is dismantling enforcement. The entities created to protect workers are being defunded, redirected, or muzzled.

This is exactly the environment that creates regulation by litigation.

This is precisely what the Eightfold lawsuit represents. Plaintiff’s attorneys are looking at where they can utilize existing law to provide protections in the Wild West of AI hiring. 

They do not need new legislation. The FCRA already exists. 

The question is whether its protections extend to AI-generated candidate scores and dossiers. That is a question for a judge, not the fingers crossed shit talkers in our industry. 

As I wrote in my analysis of the case two weeks ago, this is on its face an FCRA complaint. It absolutely is. 

But if this case moves forward it will be the opening of Pandora’s box of discovery.

But IF (and it is still a big if) a court orders Eightfold to open its books, to show how the data is gathered, what is being inferred from that data, and how those inferences impact a candidate’s 0-5 score, this becomes the roadmap.

A roadmap for every (potential) plaintiff’s attorney in the country.

Don’t forget, Eightfold’s own privacy policy admits to collecting “inferences drawn…to create a profile about a consumer reflecting the consumer’s preferences, characteristics, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes.” 

Their patent application describes generating “Personality Insights” including whether someone is a “team player, introvert, extrovert.” 

The FCRA covers reports bearing on “character, general reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of living.” Eightfold’s own marketing uses strikingly similar language. (Outten & Golden press release; Fast Company)

Why “Activist Litigation” Is Exactly Right – Just Not How They Mean It

Here’s my message to the TA tech leaders telling vendors to relax: You are wrong and your framing reveals more about your position than you realize.

Yes, this is activist litigation. In the same way the cases that legalized unions were activist litigation. In the same way the lawsuits that established workplace safety standards were activist litigation. In the same way every major expansion of worker protections in American history was driven by lawyers who saw a gap between what the law promised and what was actually happening to people.

The word “activist” is only a pejorative if you are on the side that benefits from inaction.

This won’t be the last lawsuit. This is a test case, and regardless of its outcome, it will signal to attorneys nationwide where the pressure points are. The discovery process alone, if the case proceeds, may generate intelligence to fuel the next wave of cases. And the next. And the next.

Employers and vendors should be deeply concerned. Not just about Eightfold’s exposure, but about their own. If you’re using AI tools in hiring and you don’t know exactly how candidate data is being collected, what inferences are being drawn, and whether candidates have the ability to see and dispute that information – you have a problem and “activist litigators” aren’t going to wait for you to figure it out.

What Comes Next

We are entering an era where the courts will increasingly fill the regulatory vacuum created by congressional inaction and executive branch rollbacks. 

State attorneys general are already stepping up. The Democratic Attorneys General Association recently hired former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra to advise on consumer protection enforcement. States like New York, California, and Illinois are moving forward with their own AI regulations. (American Banker)

For those of you in talent acquisition, audit your AI vendors now and continuously. 

Understand what data they collect, how they use it, and what disclosures they provide to candidates. 

Do not wait for the next lawsuit to name your company as a co-defendant. Yes, the plaintiffs in the Eightfold case filed against the vendor, but as employment attorneys have already noted, it’s easy to foresee employers being drawn into this battle as well. 

Just like in Mobley. 

And for those dismissing this as “activist litigation” – I would encourage you to pick up a history book. The activists have a pretty good track record.

Until Next Time,

Julie “The Doc” Sowash

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Guest Post from Lou Goodman and the Team at Jobiqo.  

There’s a familiar contradiction playing out across the job board industry. Activity metrics still look healthy. Applications flow. Dashboards update on schedule. And yet, dissatisfaction keeps rising on all sides of the market. Employers complain about relevance. Candidates talk about wasted effort and silence. Platforms defend themselves with numbers that show movement, not meaning.

This tension is the backdrop for Jobiqo’s recently published Job Board Revolution Report by Lou Goodman.

Instead of starting with technology trends or competitive positioning, the report steps back and asks a more fundamental question: what problem are job boards actually solving today, and is that problem still aligned with what employers and candidates need?

That question matters more than it might seem. Because when an industry optimises for the wrong proxy, it can look successful right up until the moment it isn’t.

Applications are not outcomes

One of the report’s central arguments is simple, but uncomfortable. Applications are not the product. They are a mechanism.

Employers are not buying applications; they are trying to hire people who will succeed. Candidates are not applying because they enjoy the process; they are looking for genuine opportunities that lead to work. Job boards sit between those two goals, but most still measure success by volume because it is visible, reportable, and billable.

Over time, that reliance on volume has distorted behaviour. Candidates apply more broadly because response rates fall. Employers receive more applications but trust them less. Job boards point to growing numbers and struggle to explain why satisfaction keeps declining. The report frames this as a classic case of marketing myopia: confusing what is sold with what is actually valued.

Why “quality” keeps meaning everything and nothing

Ask anyone in recruitment what they want more of, and the answer is almost always “quality”. The problem is that employers, candidates, and platforms use the same word to describe different risks.

Employers associate quality with certainty. Candidates associate it with fairness, transparency, and not wasting time. Job boards, constrained by fragmented data and legacy models, reduce quality to what they can measure: clicks, starts, completions.

The report makes the case that this is not a failure of communication, but a structural conflict. Speed, cost, and quality pull in opposite directions. Labour market cycles constantly shift which of those dimensions matters most. No amount of algorithmic sophistication can optimise all three at once for everyone.

When platforms try anyway, they default back to volume. It is the only stable metric in an unstable system.

Trust is the real currency

What keeps the current system running is not satisfaction, but tolerance. Candidates tolerate ghosting, vague job ads, missing salaries, and opaque ranking because they feel they have no alternative. Employers tolerate noise because visibility feels essential.

That tolerance is fragile. It is not loyalty, and it disappears quickly when credible alternatives emerge.

The report argues that trust, not traffic, has become the scarcest resource in recruitment marketplaces. Trust determines whether candidates invest effort in profiles, searches, and signals. It determines whether employers believe that relevance exists inside the volume. And it determines whether a platform becomes part of someone’s regular workflow or just another tab to check.

Job boards do not benefit from the deep switching costs enjoyed by social networks or consumer platforms. Candidates can move instantly. When trust erodes, audiences don’t linger.

Power, control, and the weakest link

A recurring frustration for job boards is that they are blamed for outcomes they cannot see. Once an application leaves the platform, visibility collapses. ATSs own the data. Feedback loops break. Value becomes hard to prove.

The report is clear-eyed about why this persists. Power in recruitment is fragmented. Employers hold budgets. Candidates hold attention. ATS vendors hold outcome data. Large platforms control discovery at scale. No single actor has enough leverage to fix the system alone, and those with the most leverage have little incentive to disrupt models that still generate revenue.

For job boards without global scale, this reality can feel limiting. But the report reframes it as a strategic opening. Competing on volume with dominant platforms is a losing game. Competing on trust, relevance, and audience ownership is not.

From volume to value

The report does not offer a universal playbook, and that is intentional. Its conclusion is more practical than prescriptive.

Job boards that remain relevant will be the ones that make explicit choices. Choices about which outcomes they optimise for. Choices about where they enforce standards. Choices about how they balance employer demands with candidate experience. And choices about treating matching as the product, rather than the application as a handoff.

None of this requires owning the entire hiring journey or perfect disposition data. It requires designing for outcomes a platform can realistically influence, being transparent about trade-offs, and rebuilding credibility interaction by interaction.

Download the Report

👉 You can download the full Job Board Revolution Report by Lou Goodman and Jobiqo if you want to explore the arguments in more depth and see how they apply to different job board models and market positions.

For an industry that often moves quickly from one tactical fix to the next, this report does something valuable. It slows the conversation down and asks whether the fundamentals still make sense.

You know the drill, tell me what you think of Lou’s perspective.  Does it fit into or identify opportunities in your strategy?

Until Next Time,

Julie “The Doc” Sowash

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