AI will replace these recruiters soon ☠️

I am a little tired of ‘AI and recruitment’.

But we must address it because it will bring massive change.

I have done much work to understand how AI will impact our industry.

Hours of research culminated in a four-hour ‘AI in Recruitment masterclass‘, which I have just toured around the UK with the REC. (London event pic below)

I have also been pitched scores of AI products by the ‘Tech Bros‘ and spoken to hundreds of owners grappling with the issue.

Making predictions is a fool’s game.

So, I do it all the time, obviously.

But you may wish to pay attention to this one.

I am predicting the demise of a significant percentage of agency recruiters.

AI will not replace ‘agency recruitment’. The industry will change but continue to thrive.

But it will take the jobs of many thousands of agency recruiters.

Specifically, those that lack the advisory, consulting, insights and human influencing skills

But it is more significant than that.

Going forward, two significant segments of the ‘Agency’ recruitment market will thrive with AI augmentation.

AI will destroy one colossal sector.

Done, Finished. Kaput. Gonski

Let’s look at the two winners.

Then, the biggest loser!

Executive search, exclusive and retained. 🆙

Recruiters who can find and bring candidates to the hiring table, who are ‘not looking‘ but have the right skills and can be ‘ignited’ – will be in demand beyond AI changes.

Bespoke, high-level, niche-skilled search and headhunting will thrive.

Finding people is not the same as recruiting them.

Human nuance matters at this level. High-level roles require deep vetting, discretion, and trust-building—things AI can’t replicate.

In addition, executive search firms are often valued for sourcing, counsel, market intel, and influencing outcomes. Hiring at this level frequently requires very high levels of confidentiality and complexity.

AI will impact Executive search, and we can expect more efficient research and sourcing, but not full automation.

The sector is positioned to grow as employers realise you can automate some transactional recruitment and aspects of more senior recruitment, but not at this level.

Temp, Contract and Locum 🆙

The gig economy will continue to grow.

Workforce flexibility soared post-COVID, and companies want agile talent models. Remote skills access, project work, rapidly changing skills needs, and short-term demand spikes make temp/contract staffing a strong hiring solution.

Moreover, AI is fuelling project-based work in IT, data science, marketing ops and much more. The way ‘Temp and Contract’ works will be increasingly automated, but the skilled Temp recruiter, who can calmly handle a 6.30 pm Temp ‘bombing out’ of an assignment that starts the next day – and swiftly find and negotiate a replacement to front up the next morning at 9 am – because of network, relationships, influencing and skill – will be as relevant as ever.

Automation will increasingly handle compliance, onboarding, and timesheet management. Matching algorithms will speed up placement and redeployment, but the Recruitment businesses that blend great tech with specific temp job-filling expertise will grow.

Multi-listed contingent recruitment  ☠️

This is doomed.

How can it not be?

This model is already margin-thin, staffing cost-heavy, and vulnerable to commoditisation. Recruiters in the space are often generalists, hiding behind digital, and undifferentiated in the eyes of candidates and clients. We all know they accept work from clients who give the same role to 3+ agencies — whoever is fastest wins.

The model degrades recruitment to a ‘resume race‘; a machine will always win that battle.

AI sourcing, matching, screening and even shortlisting tools will remove much of the “value add” these commodity recruiters claim to offer. It’s often a transactional ‘body shop’ service where recruiters fill one job out of 5 and get paid only for 20% of their work.

These contingent recruiters will not be able to compete. They will be caught between In-house teams using AI who source directly and the highly niche and consultative search firm getting paid for 100% of their efforts. Roles under £80k and Aud 120k are especially at risk of being insourced or handled by a new category of ‘Exclusive only recruiters’ who will not compete on the same order.

Some highly skilled niche contingent firms might survive, but they can only do that if they ‘own their patch‘ and evolve into a more advisory service.

Generalist recruiters who rely on volume over value are Gonski. Good night, nurse. Seeya!

All this will not happen overnight, but I believe we are on this trajectory already.

It’s not too late. Yet.

But…

Adjust or die.

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