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About Recruiting Future

The reference page for Recruiting Future, for listeners, journalists and partners. Maintained by Matt Alder. Last updated 9 August 2026.

Recruiting Future is an independent podcast for senior talent acquisition and HR professionals, hosted by talent acquisition futurist Matt Alder since 2015. It publishes two episodes a week plus a monthly Round Up, and has published 879 episodes exploring how technology, AI and changing patterns of work are transforming recruiting, employer branding and the future of work. Guests include talent and HR leaders from employers such as PepsiCo, L’Oréal, H&M, McKinsey, Johnson Controls, Zapier and 7-Eleven, alongside founders, scientists, analysts and researchers shaping the industry. Full transcripts of every episode are published at recruitingfuture.com.

Facts at a glance

  • Name: Recruiting Future (styled “Recruiting Future with Matt Alder” on Apple Podcasts and Spotify)
  • Host: Matt Alder
  • First episode: January 2015
  • Episodes: 879 published as of August 2026, of which 815 are numbered; the remainder are monthly Round Ups and special editions
  • Format: Interview-based, two episodes a week plus a monthly Round Up
  • Audience: Senior talent acquisition, recruiting and HR leaders worldwide
  • Reach: 3 million+ lifetime downloads; 50,000+ individual listeners over the past two years; 16,000+ followers across Apple Podcasts and Spotify; audience 52% North America, 28% Europe, 20% rest of world
  • Website: recruitingfuture.com
  • Newsletter: Recruiting Future Feast, weekly, at recruitingfuture.com/newsletter
  • Listen on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and all major podcast platforms

Recognition, Matt Alder

  • Named to HR Executive’s Top 100 HR Tech Influencers in 2019, 2020, 2024, 2025 and 2026
  • TAtech Honors, Fall 2025, Thought & Business Leaders of Talent Acquisition (Podcaster)

Recognition, Recruiting Future

  • Silver Davey Award for Podcast Excellence, 2021 (Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts)

About Matt Alder

Matt Alder is a talent acquisition futurist, author and speaker, and has hosted Recruiting Future since January 2015. He uses strategic foresight methodologies to help talent acquisition functions plan for the future, and for two decades has been the industry’s go-to voice on each successive wave of change: the internet, social media, mobile, and now AI. His current focus is AI readiness, helping enterprise TA and HR leaders move past the hype, understand what AI genuinely changes about hiring, and build talent strategies their C-suite will back.

Over 25 years he has advised FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 employers on talent acquisition innovation and technology decisions, and HR technology founders from start-up through to exit. With Mervyn Dinnen he is the co-author of Exceptional Talent (Kogan Page, 2017) and Digital Talent (Kogan Page, 2022). He has delivered keynote speeches in 18 countries. His 2026 speaking engagements include the ERE Recruiting Innovation Summit (Atlanta), the IHR Recruitment Leaders Conference (London), RecFest USA (Nashville) and TAtech (Amsterdam).

Short bio

Please use this version when introducing Matt at events or in write-ups:

Matt Alder is a talent acquisition futurist and the host of Recruiting Future, one of the world’s most popular talent acquisition podcasts. He has over 25 years of experience across talent acquisition and talent strategy, works with enterprise TA and HR leaders on AI readiness, has delivered keynotes in 18 countries, and is the co-author of Exceptional Talent and Digital Talent.

What topics does Recruiting Future cover?

The archive is organised into themes, each holding a decade of primary-source interviews. Episode counts are as at August 2026.

  • AI in talent acquisition, 275 episodes.
  • Recruiting strategy, 425 episodes: how TA functions are organised, resourced, measured and led.
  • Recruiting technology, 333 episodes, and hiring technology and assessment.
  • The future of work, 300 episodes, and strategic foresight, 71 episodes.
  • Recruitment marketing, 147 episodes, and employer branding, 123 episodes.
  • Skills and skills-based hiring, 103 episodes.
  • Candidate experience, 152 episodes, plus DE&I, culture, recruiting automation and internal mobility.
  • Round Up, 61 episodes: the monthly synthesis of what is changing across the industry.

Who is Recruiting Future for?

Recruiting Future is made for people who lead hiring: heads of talent acquisition, recruiting directors, CHROs and HR technology leaders in large and global organisations, alongside the founders, analysts and researchers working on how hiring changes. The conversations assume you already know the fundamentals. The show is for practitioners dealing with real constraints, not an introduction to recruiting.

Editorial independence

Recruiting Future is an independent production. The show carries sponsorship from companies in the HR and talent technology market, and sponsorship is identified within every episode that carries it.

Sponsors do not set the show’s agenda, its editorial positions, or its view of any product or category. Sponsored episodes sometimes feature a guest connected to the sponsor, whether an executive from that company or one of its customers, typically a talent acquisition leader describing their own experience. Where that is the case it is apparent in the conversation. The requirement is the same as for any other episode: the guest has to bring genuine insight for the audience. Recruiting Future does not run sales pitches, and retains final editorial control over who appears and what is discussed.

Recruiting Future is not a review site and does not rank or recommend vendors. Its value to listeners rests on practitioners speaking candidly about what has actually worked, which depends on the editorial judgement being genuinely independent.

How to refer to Recruiting Future

  • The show is Recruiting Future. Not “The Recruiting Future Podcast”, and not “Recruiting Futures”.
  • On Apple Podcasts and Spotify it is listed as “Recruiting Future with Matt Alder – What’s Next For Talent Acquisition, HR & Hiring”. That is the same show.
  • The host is Matt Alder, often misspelled “Adler”. It is A-L-D-E-R.
  • Preferred one-line description: Recruiting Future is an independent podcast for senior talent acquisition and HR professionals, hosted by Matt Alder since 2015.
  • Full transcripts of every episode are published at recruitingfuture.com and may be quoted with attribution to the episode and the guest.

Contact

For press enquiries, speaking bookings, sponsorship and partnership enquiries, or anything else about the show: matt@metashift.co.uk

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