Pick Up The Phone: Did We Break Reference Checking?

What if your organisation's engagement score is improving, but the people you most need to listen to are being overlooked?In Episode 13 of 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission., Edan challenges our obsession with employee engagement scores and asks whether we're measuring what really matters.For this episode, Edan spent time with Rezza Moieni and Quincy Hall from Cultural Infusion, exploring their platform, Atlas, and its approach to understanding the cultural and demographic complexity of today's workforce.From the dangers of averages and outdated survey questions to the importance of cultural representation, psychological safety and employee trust, Edan explores why a healthy engagement score doesn't necessarily mean everybody is having a positive experience at work.The episode also examines how Atlas connects detailed cultural insights with employee sentiment, helping organisations identify experiences and patterns that traditional engagement surveys might miss.But collecting better data is only half the challenge.If organisations aren't prepared to listen, understand and act on what their people are telling them, what's the point of asking?Because workplace culture isn't a number on a dashboard.It's the experience of the people behind it.Explore Atlas by Cultural Infusion: https://culturalinfusion.com/Connect with Rezza Moieni https://www.linkedin.com/in/rezza-moieni/Connect with Quincy Hall https://www.linkedin.com/in/quincy-hall-7784b4201/ 🎙️ 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission.This November, Edan Haddock - Total Talent is taking on its biggest challenge yet.30 consecutive days. 30 brand-new podcast episodes. 1 goal: raising funds for Movember and helping change the face of men's health.No sponsors. No shortcuts. Just honest conversations and a community coming together for something bigger than a podcast.If you believe in better conversations, better workplaces and better outcomes for men's health, I'd love your support.🎧 Follow the podcast. Share the campaign. Donate if you can. Every action helps.👉 Donate now: https://au.movember.com/mospace/15366090Let's make this the biggest month in the history of Edan Haddock - Total Talent. Together, we can help change the face of men's health. 💛

What happens when candidates use AI to write their applications, and recruiters use AI to decide whether to read them?In Episode 12 of 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission., Edan explores the growing AI arms race in recruitment and asks a confronting question: Are we actually getting better at hiring people, or simply faster at processing them?As application volumes increase and automated screening becomes more sophisticated, the recruitment process risks becoming a conversation between algorithms, with real people caught somewhere in the middle.For this episode, Edan spent time with Winnie Nguyen, founder of Australian recruitment technology startup Prism, exploring how the platform is challenging conventional approaches to candidate matching, screening and assessment.From skills-based matching and transferable capabilities to structured AI-assisted interviews and evidence-based decision-making, Edan examines how emerging technology could help recruiters manage overwhelming application volumes without sacrificing fairness or transparency.But there's a bigger issue at play.If an algorithm excludes a candidate, can we actually explain why?The episode challenges the industry's growing reliance on candidate rankings, suitability scores and automated recommendations, exploring the dangers of automation bias and why human oversight must mean more than simply approving what technology recommends.Because the future of recruitment shouldn't be about rejecting people faster.It should be about making better, fairer and more defensible hiring decisions.Explore Prism: https://prismplatform.co/ Connect with Winnie Nguyen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/winnie-nguyen-prism/  🎙️ 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission.This November, Edan Haddock - Total Talent is taking on its biggest challenge yet.30 consecutive days. 30 brand-new podcast episodes. 1 goal: raising funds for Movember and helping change the face of men's health.No sponsors. No shortcuts. Just honest conversations and a community coming together for something bigger than a podcast.If you believe in better conversations, better workplaces and better outcomes for men's health, I'd love your support.🎧 Follow the podcast. Share the campaign. Donate if you can. Every action helps.👉 Donate now: https://au.movember.com/mospace/15366090Let's make this the biggest month in the history of Edan Haddock - Total Talent. Together, we can help change the face of men's health. 💛

We've become incredibly good at welcoming new employees. But how good are we at actually setting them up to succeed?In Episode 11 of 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission., Edan challenges the traditional approach to onboarding and asks whether organisations have confused completing a process with achieving an outcome.As part of his Movember series, Edan spent time with Jack Cartwright from Enboarder, exploring how onboarding is evolving beyond welcome emails, checklists and first-day experiences towards something much more meaningful: time to readiness.The episode explores why recruitment success shouldn't necessarily end when somebody accepts an offer or starts work, how organisations can define what being genuinely ready looks like for different roles, and why the first 30, 60 and 90 days should focus on building confidence, capability and connection.Edan also explores Enboarder's approach to personalised employee journeys, manager involvement, role-specific development and using technology to turn onboarding from an administrative exercise into an experience that supports real performance.But there's an important distinction.Getting people ready faster shouldn't mean putting them under more pressure.The episode challenges organisations to think about readiness as something they enable, rather than something they demand, and why technology alone can't compensate for poor leadership, unclear expectations or inadequate support.Because perhaps the next evolution of Talent Acquisition isn't simply about reducing the time it takes to hire someone.It's about reducing the time it takes to help them succeed.Explore Enboarder: https://enboarder.com/Connect with Jack Cartwright: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackcaspercartwright/ 🎙️ 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission.This November, Edan Haddock - Total Talent is taking on its biggest challenge yet.30 consecutive days. 30 brand-new podcast episodes. 1 goal: raising funds for Movember and helping change the face of men's health.No sponsors. No shortcuts. Just honest conversations and a community coming together for something bigger than a podcast.If you believe in better conversations, better workplaces and better outcomes for men's health, I'd love your support.🎧 Follow the podcast. Share the campaign. Donate if you can. Every action helps.👉 Donate now: https://au.movember.com/mospace/15366090Let's make this the biggest month in the history of Edan Haddock - Total Talent. Together, we can help change the face of men's health. 💛

We spend enormous amounts of time verifying people before they join an organisation. But what happens after they start?In Episode 10 of 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission., Edan challenges the way organisations think about background screening and asks whether compliance has become too focused on a single moment in time.As part of his Movember series, Edan spent time with Nick Cheetham from Checkmate, exploring how the risk landscape is changing and why background screening may need to evolve into something much broader: ongoing workforce assurance.The episode explores candidate fraud, identity verification and the increasing sophistication of fabricated credentials, but the bigger question comes after someone is hired.A police check tells you what was true when it was conducted. A licence can expire. Working rights can change. Someone can move into a role with a completely different risk profile.So why do we put so much effort into verification before Day One, then potentially never look again?Edan explores the balance between verification and suspicion, why ongoing compliance should be proportionate to genuine risk, whether some identity checks may eventually move earlier in recruitment, and how organisations can protect themselves without creating a culture where candidates and employees feel fundamentally distrusted.Because compliance shouldn't be about collecting ticks.It should be about understanding where the real risk sits and verifying the things that genuinely matter, at the point they genuinely matter.And sometimes...your biggest hiring risk might already work for you.Explore Checkmate: https://www.checkmate.tech/au Connect with Nick Cheetham: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickcheetham/ 🎙️ 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission.This November, Edan Haddock - Total Talent is taking on its biggest challenge yet.30 consecutive days. 30 brand-new podcast episodes. 1 goal: raising funds for Movember and helping change the face of men's health.No sponsors. No shortcuts. Just honest conversations and a community coming together for something bigger than a podcast.If you believe in better conversations, better workplaces and better outcomes for men's health, I'd love your support.🎧 Follow the podcast. Share the campaign. Donate if you can. Every action helps.👉 Donate now: https://au.movember.com/mospace/15366090Let's make this the biggest month in the history of Edan Haddock - Total Talent. Together, we can help change the face of men's health. 💛

What if your workforce planning isn't really workforce planning at all, but a collection of systems, spreadsheets and dashboards being held together behind the scenes?In Episode 9 of 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission., Edan explores why workforce planning remains so fragmented and why Talent, HR and Finance need to start working from the same picture of the workforce.As part of his Movember series, Edan spent time with Sam Wilkan and Maaike van Dijk from Rippling, exploring what happens when headcount planning, remuneration, performance, payroll, Talent and workforce data start connecting rather than operating as separate processes.The episode looks at the important distinction between people and positions, why Talent needs visibility of workforce demand before a requisition lands, and how connected data could move Talent Acquisition from reacting to vacancies to genuinely planning for future capability.Edan also reflects on his own experience bringing HR, Talent and Finance data together through Power BI, the risks of workforce intelligence relying on manually connected systems, and why AI is only as useful as the workforce data sitting underneath it.Because workforce planning shouldn't simply answer:How many people do we need?It should help answer:What workforce do we need?And if the answer still requires someone to export six spreadsheets and make them agree, there might be a bigger problem to solve.Explore Rippling: https://www.rippling.com/ Connect with Sam Wilkan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-wilkan/ Connect with Maaike van Dijk: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maaikevdijk/ 🎙️ 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission.This November, Edan Haddock - Total Talent is taking on its biggest challenge yet.30 consecutive days. 30 brand-new podcast episodes. 1 goal: raising funds for Movember and helping change the face of men's health.No sponsors. No shortcuts. Just honest conversations and a community coming together for something bigger than a podcast.If you believe in better conversations, better workplaces and better outcomes for men's health, I'd love your support.🎧 Follow the podcast. Share the campaign. Donate if you can. Every action helps.👉 Donate now: https://au.movember.com/mospace/15366090Let's make this the biggest month in the history of Edan Haddock - Total Talent. Together, we can help change the face of men's health. 💛

What do we really mean when we say someone is a great “culture fit”?In Episode 8 of 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission., Edan challenges one of the most common phrases in recruitment and asks whether hiring for culture fit can sometimes become a more professional-sounding version of hiring people who simply feel familiar.As part of his Movember series, Edan spent time with Justin Coutts and Mathan Allington from Compono, exploring how people intelligence can help organisations understand not just the culture they have today, but the culture they're trying to build.The episode explores the difference between current and desired culture, why culture add doesn't simply mean hiring someone completely different, and how understanding working styles before somebody joins can help organisations better onboard, manage and support that difference.Edan also looks at the enormous amount of people data organisations already collect, why so much of it remains disconnected, and whether psychometric and people insights could be more valuable when they're used to start better conversations rather than simply producing another score or report.Because the goal shouldn't be to find people who look, think and work exactly like everyone already in the room.Maybe the better question is:What does this team need that it doesn't already have?Explore Compono: https://www.compono.com/go Connect with Justin Coutts: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justincoutts-sales/ Connect with Mathan Allington: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathanallington/  🎙️ 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission.This November, Edan Haddock - Total Talent is taking on its biggest challenge yet.30 consecutive days. 30 brand-new podcast episodes. 1 goal: raising funds for Movember and helping change the face of men's health.No sponsors. No shortcuts. Just honest conversations and a community coming together for something bigger than a podcast.If you believe in better conversations, better workplaces and better outcomes for men's health, I'd love your support.🎧 Follow the podcast. Share the campaign. Donate if you can. Every action helps.👉 Donate now: https://au.movember.com/mospace/15366090Let's make this the biggest month in the history of Edan Haddock - Total Talent. Together, we can help change the face of men's health. 💛

What happened to the simple act of putting yourself out there and asking for a job?In Episode 7 of 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission., Edan looks back at the way many of us found our first jobs: a pile of photocopied CVs, walking from business to business, asking for the manager and hoping someone would give us a chance.As part of his Movember series, Edan spent time with Nick Markessinis from ReelWork, exploring a very modern solution to a surprisingly old-school idea: helping employers see the person behind the paperwork.ReelWork is a video-first hiring platform initially focused on industries like hospitality and retail, where personality, availability, intent and human connection can matter just as much as what's written on a CV.The episode explores the challenge facing young people trying to land their first job, why generating hundreds of applications isn't necessarily a win for a small business, and whether recruitment has become so focused on making it easier to apply that we've made it harder for people to actually get seen.Edan also explores the potential of video profiles, the importance of candidate intent, the risks around bias and accessibility, and the brilliant story of Nick secretly applying for a hospitality job using ReelWork to find out whether his own product could actually make him stand out.Because maybe the future of entry-level hiring isn't about generating more applications.Maybe it's about making it easier for the right person and the right employer to find each other.Explore ReelWork: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reelwork-au/ Connect with Nick Markessinis: 🎙️ 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission.This November, Edan Haddock - Total Talent is taking on its biggest challenge yet.30 consecutive days. 30 brand-new podcast episodes. 1 goal: raising funds for Movember and helping change the face of men's health.No sponsors. No shortcuts. Just honest conversations and a community coming together for something bigger than a podcast.If you believe in better conversations, better workplaces and better outcomes for men's health, I'd love your support.🎧 Follow the podcast. Share the campaign. Donate if you can. Every action helps.👉 Donate now: https://au.movember.com/mospace/15366090Let's make this the biggest month in the history of Edan Haddock - Total Talent. Together, we can help change the face of men's health. 💛

What if your employer brand isn't what you say on your careers page, but what candidates actually experience after they click Apply?In Episode 6 of 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission., Edan challenges the idea that employer brand is primarily about EVP statements, careers sites, videos and clever marketing.As part of his Movember series, Edan spent time with Conor Ryan from TeamTailor, exploring how recruitment technology can help organisations turn the employer-brand promise into an actual candidate experience.This episode is a little different because Edan isn't just looking at TeamTailor from the outside. He uses the platform at Movember, giving him a practitioner perspective on how technology can help Talent teams create recruitment experiences that actually feel like the organisations behind them.From DO GOOD – Work for Movember, to talent communities, silver medallists, anonymous hiring and AI as a co-pilot rather than the decision-maker, Edan explores where technology can remove friction without removing the humanity.Because candidates probably won't remember every word on your careers page.They'll remember whether you respected their time.Whether you communicated.Whether you listened.And how you made them feel.Your careers page isn't your employer brand. The experience is.Explore TeamTailor: https://www.teamtailor.comConnect with Conor Ryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conor-ryan-major-players/ 🎙️ 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission.This November, Edan Haddock - Total Talent is taking on its biggest challenge yet.30 consecutive days. 30 brand-new podcast episodes. 1 goal: raising funds for Movember and helping change the face of men's health.No sponsors. No shortcuts. Just honest conversations and a community coming together for something bigger than a podcast.If you believe in better conversations, better workplaces and better outcomes for men's health, I'd love your support.🎧 Follow the podcast. Share the campaign. Donate if you can. Every action helps.👉 Donate now: https://au.movember.com/mospace/15366090Let's make this the biggest month in the history of Edan Haddock - Total Talent. Together, we can help change the face of men's health. 💛

What does trust mean in recruitment when information is increasingly easy to manufacture?In Episode 5 of 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission., Edan explores how AI, candidate fraud and increasingly sophisticated digital tools are changing one of the fundamental assumptions behind recruitment: that the information a candidate gives us is true.As part of his Movember series, Edan spent time with Siobhan Sexton and Jack Gillon from Zinc, exploring how background checking and candidate verification are evolving in response to a very different hiring environment.The episode asks whether traditional end-of-process background checking is still enough, or whether some forms of verification may need to move earlier in the recruitment journey. From identity and employment history to qualifications, references and digital footprints, could the future be less about a single background check and more about progressive verification?Edan also tackles the more uncomfortable territory of social-media screening, the difference between identifying a potential risk and making a hiring decision, and why human judgement and context become even more important as technology gets better at finding information.Because the answer isn't to treat every candidate with suspicion.But in an age where AI can help create increasingly convincing applications, perhaps trust alone is no longer enough.Maybe the future is simple:Trust and verify.Explore Zinc: https://zincwork.com/Connect with Siobhan Sexton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siobhan-sexton/Connect with Jack Gillon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-gillon-b33734223/ 🎙️ 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission.This November, Edan Haddock - Total Talent is taking on its biggest challenge yet.30 consecutive days. 30 brand-new podcast episodes. 1 goal: raising funds for Movember and helping change the face of men's health.No sponsors. No shortcuts. Just honest conversations and a community coming together for something bigger than a podcast.If you believe in better conversations, better workplaces and better outcomes for men's health, I'd love your support.🎧 Follow the podcast. Share the campaign. Donate if you can. Every action helps.👉 Donate now: https://au.movember.com/mospace/15366090Let's make this the biggest month in the history of Edan Haddock - Total Talent. Together, we can help change the face of men's health. 💛

What happens when AI makes every candidate look like the perfect candidate?In Episode 4 of 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission., Edan explores an uncomfortable possibility: AI was supposed to make recruitment more productive, but in some parts of the hiring process, it may actually be creating more work.As part of his Movember series, Edan spent time with Glen Perry from Recruit Wizard, exploring how AI is changing candidate sourcing, application volumes and the way recruiters establish what's actually real.Candidates now have access to the same powerful AI tools as recruiters. They can tailor resumes in seconds, optimise applications against job descriptions and apply at greater scale. The result? More applications, more candidates who look great on paper, and potentially more recruiter time spent working out who genuinely has the experience behind the application.The episode also gets under the bonnet of Recruit Wizard, including its Talent Index, Candidate Exchange and the idea of using organisational intelligence alongside candidate-provided information.Because maybe the next recruitment advantage isn't generating more data.Maybe it's getting smarter about the data, history and human intelligence we already have.Explore Recruit Wizard: https://recruitwizard.com/Connect with Glen Perry: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glen-perry-7b69022/ 🎙️ 30 Days. 30 Episodes. One Mission.This November, Edan Haddock - Total Talent is taking on its biggest challenge yet.30 consecutive days. 30 brand-new podcast episodes. 1 goal: raising funds for Movember and helping change the face of men's health.No sponsors. No shortcuts. Just honest conversations and a community coming together for something bigger than a podcast.If you believe in better conversations, better workplaces and better outcomes for men's health, I'd love your support.🎧 Follow the podcast. Share the campaign. Donate if you can. Every action helps.👉 Donate now: https://au.movember.com/mospace/15366090Let's make this the biggest month in the history of Edan Haddock - Total Talent. Together, we can help change the face of men's health. 💛