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But First, Coffee

But First, Coffee

By: WRKdefined Podcast Network
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Summary
 But First, Coffee is a live weekly talk show where Jackye Clayton and John Baldino bring candid, insightful conversations about the world of work, leadership, and all things people. Each episode blends expert insight with real-world experience—covering employee engagement, leadership, inclusion, technology, and culture. It's not just HR theory; it's HR reality, poured fresh each week.All rights reserved by WRKdefined Career Success Economics Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Is Your Career Exploding or Imploding?

    Is Your Career Exploding or Imploding?
    Nov 6 2026
    The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects nurse practitioner, solar installer, and data scientist roles growing fastest through 2035, while word processors, telephone operators, and switchboard operators shrink the most. Live from TalentNet Live in Dallas, this episode digs into the real bottleneck behind those numbers: hiring managers who reject strong candidates because a resume doesn't use the exact skill language they expect, and the recruiter tactics that get those managers to see transferable experience they would otherwise miss. Key Takeaways: BLS data puts nurse practitioner, solar photovoltaic installer, data scientist, and wind turbine technician at the top of the growth list for 2025 to 2035, while word processors, telephone operators, and switchboard operators top the decline list. Growth stats are measured by percentage increase, not volume, so a fast growing field like solar installation can still only absorb a small number of actual hires. Hiring managers routinely pass on strong candidates because a resume doesn't use the exact skill language they expect, even when the candidate's experience clearly transfers. Asking a hiring manager about their own first job, like working the fryer or answering phones, is one of the fastest ways to get them to recognize transferable skills in a candidate they'd otherwise pass over. Recruiters get further coaching hiring managers during the intake conversation, before a candidate is ever presented, instead of defending a resume after the fact. One recruiter described deliberately listing a different name and number on a promising candidate's resume to get a reluctant hiring manager to actually take the call, a trick that worked but isn't something to do regularly. Veterans and people transitioning out of incarceration or addiction recovery programs often have the determination and transferable skills a role needs, but still get hired at a fraction of the rate their stated openness to those backgrounds would suggest. Recording and reviewing candidate phone screens gives recruiters concrete evidence to push back when a hiring manager says a candidate lacks a skill the call actually demonstrated. A few departments ran a recurring Friday session where employees shared their first job stories, an easy way to surface transferable skills thinking across a whole team. The real gap isn't a lack of qualified people, it's hiring managers and recruiters never building a shared, specific language for what a transferable skill actually looks like on paper. Keywords: transferable skills, hiring managers, career transitions, BLS occupational data, military hiring, recruiter coaching, candidate experience, job market trends, skills based hiring, talent acquisition
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    23 mins
  • Screened Out: The Trust Gap Nobody's Closing

    Screened Out: The Trust Gap Nobody's Closing
    Oct 29 2026
    A third of recruiters now say they reject candidates based on AI recommendations, while a quarter of job seekers say they trust an employer less for using AI to screen them in the first place. John and Jackye dig into what happens when both sides of the hiring process are leaning on systems neither one fully understands, and why the real fix is less new technology and more honesty about the technology already in use. Key Takeaways: About a third of recruiters admit they are rejecting candidates based on AI recommendations rather than their own judgment. Roughly a quarter of job seekers say they would trust an employer less for using AI to evaluate their application. Applicant tracking systems now stack multiple layers of automated knockout questions, and a candidate can be screened out before a recruiter ever sees the resume. One open payroll role drew duplicate, AI generated resumes under different names, forcing the team to add an extra verification step before reviewing applicants. New AI interview tools can run candidates through realistic scenario based questions in seconds, and some recruiters already trust that output more than a live phone screen. Phone screening is described as a dying art, even though it is often cheaper and faster than flying a candidate in only to catch a fake application later. Candidates increasingly expect salary transparency and a clear reason when they are rejected, the same transparency employers expect from the AI tools making the recommendation. Scheduling friction, like an unopened calendar invite, still gets blamed on the candidate instead of the broken process that produced it. Referral hiring for specialized or technical roles stays common even when the role requires real expertise a referral cannot vouch for. Employers who disclose when and how AI is used in hiring, even just for fraud detection, build more trust than ones who stay silent about it. Keywords: AI hiring, candidate trust, applicant tracking system, AI screening, recruiter trust, hiring transparency, fake resumes, phone screening, hiring bias, recruiting technology
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • LIVE from HR Tech in Las Vegas

    LIVE from HR Tech in Las Vegas
    Oct 22 2026
    Jackye Clayton and John broadcast live from the HR Tech 2026 show floor at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, capturing the final day of the conference in real time, from PitchFest judging to hallway conversations about AI in HR. Key Takeaways: Agentic AI vendors are facing harder questions this year. Buyers want to know what problem the agent actually solves, not just that it exists. Several products demoed at PitchFest raised real compliance concerns, including tools proposing hiring practices or pay definitions that are not legally accurate. Organizations are uploading sensitive employee data, including medical records and compensation details, into AI agents without clear answers on where that data lives or who can access it. Employer of Record platforms paired with AI are lowering the barrier to hiring internationally, letting smaller companies expand into new countries without standing up their own legal entity. The narrative has shifted from predictions that AI will take everyone's job last year to AI supported teams this year, with some employers reintroducing human roles they had automated away. Embedded AI agents are starting to replace standalone workforce analytics tools, since an agent with full organizational access can already surface the same insights. Fifteen of the 33 PitchFest companies were pre revenue, and judges pressed founders on who their actual customer is and whether they have a paying pilot. Panelists cautioned against what they called AI psychosis, the pattern of inventing a problem just to justify an AI solution that was not actually needed. A growing number of international HR tech vendors are entering the US market, a sign of confidence in the space despite a shrinking overall workforce. The hosts raised a recurring question for HR leaders: does AI actually save time, or does it just create new work that nobody asked for. Keywords: HR Tech 2026, agentic AI, AI compliance, data privacy, pay equity, Employer of Record, global hiring, workforce analytics, PitchFest, AI in HR
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    50 mins
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