As AI reshapes the workplace and TA functions face mounting pressure to prove their worth, recruiters must master a long-overlooked skill: storytelling. In this episode of The View, Matt Burney – Senior Strategic Advisor at Indeed – shares why articulating your value is the most critical skill in recruitment today.
There’s no point in recruiters saying we’re the forgotten child of the business. You’re probably the forgotten child because you haven’t talked about the value you add in the right way.
As AI steamrolls through everything we thought we knew, the talent acquisition industry is at a crossroads.
- One path leads to greater influence, bigger budgets, and a stronger seat at the strategic table.
- The other leads to cuts, consolidation, and the continued perception as a cost centre rather than a competitive advantage.
What decides which path your team walks? We spoke to Matt Burney – Senior Strategic Advisor at Indeed and established thought-leader on AI, recruitment, and the future of work – to get his take.
The heartening truth? AI is changing everything dramatically, for sure. But recruitment’s future isn’t in AI’s hands. Or the economy’s (and the less said about that right now the better). It’s in yours.
What makes the difference is your ability to communicate value – clearly, confidently, and in a language that lands with your leadership team.
Articulating value with compelling storytelling is somewhat a lost art among recruiters – but it’s an urgent skill to build, to protect your role, your team, and the organisation from itself.
The 35% problem: What leadership hears when you say “AI”
Studies from leading recruitment, HR, and business analysts concur: TA teams lose 14 to 14.5 hours per person per week to manual work. That, as Matt points out, is 35% of your working week.
To a CFO or Financial Director, that’s a ripe opportunity to cut costs. Especially in industries like the public sector or healthcare that face an eternal cost-cutting mandate. If 35% of your work can be automated away, you need 35% fewer people, right? Done and done.
Now, we know that’s not the full story. In actual fact, if your team had 35% less admin, you could do 35% more value-add, bottom-line-growing stuff.
But unless you can clearly tell that story upwards, you’re not making a compelling case for your own existence. Unless you can clearly articulate the human value of your work – beyond admin; beyond process – you’re leaving your function wide open to automation-driven headcount reduction.
As a globally renowned speaker, Matt knows the power of narrative. But the lesson applies well beyond the stage:
The stories you tell on stage are the stories you should’ve told your leadership team. That’s how you articulate value. Think about it. If you go to the board and ask for money, you need a good story. If you don’t have one, it’s not going to happen.
Whether you’re presenting a new hiring strategy, requesting budget, or defending headcount, your story matters. Not just the data but the why behind the work. Storytelling isn’t fluff. It’s survival.
From admin to advantage: recruiters must move the dial
AI adoption will continue to accelerate. 8 million UK jobs are directly affected by AI, with around 55% needing reskilling this year.
Of the jobs affected, roles falling into the admin category are absolutely on the frontline. And the blunt truth is, that includes the often-admin-heavy TA function.
Recruiters might not want to believe that. But if we don’t make changes – both to the realities of how we work and the perception of our value – we’ll learn to believe, as we watch the TA function shrink and shrink.
AI is coming. And we need to embrace it proactively, not ruminate about its impact reactively as we’re scouring job boards for other opportunities. As Matt says:
There’ll always been some people who are quite happy just doing the admin stuff that can be automated away. Frankly, if they can’t articulate their value and move within the business, there probably is going to be some loss of jobs: that’s inevitable.
But those people who embrace technology and are looking at it in the right way – as a tool to augment their abilities – should broadly be fine.
The mandate, then, is clear: recruiters must shift from execution to impact. From doing the work to proving the work’s value. That starts with developing the skills to:
- Quantify recruitment’s impact on business outcomes
- Frame hiring in terms of ROI, not requisitions
- Speak in the language of finance, operations, and strategy
- Tell compelling stories of success – and back them with data
Getting future-ready: from fear to experimentation
Yes, the pace of change is intense. And yes, not every TA team has direct access to the C-suite. But that doesn’t mean you’re powerless.
Even if you’re a mid-tier or junior recruiter, there’s never been a better time to be creative, experiment, and come with solutions. Recruiters need to think more laterally: how do I do this better?
Matt’s major point is about being proactive. Whether it’s building a hiring dashboard, using AI to speed up screening, redesigning your teams to maximise everyone’s (and AI’s!) strengths, or proactively reworking your workflows, the imperative is clear:
- Don’t wait to be told what to do
- Use the new tools available (many of them free)
- Redesign your function from the inside out
- Present solutions, not problems
Don’t wait for the FD to come and tell you there’s a 35% cut and how you’re dealing with it. Get ahead of the curve, experiment, and go to them with a plan about how you’re going to be more efficient, reduce costs, and drive more revenue.
The recruiter’s new edge isn’t technology. It’s translation.
The AI conversation is happening in every organisation. But whether that leads to transformation or redundancy depends on how well recruiters can translate their work into business impact.
Recruitment teams who’re still buried under admin, delivering underwhelming candidate experiences, stuck firefighting, chasing managers, and snow-blind to data will struggle to create and articulate value.
Matt puts it best:
Be a compelling communicator. Understand the economics of what you’re asking for and what you deliver. Because if you don’t? That decision will be made for you.
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