HR Career Advice in the AI Era with Robin Schooling

HR career path in the age of AI is shifting fast — and most HR and TA professionals are making the wrong move. In this episode of GoHire Talks, 35-year HR veteran Robin Schooling joins GoHire CEO Jonathan Duarte for a conversation that cuts through the noise on where the real opportunity lies for HR practitioners right now. Robin's prediction is bold: stop chasing the enterprise logo. Those big organizations are exactly where AI automation hits first — and hardest. When hundreds of HR business partners are spending 10 to 15 hours a week on tasks that AI can now handle, the math gets ugly fast. The jobs don't disappear overnight, but the headcount does. Meanwhile, SMBs are a completely different story. HR career path in the age of AI looks very different at a 200-person company — where AI finally frees up a lean team to do the strategic, human-centered work they never had time for before. That's where the impact is. That's where the future is. Robin and Jonathan also go deep on: • How they built one of the first SMS-based recruiting chatbots — before the VC world caught on — using mobile recruiting for hourly workers at a casino • Why resume volume is up but actual qualified candidates aren't (and what candidate screening automation has to do with it) • Grassroots SMB recruiting strategy: business cards in dive bars, coffee shop flyers, and why it still outperforms Indeed • The referral hiring advantage — why candidates are 9.7x more likely to get hired through a connection than a job board • Why mission-driven organizations beat brand-name logos every time This is the conversation most HR conferences won't have — and Robin Schooling is exactly the person to have it. 📖 Read the full blog post: https://gohire.com/hr-career-advice-i... 🔗 Connect with Robin Schooling:   / robinschooling   CHAPTERS: 00:00 Intro — Meet Robin Schooling, 35 years in HR 01:50 Robin's background: banking, casinos, nonprofits, consulting 02:34 How Robin and Jonathan built one of the first recruiting chatbots 05:02 The Hollywood Casino SMS experiment: high volume hiring with mobile recruiting 08:18 The lesson: don't wait for a vendor — build it yourself 10:44 What's really happening with AI in recruiting and resume inflation 11:40 Robin's bold prediction: stop chasing the enterprise logo 13:50 Why enterprise HR layoffs are coming — and where AI hits hardest 14:28 Why SMBs are the future for HR and TA practitioners 15:27 Candidate screening automation and the fake candidate problem 16:33 The mailed resume story: everything old is new again 17:33 Referrals and the 9.7x hiring advantage 20:35 Grassroots SMB recruiting strategy: business cards and dive bar flyers 24:03 What Robin looks for in her next chapter: mission over logo 26:23 Wrapping up — how to find Robin online GoHire Talks is the podcast for HR Leaders, Talent Acquisition Leaders, and People Ops professionals who want real conversations — not recycled advice. Other recent HR leaders interviews and transcripts; Recruiting AI Implementation Requires Change Management with Kristina Tsys https://gohire.com/recruiting-ai-impl... Hospitality Recruiting Strategy: How Mina Group Retains Top Talent with Michael Bates https://gohire.com/hospitality-recrui... AI Recruiting Tools and the Death of the HR Stack with Brian Fink https://gohire.com/ai-recruiting-tool... Public Sector HR Leadership and a 4-Day Work Week with Jennifer Fairweather https://gohire.com/public-sector-hr-l... Talent Acquisition Career Paths, AI Bias, & Recruiter Roles with Keirsten Greggs https://gohire.com/talent-acquisition...