I caught up with John Woody, Head of Recruiting Operations at Airbnb, at the Gem booth to talk about the future of recruiting operations, how systems thinking meets human storytelling, and why the next era of TA will be led by builders who can bridge both.
John runs one of the most innovative recruiting ops organizations in the world. At Airbnb, he’s reimagining what “recruiting operations” means — moving beyond compliance and dashboards toward enablement, analytics, and storytelling that influence how talent decisions actually get made.
In this conversation, John shares:
Why recruiting ops should function like product management for recruiters
How Airbnb uses data to design experiences, not just track them
Why enablement beats control when scaling hiring globally
How AI can help recruiters move from reactive to predictive
And why your “system of record” is only as powerful as the relationships behind it
We also talk about how the best talent teams today are borrowing from go-to-market playbooks — thinking like marketers, operating like revenue teams, and using design thinking to create better recruiter + candidate experiences.
Your Hype Man,
Brando ✌️
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