HR Brew // Morning Brew // Update

March 28, 2026

Fancy meeting you here! We know we don’t usually pop into your inboxes on a Saturday, but humor us, won’t you? As we (somehow) near the end of Q1, we’ve been reflecting on all that we’ve covered over the course of the past three months, and wanted to share some of our faves. As it turns out, they were among your most-read stories too! But don’t take our word for it—give ‘em another read, you know, just to make sure…

In today’s edition:

Let’s start over

🦾 That was easy!

My bad…

—Adam DeRose, Paige McGlauflin

TECH

A new monster

Morning Brew Design, Photos: Adobe Stock

Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor is returning to the world of work, announcing the launch of a new AI-native talent marketplace that leverages AI technology to help connect the right applicants to open roles using vibrant “dossiers,” rather than outdated résumés and job descriptions.

Taylor’s new entry into the hiring tech landscape, Boomband, is set to launch in March and this month closed a $4 million seed financing round led by Boston Seed, with participation from Slater Technology Fund, Rogue Venture Partners, and Service Provider Capital.

Taylor said Boomband will look to address current headaches on both sides of the hiring process by using AI to rethink the way applicants and employers connect and talk about roles.

“The early AI examples [in TA] aren’t very good. They’re not helping. I think they’re actually hurting the problem,” he told HR Brew. “The reality still is that AI is not deployed in a way that’s deeply impactful, but I’m of the school that that’s coming.”

For more on how Taylor hopes to (again) address pain points in the hiring tech space, keep reading here.—AD

Loose lips sink ships

Okay, so your organization isn’t worried about a literal sinking ship. But you’ve probably still got the same concerns about loose lips—or should we say, loose fingertips.

That’s because your employees share information with AI every single day. And every time they share information, there’s a chance they’re putting your entire company at risk. Scary, right?

EasyLlama can help ease your fears with their AI & Data Privacy course. Get a free preview of their course to see how they can help your people learn:

how to use AI responsibly at work
what data can and cannot be shared with AI
how to keep sensitive information protected

40% of all phishing emails targeting businesses are generated by AI. It just takes a little bit of education to protect your organization.

Keep your lips sealed.

RECRUITMENT & RETENTION

Zillow’s AI for TA push

Roz Harris

Recruiting teams are, in many ways, ground zero for AI disruption. A plethora of tasks historically performed by recruiters can now be performed by AI technology. But…with a world of possibilities at one’s fingertips, it can be difficult to know where to begin.

Real estate tech giant Zillow has launched several AI tools for recruitment since it began experimenting in late 2023. HR Brew recently sat down with Roz Harris, Zillow’s VP of talent acquisition, engagement, and belonging, to discuss how her recruitment team has identified and adopted AI solutions.

In November 2023, Harris’s team started looking into how AI could be used by recruiters. “We started looking at the possibility of AI. And what we found was, when you look at the role of a recruiter and what they do, about 80% of our jobs were what you would hear in the conferences about the mundane tasks” that AI could replace, she told HR Brew.

To help ease recruiters’ fear of being replaced by AI, Harris and her team experimented with AI with prompt-a-thons.

For more on how Zillow uses AI to make candidates’ and recruiters’ lives easier, keep reading here.—PM

HR STRATEGY

Bad news

Photo collage of one business man comforting another, with a box of an employee's desk supplies implying they'd been fired.

Shannon May | Image Source: Adobe Stock

Nobody’s perfect. It’s a good mantra, except when delivering bad news to employees. Then you want to be as perfect as possible.

HR leaders and their teams are often tasked with delivering bad news—whether it be earth-shattering (layoffs, firings) or lower-stakes (smaller raises, the end of a beloved perk). Missteps along the way can create uncomfortable, yet critical, lessons.

HR Brew spoke with two HR leaders about instances in their careers when a sensitive conversation went haywire, the lessons they learned, and their advice for practitioners in similar situations.

For more on communications missteps, and what two HR leaders learned from them, keep reading here.—PM

WORK PERKS

A desktop computer plugged into a green couch.

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: The majority (84%) of HR leaders say AI-generated résumés have created more work for their recruiters. (Robert Half)

Quote: “One of the benefits of the last few years is that we now have data. We know this is not a charitable endeavor to create diversity.”—Lisa Wardell, board director at American Express, Covista, and Univar Solutions, on the impact of DEI in corporate America (Bloomberg)

Read: As companies increasingly adopt AI technologies capable of automating tasks once performed by humans, they may find themselves in the market for more part-time and contract workers. This could create employment opportunities for the many women who have left the workforce in recent years due to the dearth of flexible work arrangements. (Business Insider)

One wrong prompt: That’s all it takes to put your entire organization at risk. Show your people how to use AI responsibly with EasyLlama’s AI & Data Privacy course. Get a free preview here.*

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Written by Adam DeRose, Paige McGlauflin, and Vicky Valet

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☕ Monster.com founder launches new startup to address hiring tech pain points