Recruitment in the AI Era: how are we actually hiring now?

Recruitment in the AI Era: how are we actually hiring now?

Members online workshop

Applications are up. CVs are reading better than the people behind them. And now AI is on both sides of the table.

Every SaaS recruiter is working out their response one hire at a time: new screening rules, reworked take-home tasks and interview formats designed to test what a model cannot fake. But there are few chances to compare what is actually changing across comparable companies.

This is a share-and-compare session, not a presentation. Vanessa Radich (Head of People & Culture, Appetise) and Neha Bhardwaj (Chief of Staff, Drumbeat) will share the specific changes they’ve made to their hiring process: what they tried, what worked and what didn’t.

Then the focus shifts to the room. In small breakout groups, you’ll compare your own practice with peers facing similar hiring decisions, before coming back together to identify what is common, what is contested and what nobody has solved yet.

Facilitated by David Clearwater (Executive Director, KiwiSaaS), we’ll compare notes on:

• How candidate behaviour has changed, including AI-assisted applications, application volume and the implications for screening

• What companies are changing in their screening, assessments, take-home tasks and interview design, including how to test for capability that is genuinely the candidate’s

• Where AI has earned a useful place in the hiring workflow (from sourcing and screening to scheduling and note-taking) and where it simply adds noise

• Whether AI capability is now an explicit hiring criterion, and how companies are assessing it

• A direct read on how comparable New Zealand SaaS companies are approaching these questions

You’ll leave with:

• A clearer view of how other KiwiSaaS companies are adapting their hiring practice

• Practical ideas you can borrow, test or avoid

• Several specific changes to make to your own hiring process

Who is this for?

• Heads of People, talent leads, founders and hiring managers responsible for hiring at KiwiSaaS companies. Numbers are capped at 25 so everyone is able to contribute. The session will run under the Chatham House Rule.

• This is an exclusive event for large KiwiSaaS members only, open to companies with $5m+ ARR.

Event details

Date: Thursday 5 November 2026

Time: 10.00am-12.00pm

Location: Zoom

Event Type: Online workshop

Cost: Free for large members ($5m+ ARR)