AUTHENTICITY
Recruitment has changed. You haven’t.
AI changes the tools. Authenticity changes the outcomes.
AGENDA & FOCUS FOR SOSU 2026
Sourcing has changed. Recruiting has changed. Technology has changed.
But you haven’t.
At your best, you’ve never been defined by your Boolean strings, your sourcing hacks, or the tools in your tech stack. You’ve been defined by your ability to understand people, build relationships, uncover potential, influence decisions, and create opportunities.
As AI transforms talent acquisition, the mechanics of recruiting will continue to evolve. Yet the qualities that make exceptional talent professionals successful remain remarkably constant.
Authenticity. Curiosity. Trust. Creativity. Human connection.
This year’s SOSU is dedicated to exploring both sides of that equation: the technologies reshaping our profession and the human strengths that make those technologies valuable.
The future of talent acquisition isn’t human versus AI. It’s authentic people using intelligent systems to achieve extraordinary outcomes.
Three Core Themes at SOSU 2026
AI is transforming Talent Acquisition at an unprecedented pace. Tools will change. Workflows will change. The way we source, recruit and hire will continue to evolve.
But the qualities that define exceptional talent professionals remain remarkably constant.
AUTHENTIC explores what it takes to thrive in this new era—not by competing with AI, but by strengthening the capabilities that technology can’t replace. Throughout the conference, every session connects to one of three core themes that will define the future of our profession.
……………………..
Together, these three themes answer one question that sits at the heart of SOSU 2026:
How do we embrace extraordinary technological change while remaining authentically human?
Sharon Lubbers
Recruitment Business Partner
De Zorggroep
NETHERLANDS
Authenticity at Scale: Measuring the Human Side of Recruitment
Creating a great recruitment experience is easy to talk about. Delivering it consistently—and proving it—is much harder.
In this session, Sharon Lubbers shares how her team at De Zorggroep built a recruitment model around the experience of candidates, hiring managers, and recruiters alike. Guided by their 3 × 8 = 10 philosophy, they measure every stage of the recruitment journey, use feedback to drive continuous improvement, and have built a high-performing team that delivers more than 1,000 hires each year while maintaining consistently high experience scores.
Drawing on seven years of lessons, successes, and mistakes, Sharon will demonstrate how a nonprofit organisation with a commercial mindset uses data to strengthen—not replace—the human side of recruitment.
Three takeaways
- Design a recruitment experience that works for candidates, hiring managers, and recruiters alike
- Measure what matters by turning feedback into meaningful improvements, not just dashboards
- Create a recruitment function that balances authenticity, performance, and continuous improvement—even in the toughest hiring markets
Yves Greijn
Founder
Dynosaur Labs
SPAIN
Why Pattern Recognition Is Becoming Recruitment’s Greatest Competitive Advantage
As AI makes sourcing, research, and execution more accessible, the competitive advantage is no longer speed—it’s insight. The next generation of talent professionals won’t stand out by searching faster or writing better prompts. They’ll stand out because they recognise patterns others miss.
In this thought-provoking session, Yves explores why Talent Acquisition is evolving from an execution-based profession into one built on judgement, market understanding, and strategic thinking. Drawing on his experience building companies and advising global organisations, Yves will challenge conventional assumptions about where recruiting is heading and explain why pattern recognition is becoming one of the most valuable capabilities in our profession.
This isn’t a session about prompts or automation. It’s about developing the mindset that helps you make better decisions, uncover hidden opportunities, and create lasting value in an AI-enabled world.
Three takeaways
- Understand why pattern recognition is becoming a defining capability in Talent Acquisition
- Learn how to connect market insights, business context, and talent data to uncover opportunities others miss
- Develop the judgement and strategic mindset needed to create value beyond execution
Steve Levy
Sourcing Expert
R1 RCM
UNITED STATES
Evidence Beats Algorithms: A Practical Framework for Evidence-Based Sourcing
As AI makes candidate discovery increasingly similar, competitive advantage no longer comes from finding more profiles—it comes from finding better evidence.
In this practical session, Steve Levy introduces the Talent Signal Stack—a repeatable framework for moving beyond profile matching and AI rankings to evidence-based sourcing. Rather than asking, “Who matches this role?”, Steve demonstrates how to ask, “What evidence proves someone can do this role—and where else does that evidence exist?”
Through role hypotheses, signal inventories, adjacency mapping, confidence scoring, and evidence-led outreach, attendees will learn how to build sourcing systems that improve with every search and every conversation. Instead of treating your CRM as a database of past candidates, you’ll discover how to turn it into a living intelligence system that compounds value over time.
Three takeaways
- Build sourcing strategies around evidence, not profile matching
- Apply the Talent Signal Stack to uncover talent AI rankings often overlook
- Turn every search, conversation, and CRM interaction into a stronger intelligence asset
Donatien Mahieu
Principal Recruiter
Quandela
FRANCE
Community Sourcing: Building Trust Before You Need Talent
What if the most valuable sourcing and recruitment conversations aren’t with candidates at all?
In this interactive workshop, Donatien Mahieu introduces Community Sourcing — a relationship-led approach to sourcing that starts with the people who shape a market: founders, researchers, professors, community builders and other trusted voices inside a niche ecosystem. Instead of jumping straight to outreach, Community Sourcing focuses on understanding the community first, building credibility within it, and creating authentic relationships that lead to deeper market insight, stronger networks, and better long-term hiring outcomes.
Using examples from deep-tech and scientific hiring, Donatien will explore how community-first sourcing helps talent professionals move beyond transactional outreach and engage specialist markets with more authenticity, curiosity and trust.
Attendees won’t just discuss the concept — they’ll put it into practice by identifying one person at SOSU they’ve never met, but should, and mapping out how to make that connection in a way that creates value for both sides.
Three takeaways:
- How to spot the key people who influence a talent ecosystem beyond the obvious candidate pool
- How to build authentic, non-transactional relationships that strengthen your sourcing credibility
- How to turn one meaningful conference connection into a longer-term sourcing opportunity
Chloe Morisson
Sr. RecOps Manager
Datadog
IRELAND
Experiment to Infrastructure: Designing AI Workflows That Scale in Recruiting
Recruiters and sourcers are no longer just using AI to draft outreach or summarise profiles. Many are building with it: tools, automations, agents, reports, reusable prompts, sourcing assistants, interview prep packs, hiring manager update generators, and MCP-connected workflows that pull from ATSs, CRMs, calendars, email, and reporting tools.
That is exciting, but it changes the job. The moment something you build with AI depends on a tag, a field, a report, a shared prompt, another recruiter’s behaviour, or data from the recruiting stack, it is no longer just your clever shortcut. It is becoming part of the recruiting system.
This is not about asking permission before experimenting. It is about knowing when your experiment has become infrastructure. The tools will keep changing. The design questions will not.
This session is about using AI authentically in recruiting: being honest about the humans, data, systems, and process behind the shiny tool. Attendees will leave with a checklist they can use before sharing or scaling anything they build with AI.
Takeaways:
- Pressure-test what you build before it becomes process
- Map the data, tools, people, and behaviours it depends on
- Check what could break, confuse, or affect other teams
- Plan ownership, enablement, maintenance, and scale
Panel Discussion
Director of Talent Strategy
Stream
NETHERLANDS
Global Talent Manager
Booking.com
NETHERLANDS
Senior Director
DeepL
NETHERLANDS
Authenticity Under Pressure: The Leadership Decisions Shaping Talent Acquisition
Behind every high-performing Talent Acquisition function are leaders making difficult decisions about people, priorities, investment, and innovation. This panel explores the choices shaping the profession today.
As AI reshapes recruiting, what capabilities are organisations hiring for now? Which recruiter skills have become table stakes, and which are becoming obsolete? What does a high-performing Talent Acquisition function actually look like in 2026? Where are leaders investing, what initiatives are losing budget, and what are CEOs and executive teams really expecting from Talent Acquisition?
This candid discussion moves beyond predictions to explore the practical decisions shaping the profession. Hear how leading organisations are redesigning roles, developing talent, introducing AI, and deciding where human expertise creates the greatest value. If you want to understand how Talent Acquisition leadership is evolving—and what that means for your own career—this is the conversation you can’t afford to miss.
Some topics to tackle
-
- What capabilities are you hiring for today that you weren’t hiring for three years ago?
- Which recruiter skills have become table stakes—and which are becoming less valuable?
- What does a world-class Talent Acquisition function look like in 2026?
- Where are you investing budget, and what are you no longer willing to invest in?
- What are your CEO and executive team asking from Talent Acquisition today that they weren’t asking before?
- If someone in the audience wanted to future-proof their career, what would you tell them to start doing tomorrow?
Roanne Yee
TA & Employer Brand Lead
LIEBSCHER & BRACHT
GERMANY
The Authenticity Paradox: Can AI Make Us More Human?
Recruiters are caught in a paradox. Candidates want authentic conversations, personalised experiences, and genuine relationships, while AI promises greater speed, efficiency, and scale. Can those two realities coexist?
In this thought-provoking session, Roanne Yee challenges the assumption that AI and authenticity are opposing forces. Instead, she’ll explore how using AI intentionally can free recruiters from repetitive work, create more space for meaningful conversations, and help us focus on the moments where empathy, judgement, and human connection matter most.
Blending practical examples with a fresh perspective, Roanne will explore where AI adds value, where it quietly erodes trust, and how recruiters can use technology without losing the qualities that make them worth talking to in the first place.
Three takeaways
- Use AI to create more time for genuine human connection—not less
- Recognise where AI strengthens authenticity and where it undermines it
- Build a practical framework for deciding what to automate—and what should always stay human
Kathy Baptista
Founder
TheBounty
FRANCE
Proof of Work: Charting a More Authentic Way to Source Talent
Profiles tell you what people say they do. Behavioural sourcing helps you understand what they actually do.
In this interactive workshop, Kathy Baptista explores how to source through proof of work—using the contributions, patterns, and behaviours people leave behind to uncover real capability beyond titles, keywords, and polished profiles. Using engineering talent as a practical lens, Kathy will show how platforms like GitHub can reveal far more than a résumé ever could: not just what someone says they know, but how they think, what they build, and where they’ve earned credibility.
Blending OSINT, AI-assisted exploration, and human judgement, this session offers a more authentic way to assess specialist talent and craft outreach grounded in evidence, not assumptions.
Three takeaways
- Source from proof of work, not just profiles by reading the behaviours and contributions behind someone’s expertise
- Assess talent more credibly through what people build, share, and contribute—not just how they describe themselves
- Craft stronger outreach by grounding your message in evidence of real work, not assumptions
Alexey Geht
AI Recruitment Engineer & Team Leader
AddedValue
HUNGARY
Human Ingenuity in the Age of AI: Building What You Actually Need
AI is making it easier than ever to automate parts of sourcing — but knowing what to build, when to trust it, and where human judgement still matters is a different skill altogether.
In this interactive workshop, Alexey Geht shares a grounded look at what it means for sourcers to build with AI without becoming engineers. Drawing on his own work creating sourcing agents, enrichment tools, and automation workflows, Alexey will show how AI can help recruiters design systems around real problems rather than wait for off-the-shelf solutions to catch up.
This is not a polished demo or a “look what AI can do” showcase. It’s a practical session about experimentation, iteration, and the messy reality of building sourcing workflows that actually work — including the parts that break. For sourcers trying to understand how to use AI more creatively and more authentically, this session is about expanding your capability without outsourcing your judgement.
Three takeaways
- Understand what sourcers can realistically build with AI without needing to become developers
- Learn how to turn sourcing pain points into simple workflows, automations, or agents that solve real problems
- Use AI with more intention and better judgement by understanding where automation helps — and where human thinking still matters most
Marc Hamel
Staff Talent Researcher
Waymo
USA
Beyond Search: Intelligence-Led Sourcing
The biggest advantage in sourcing no longer comes from finding more people. It comes from understanding the market better than everyone else.
In this session, Marc Hamel explores how Talent Intelligence is transforming sourcing from a search activity into a strategic capability. By combining market research, competitive intelligence, practical AI, and workflow innovation, Marc will demonstrate how intelligence-led sourcing helps teams prioritise better, uncover new opportunities, and make smarter decisions before outreach ever begins.
As a player-coach who continues to source and build solutions himself, Marc will share practical examples of how Talent Intelligence can move beyond reporting and become an integral part of everyday sourcing—turning market insight into hiring advantage.
Three takeaways
-
- Turn market intelligence into sourcing advantage
- Apply practical AI to strengthen intelligence-led workflows
- Influence hiring strategy with evidence, not instinct
Alexandru Badaluta
Senior Talent Search Expert
Siemens AG
Germany
Making AI Part of How Talent Acquisition Works
Experimenting with AI is easy. Creating lasting change within Enterprise TA is much harder.
In this practical session, Alexandru Bădăluță shares how AI has been successfully embedded into everyday Talent Acquisition at Siemens. Rather than building demonstrations for conferences, Alexandru builds AI tools for recruiters—solutions designed to solve real problems, simplify daily workflows, and create measurable value. Drawing on his experience designing and deploying internal AI tools, leading recruiter enablement, and supporting global sourcing teams, he’ll share what it really takes to move beyond isolated AI experiments and create lasting change.
This session isn’t about chasing the latest AI trends. It’s about designing practical solutions recruiters trust, adopt, and use every day. Attendees will leave with proven lessons on implementing AI that strengthens decision-making, supports authentic human work, and becomes part of everyday practice—not another forgotten pilot.
Three takeaways
-
- Learn how to move AI from isolated experiments into everyday recruiting workflows
- Design AI solutions recruiters trust, adopt, and use consistently
- Build practical implementation strategies that create lasting value—not just successful pilots
Hung Lee
Recruiting Brainfood
Curator
UK
Future of TA: What Changed. What matters. What will endure.
Over the past few years, Talent Acquisition has experienced more change than in the previous two decades combined. Some ideas have fundamentally reshaped the profession. Others have come and gone. As someone who spends every week analysing the industry’s most important conversations, innovations, and experiments, Hung Lee closes SOSU by helping us separate lasting change from temporary distraction—and by exploring the capabilities, mindsets, and human qualities that will continue to define great talent professionals.
This isn’t a session about predicting the future. It’s about making sense of the present. Expect honest observations about where sourcing, recruiting, and TA are heading—and what will continue to define great talent professionals long after today’s tools have evolved.
Three takeaways
- Separate enduring trends from passing hype to make better long-term decisions
- Recognise the capabilities that will remain valuable as technology continues to evolve
- Leave inspired, informed, and ready for what’s next with a clearer perspective on the future of Talent Acquisition
Guillaume Alexandre
Recruiting Sourcer
Gates Solutions
SWITZERLAND
The Great Pivot: Reinventing Yourself for the Next Era of Talent Acquisition
Talent Acquisition is changing faster than ever—but not in the ways most people expected.
In this keynote, Guillaume Alexandre shares a practical framework for navigating the biggest transformation our profession has experienced in decades. Guillaume explores which capabilities are becoming more valuable, which are rapidly losing relevance, and how recruiters can pivot their careers successfully.
More importantly, he’ll help attendees identify where to invest their time and energy next. Which skills should you develop? Which habits need to change? Where can you create the greatest value alongside AI? Rather than chasing every new tool, you’ll leave with a practical roadmap for evolving your role, strengthening your expertise, and building a career that remains relevant in the next generation of Talent Acquisition.
Three takeaways
- Identify the capabilities that will define the next generation of talent professionals—and assess where your own strengths need to evolve
- Recognise where AI creates opportunity, where traditional recruiting work is losing value, and where human expertise will become even more important
- Leave with a practical action plan to pivot your skills, invest in the right capabilities, and future-proof your career with confidence
Joey Nk Koksal
HR & TA Project Manager 
vanRaam
NETHERLANDS
From User to Builder: Creating Your Own Sourcing Agent
Don’t Wait for the Perfect Tool. Build It.
The best sourcing workflows aren’t always found in off-the-shelf tools—they’re built around the way you work. In this hands-on workshop, Joey NK Köksal will build a fully functioning AI sourcing agent live on stage, showing how to automate X-ray sourcing, generate outreach drafts, create market reports, and introduce approval steps that keep humans firmly in control. Rather than demonstrating another AI platform, Joey will show attendees how to build practical agents they can adapt to their own recruiting workflows.
You’ll leave with more than ideas. You’ll take away the blueprint, templates, and confidence to build AI agents that solve real sourcing problems while keeping human judgement at the centre of every decision.
Three takeaways
-
- Build a working AI sourcing agent from scratch using a repeatable framework
- Automate repetitive sourcing tasks while keeping humans in control
- Leave with the templates and blueprint to build and customise your own agents
Alla Pavlova
Tech & Creative Recruitment
Riot Games
NETHERLANDS
Teaching AI Your Expertise
Most people use AI like a search engine. Few treat it like a colleague they’re responsible for training.
In this practical session, Alla Pavlova explores how to transfer human expertise into AI in a way that creates consistent, repeatable outcomes. Rather than relying on one-off prompts, she’ll demonstrate how to teach AI a skill—using the same clarity, structure, and feedback you would give a new team member.
This session isn’t about writing better prompts. It’s about capturing your knowledge, testing whether AI truly understands it, and building capabilities that improve the quality and consistency of your work over time.
Three takeaways
- Learn how to transfer your expertise into AI using a repeatable framework
- Design AI instructions that produce consistent, reliable outcomes
- Create reusable AI capabilities instead of rewriting prompts for every task
Ondrej Prochazka
Talent Acquisition Executive
Dynosaur Labs
THAILAND
How Anyone Can Build a World-Class Sourcing Function
Great sourcing functions don’t happen by accident—they’re intentionally built.
Drawing on his experience establishing and scaling Talent Sourcing across Southeast Asia for a global organisation, Ondřej Procházka shares the realities of building a sourcing capability in markets where sourcing was largely unknown as a specialist discipline. From securing executive support and creating strategic roadmaps to adapting sourcing strategies across diverse markets including Thailand, Japan, South Korea, China, and Malaysia, this session explores what it takes to create a function that delivers lasting business value.
More than a regional case study, this is a practical playbook for anyone looking to elevate sourcing from an operational service to a strategic capability. Ondřej will share what worked, what didn’t, and the lessons he’d apply if starting again.
Three takeaways
- Learn how to establish sourcing as a strategic capability that earns executive support
- Adapt sourcing strategies to different markets, business priorities, and organisational needs
- Build a sourcing function that delivers measurable value and long-term impact
Mark Tortorici
Talent Acquisition
Databricks
USA
The New Rules of Search: Building a Modern Sourcing Toolkit for the AI Era
For years, great sourcing relied on mastering search engines, keywords and advanced search techniques. Today, AI-powered search is changing how information is discovered, indexed and surfaced, forcing talent professionals to rethink long-established sourcing practices.
In this practical workshop, Mark Tortorici will explore how sourcing is evolving beyond traditional search. You’ll learn how to build modern research workflows, combine emerging tools with proven techniques, and create a customised sourcing toolkit that keeps you effective regardless of how search technology continues to change. Drawing on decades of sourcing expertise and training experience, Mark focuses on principles that outlast individual platforms and tools.
Three takeaways
- Understand how AI-powered search is changing the way talent research works.
- Build a modern sourcing workflow using practical, low-cost and no-cost tools.
- Create a flexible sourcing toolkit that evolves as technology continues to change.
Ludmila Tomperi
Senior Talent Acquisition Partner
Wolt
FINLAND
Coaching Through Change
Helping Talent Teams Thrive in the Age of AI
AI is changing the way we work, but the biggest challenge isn’t learning new technology—it’s helping people adapt to it.
As Talent Acquisition evolves, leaders are expected to provide clarity, build confidence and guide their teams through uncertainty while continuing to deliver results. In this practical and interactive session, Ludmila Tomperi shares coaching techniques that help leaders ask better questions, develop emotional intelligence and create environments where people embrace change instead of fearing it.
Rather than focusing on technology, this session explores the leadership skills that become more valuable as technology advances. You’ll leave with practical coaching approaches that strengthen judgement, trust and resilience across your team.
Three takeaways
- Learn practical coaching techniques to lead teams through uncertainty and change.
- Build trust, confidence and psychological safety in an AI-powered workplace.
- Develop the leadership behaviours that technology will never replace.
Diane Rocher
Talent Acquisition Partner
PhantomBuster
FRANCE
The AI-Powered Intake: What Happens to Recruiter Judgement?
When the first conversation with the hiring manager becomes automated
The intake meeting is where recruiters turn a hiring request into a search strategy—challenging assumptions, defining what good looks like and aligning the hiring manager around the real need. Now AI can capture, structure and action much of that work automatically. But what should remain distinctly human?
Diane Rocher shares how she rebuilt her own intake workflow using AI, automating everything from meeting capture and follow-up to interview-kit preparation. More importantly, she explores what the process revealed about the recruiter’s role when the administrative work disappears—and why understanding the process deeply must come before handing it to AI.
This is a practical look at where automation should stop, where recruiter judgement matters most, and how AI can make the intake better rather than simply faster.
Three takeaways
- Identify what AI can take from the intake—and what still requires recruiter judgement.
- See how to turn a hiring-manager conversation into an automated workflow without losing context or quality.
- Rethink the recruiter’s role when the mechanics are automated and judgement becomes the differentiator.