How AI Hiring Affects Employer Reputation

[00:00:01] The world of work is changing. AI, automation, and technology are reshaping how we find jobs, build careers, and connect. But behind every resume and career transition is a human story. And the mental and emotional impact is real. This is Ghosted by the Machine.

[00:00:23] Welcome. I'm your host, Mark Lane. We talk a lot about what job seekers are experiencing, the applications, the interviews, the rejections, and of course, the ghosting. But here's something I think companies forget. The way you treat someone during the hiring process says a lot about your organization. And whether that person gets the job or not, they're going to walk away with an impression of your company. So what does that mean for your brand, your reputation, or even your ability to attract great people down the road?

[00:00:50] Well, that's what we're going to get into today. My guest is Nicole Hudson, founder and CEO of Hudson Collective. Nicole works with organizations on growth strategy, brand storytelling, and building relationships that drive business forward. I thought she'd be a great person to talk about with what's going on with hiring, technology, and the human experience. Nicole, welcome to Ghosted by the Machine, and I'm glad you were here today. Thank you, Mark. I'm so excited. And I love your brand, Ghosted by the Machine.

[00:01:19] Thank you very much. It's amazing. I appreciate it. Who would have thought that last October? I'm coming up on a year, so thank you so much for being here. I love it. It's an anniversary? It's my anniversary. I would have brought champagne. I would have brought a cake like you should have told me. You know, I was thinking about that. I was going to tell you earlier on our earlier conversation, but I wanted to wait until the show surprise you. Love it. Before we get into everything happening with hiring and AI, I'd love for everyone to get to know you a little bit better.

[00:01:47] So tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get into brand strategy and storytelling, and what led you to start the Hudson Collective? My gosh, I love that question. Well, I, weirdly enough, went to college to be a marriage therapist, which the irony is not lost on me at all. But one of the things that it really did was what motivates people, what drives people, how do they make decisions? So, you know, I use that training every day.

[00:02:15] I ran off to New York City. That's where I learned how to be in advertising and marketing and brand and storytelling and got to work in consumer packaged goods and pharmaceuticals and was there for about eight years. When I came back to Michigan, I got into national franchising. All of that really kind of helped framed my first company, which was Inbound Lead Solutions, which was just a franchise marketing and development firm.

[00:02:38] And that transitioned into Hudson Collective because I wanted to do a lot more growth and strategy and really identify the integration and the gaps missing between where sales and marketing come together for growth that drives revenue. And so that's where that passion came in about five or six years ago. And here we are. Well, that's I'm glad you're here. And me, too. I love I love that intersection that you talk about.

[00:03:06] But you spent a lot a lot of your career helping companies build their brands and reputations. So, yes, here and here's something I keep thinking about. A company can spend a lot of money telling the world how great it is to work there. And then somebody applies for a job and has a completely different experience. How much does the way a company treats candidates actually shape its brand? And do you think companies realize that? I think almost all of it does. And I don't think that companies really realize how much it affects them.

[00:03:34] So your employer brand really isn't just your career page or your recruiting video. I think what really happens is after that person hits apply. And what I see over and over again is just that recruiters post the job. Marketing makes it look great. The hiring person starts to interview. But like we talked about, there's these gaps in between the team and the systems and now the technology and the AI.

[00:04:01] When you don't answer the phone, when you don't respond to the interview or the application, when you don't follow back up and you're not treating people like humans. And, you know, everything we learned to be a good human we learned in kindergarten. When we don't apply those fundamental teachings, right, that's when your brand starts to take hits and bruises.

[00:04:23] And because every person that works for you or interviews you, you hope would actually be a customer at some point. Right. And I think I told you about I've been through a lot of the ghosting processes. And Canada at the beginning of 2026 has a law prohibiting ghosting by companies.

[00:04:45] So if someone applies and doesn't get notified or, you know, understands the process that the company is going through, they can actually go back and the company can get fined for ghosting. Wow. And we're all familiar with Glassdoor. And I've spoken to Ghosted.Work and these other ghosting platforms that have come out where you can anonymously talk about companies.

[00:05:10] And I really think that the leadership for these companies need to understand that a lot of people are fed up. For sure. And they've had enough. And their brands are going to start taking a hit. I couldn't agree more. So I did not hear that about Canada. That's incredible. Do you think they're also going to apply that to when you get ghosted on the online dating apps? Because Canada is just on the forefront of everything. So I love it.

[00:05:40] I've actually spoken to some state reps here in Michigan about passing a ghosting law. Cool. So now that while we're... And now you're going to be an advocacy and activist? Mark, you've got a big 27 plan. Yeah, I actually... Well, we've got to get through the elections. And then I'm actually going to push that. I think we need to talk about that. Oh, I love it. Well, you know, we'll have to talk offline about some of the political work that we do. But let's circle back to this. So with reputation, I think that it costs way more than people realize. Right.

[00:06:09] So ghosting isn't an efficiency problem. It's really a broken promise. And, you know, people remember broken promises a lot longer than good experiences. And I think that AI is supposed to make it easier to stay in touch with every candidate, not easier to drop them. Right. So I think that the strategy is wrong. Right.

[00:06:30] If a tool is helping you screen 500 people and you never talk to any of them, right, you've saved some hours, but you've ruptured your reputation. Right. And that candidate, future customer, client, patient, that person you ghosted could be deciding on any one of those services that you were looking for. Right. Law firm, doctor, you know, insert whatever. Buying a product. Exactly.

[00:06:59] How would you advise a company? Oh, that's a great question. I think you really have to start with, you know, I'm a student of behavior and we build funnels and audience journeys. Right. And so I think that when you apply the hiring journey to the same framework as marketing or sales. Right. And there's a funnel and there's a journey.

[00:07:26] You have to think about what are those moments. Right. So in my business, I call them kind of like little fireflies. And so at Hudson, we have like a catch and release methodology. And so I think it's very similar to this where you have to decide what are those human moments you're trying to capture. And the AI and the technology is just there to identify the patterns. But you need a human there to contextualize and understand that human moment. Right.

[00:07:54] Their energy, the way they respond, their micro expressions. You just get a you get a sense, a gut feeling about people in addition to the logistics and the specifics of their their resumes. And so much is culture fit and your values. And we now live in an always on video based phone first experience.

[00:08:19] And so just like we're doing now, if you can't communicate and feel on authenticity and empathy. You probably can't connect in your job either. Right. So this whole screening people and thinking you can make all these decisions without real human connection and interaction, I think is just short sighted. And frankly, we'll just drive up the costs and make retention harder.

[00:08:43] So talking about culture, you know, great companies have great cultures. We live here in Detroit area. We've got Ford, GM, Chrysler, the big three. We usually talk about relationships, trust and communication. Those those things don't come up in an algorithm. So as companies start automating more of the hiring process, are we in danger of losing some of what makes a great culture in the first place? And how do we keep that from happening? I love that question.

[00:09:12] I would say the answer is yes. And I think that culture ultimately starts at the top. Right. That's a leadership discussion and decision. Right. So the CEO and the team that's put together to define those things needs to build into their strategy. And chief people officer or chief talent or however it happens, that the culture and the experience that happens inside the organization also has to happen on the pathway inside the organization as well.

[00:10:10] Companies get upset when you didn't send a thank you. Or you didn't show up on time. Or you didn't dress yourself appropriately. Or you didn't prepare for the interview. Right. Right. The candidate feels the same. Right. They didn't say thank you. They didn't acknowledge the application. They weren't clear about the expectations. You know, one of the biggest indicators to me of good culture and credibility is the ability to go first and state this is what the salary is.

[00:10:39] This is what the expectations are. Right. You can read. You can understand a lot when people you read that do really great job descriptions and they talk about what their culture is at the end of it. They talk about what their values are. And honestly, you see what the benefits are. You can understand a lot about who a company is and what their mission is about by the way that they frame that language in benefits. And if they define how we match together. Right.

[00:11:06] Like we're two pieces of a puzzle and we're trying to see if we fit together. A company to me that's serious about that gives as much clear knowledge and indication to say this is how you fit into the puzzle as possible. And it's your job to show us if that's true or not. And I will be I'm actually shocked at how hard it is and how much people actually don't pick up those cues and don't highlight. This is how I fit. Right.

[00:11:34] They just take their resume. They paper it all over the world. And they themselves show the first indication of trying to game the system and not caring about the role. So culture also starts with you as the candidate. What do you want? What boundaries are you going to put in place? What are you not going to stand for? So, I mean, I know I've got every job I've ever gotten has not come from. And we're talking a long time ago.

[00:11:59] I haven't had a job in a long time, but has come from a personal connection or some, dare I say, outlandish action that put me in front of the person making the decision. Because in my world, perseverance is what wins and no is when the fun starts. So anyone that's ever hired me, frankly, said no first. And I was like, OK, here we go. But you can't do that online or in an algorithm. So you've got to move it off the screen and in person, in my opinion.

[00:12:28] I think you're 100% there because I feel the same way. Networking, building relationships, using those relationships to meet people. And hopefully develop all of the tools they needed for that job. And I tell a lot of people that they're looking for jobs. What do you recommend? And going out there and knocking on doors. Networking. My daughter is 22 years old. How did she get her first job? Networking. She had to.

[00:12:55] So companies really can't ignore this anymore. It's I call it people talk. OK. You know, we've got them talking on LinkedIn. I think I told you earlier, Glassdoor, Reddit. I've interviewed somebody from ghosted.work where they can go anonymously, talk about a company that either they applied for, interviewed with. And they can complain all day long and talk about this company. And companies, I believe, are starting to see this.

[00:13:23] So if somebody has a great hiring experience, they might share it. But most of the time they're talking about the shitty ones. I'm sorry. I'm going to use that. Yeah, no, totally. Totally. How should companies be thinking about their reputation when every candidate has a platform to share their experience? And they're growing exponentially because I get contacted by them all the time that want to talk. So. Yeah. What would you tell an organization? I love this question so much.

[00:13:50] So, so often one of our services is online reputation management. And so this falls into that. Right. Do you remember? I got to cut you in real quick. Do you remember when every client was like, I want to be on social media, but I want to control the narrative? Correct. So. Yeah. I had to throw that in there. And they're deleting. They're hiding. Right. They're like, I'll pay you a million dollars to get this Google review removed. I mean, all of those things are still happening.

[00:14:18] And what I think is interesting is it's got to come back to authenticity. Right. So every candidate is a future reviewer or customer or referral. Right. Like you have to think about them the same way you think about your product or your service and your brand in the online space outside of hiring. And so reviews are really just your candidate experience written down by someone else. And you can't control what other people post. And you can't. But you can control what they experience. Right.

[00:14:48] So that's the point of what this is, is there has to be some intentional executive strategy on defining how what do we want to be known for. And inside of that, how do how do we want to make sure people feel seen and treated?

[00:15:04] And then honestly, more importantly, I think that the game changing moment for people, whether you're trying to get a job or you're trying to sell a service or you're trying to buy a product, is that customization and that personalization. Right. Think about it. We want to be seen. We want to be known. We want our name remembered. And whether that's on Amazon, hey, Nicole, these are the 10 things you bought.

[00:15:28] We know you need this again to walking into my doctor's office to, you know, being interviewed and you actually remembering who I am. I mean, we've known each other for years, so you'll remember me. But you know what I mean? That's the point is we want to be seen, heard, validated and personalized. OK. So we talked about AI earlier and there's a lot of excitement around it, especially when company leaders who see opportunities save money and time. Mm-hmm. But there's another side to it. Not everybody's excited.

[00:15:56] Some employees are nervous about what AI means for their jobs. So, you know, I use all these different tools and honestly, it takes away hours and minutes from what I used to do, especially in communications. Oh, for sure. And job seekers are wondering whether a real person is ever going to see their application. How do companies embrace all this technology without losing the trust of the very people they're trying to attract and keep? So that's a, I feel like I'm saying that's a great question after everything you're asking.

[00:16:25] Yeah, we're doing hard on these questions. I really did. I know, no, you, I mean, honestly, your prep for this is incredible. Kudos to you. Thank you. I think you have to be specific and honest about where AI is used, but where the person always sits. So, you know, people make these vague claims of AI powered, which I think erodes trust. The specific one is authentic and honest, right? So, for example, AI schedules your interview, right?

[00:16:55] No one's going to be upset about an AI scheduling the interview, doing the follow-up, right? Taking an administrative role. I don't think anyone would be, would have a problem with if the human was honest about, I'm powered by AI, right? I use this as a companion to increase efficiency and capacity, right? That's how I use AI. That's how I build AI into my business. That's frankly how I build AI into other people's businesses.

[00:17:24] So to me, AI is replacing nothing. It's a companion and it's an efficiency and it's a capacity and it's a scalability tool. When you think about it like that and then you layer in your value system, right, which is human moments, what you want to be known for, how you want someone to feel, how are you going to decide if that person's a fit for you? And do you lead and communicate effectively, right?

[00:17:53] So it loops back to, you know, where your expertise lives and just what's a communications plan and a strategy and how do you handle and what do you say and why? So I think if you keep AI in the busy work and as a tool and not as a takeover, you know, I think that you're fine. You know, we talked earlier about can AI replace humans?

[00:18:16] Do you want that first interview screening to occur with an AI avatar? I think the answer is no. I think if you can't build in an experience with a series of questions or the way that you write the job description or the way that you've priced the role or, you know, however that criteria is evaluated, that people should be able to self-select themselves out, period.

[00:19:15] Like how you got to that human moment. Boy, that would be amazing if I was received that kind of notification. Can you please resubmit your application? And I've talked to other job seekers and I was just in an event last week where I talked to some other ones and they all said the same thing. Their AI is competing with my AI. Because we're all doing the same thing. You take your resume, you see the job description, you put it in the chat GPT or Claude or whichever one you use.

[00:19:45] And then it comes back with all the keywords, restructures your resume and then you put it in and you apply. And, you know, it could be 600 people applying for that job. The AT&S system finds the top ones that hit that right percentage and then the rest are moved to the side and filtered out. So Hudson Collective is about to go on a hiring spree, which I'm really excited about, but I'm also kind of overwhelmed by. And I'll be totally honest.

[00:20:14] It's interesting because I've received five or six people say, Nicole Hudson. Oh my gosh, are you serious? Oh, I am serious. I'm on LinkedIn. And I'm like, I'm not going to. No, you've got to do this yourself. You should be. You should be like, hey, I'm going to vouch for this person. Now I'm mad that you didn't send them to me. We'll have to talk about that later. I want to talk to you first. I love it so much. So this is what I've decided I'm going to do. So, you know, Hudson Collective is at an interesting place in its growth and how it's pivoting.

[00:20:43] And so I hire fractional leaders for accounting, HR, finance, all of that stuff. And it's worked perfectly for our growth strategy. And so, but still, when you do that, a lot of that, the operational heavy lifting still kind of falls on you. Right. And so one of the things that I was just talking to with my fractional leaders was we're just going to do a video.

[00:21:09] That we're going to require people to send us a video and I'm going to have them talk through their resume and their experience. And then we're going to ask a series of questions for them to answer. And we're going to do a test. So I've also built like a hiring AI agent, but I've built it from the perspective of evaluating the videos. Right. Not gatekeeping people out. Wow. And I've actually built it in my philosophy, which is there's a fit for everybody everywhere.

[00:21:39] And if you're not a fit here, I should refer you somewhere else. And so I've built it with that criteria in mind. And so I'm going to test it out. It's so funny. I didn't even think about that. I was building that before I was going to come on and talk to you. I should have told you about it. And so we're going to test that out and see how it goes. But I think I can understand so much more about who someone is and what's important to them and what do they value and like what are their experiences. Because there's so much I can train for.

[00:22:06] But I can't teach or train resilience, integrity, honesty, emotional intelligence, social intelligence. Right. Like and those are the things that are important to me in my business. The rest of the tools and the functions, I'm providing you with that. Right. That's my job as your boss and the business owner.

[00:22:28] But you showing up uniquely you and saying this is how I'm going to take your stuff, integrate myself into it and move forward to the growth mission of the business. You can't. You can't. It just. It's like it's like a good salesperson. Yeah. Either they've got the it factor or they don't. And that's it. And so that's how I look at hiring. I think that's a great idea. I really do. Because they're going to get a chance to sell themselves. Yeah. You're going to be able to check. You're going to be able to see their personality.

[00:22:56] There's a company called Vitano that I interviewed. It's a company that actually has developed a video resume company where you could go in. Oh, cool. And you can use their app. You pay for their app and you can. What's it called again? Vitano. And I can send you. Oh, I'll have to check. Yeah, check that out. I'll send you a link. We were just going to go old school. No, this guy's got the app and everything that does it.

[00:23:22] And it's funny because I also spoke to someone, James Ellis, that said, stand out. You need to stand out. You need to get out of your box, out of your comfort zone and do things that's going to get you noticed. And referral videos, getting on, popping on, doing a video on LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever. You almost need to be an influencer for yourself. Yeah. These days. Well, I really love it when people take a chance and take a risk.

[00:23:51] And, you know, I've never shared this story publicly before. But, you know, going to college should be a marriage therapist. My first job out of college was, you know, with just someone, a friend of a friend that I got to get a connection to. The Super Bowl came to Detroit. So I got to meet all these people from New York. And I'm going to date myself. But I was like, oh, that Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle, that sex in the city lifestyle is for me, right? I'm 22 years old. I don't know any better. I guess I'm 23.

[00:24:21] And so I decided I'm moving to New York City. Only a 23-year-old kid. So I sell all of my belongings. I pack myself and my cat into a rental van. And we drive to New York City thinking, we're just going to figure this out. So I didn't quite think it all through. And so I arrived in Edgewater, New Jersey across, you know, across the Hudson and was like, oh, no, what do I do now? Seriously, I have a cat. I have a cat box in the van.

[00:24:51] And I'm like, so I literally I slept in the Target parking lot of Edgewater, New Jersey. Stealing Internet from the Hampton Inn. Oh, my. And I found my first job on Craigslist. Amazing. And I wasn't qualified for it. It was a marketing manager, right? So I'd been a sales coordinator. I'd been a marriage therapist. I'd been in college. I wasn't qualified for this role.

[00:25:14] But I walked in and went on the interview, shared some unique scrappy parts of my personality. The hiring manager was like, do you want to meet our CEO? And I was like, got nothing to lose. So I marched myself right in there. Anyway, long story short, I told him the whole thing, the whole story. And then I told him, I didn't realize there were broker fees and I didn't realize it was $5,000 to get into an apartment. And I'm like, I really didn't think this through. I'm like, but don't worry, I'll figure it out.

[00:25:45] This guy, he hired me on the spot and he cut me a check for $5,000. That's amazing. And that's how I started working in New York. And so I, again, I've never told this story publicly, but I think that, one, I really should have thought a few things through. But I think that drive, that ambition, that confidence that I'm going to figure this out no matter what is what we need people to show up in the workplace today with. You're dead.

[00:26:15] You're on. You're dead. You're on it. You hit the nail on the head. So I can say something else, but I didn't. So you're sitting across the table from a CEO right now. Yeah. They're excited about AI. Oh my God, this is great. We want to automate, automate more, move faster, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What's one thing you'd tell them to make sure they're building a stronger company and culture? You talked a little bit about it before, but instead of accidentally damaging the brand

[00:26:42] they've worked for so hard to create, what are you going to tell them? I would say this. Decide what moments must always be human. Write them down. Protect them. Make sure everybody knows them. And then let AI handle everything else. And then make sure the one person, one person owns that experience from start to finish. Because if everybody owns it, then nobody owns it, right? And then no one's talking to each other, right?

[00:27:11] Nobody owns the candidate, right? And there needs to be an ambassador. There needs to be somebody protecting the candidate as much as there need to be somebody protecting the company. And that's really how I start out every single engagement at Hudson, even though we're not necessarily, we don't run HR, but so much of our marketing or trying to communicate culture, we sometimes get hired for that. But that's the question I always ask when I start learning about a company. Every leader I ask, who owns it? Right.

[00:27:40] Who wants the ball? Who has been assigned the ball? Who's going to, you know, who's taking, who's Michael Jordan and taking the last shot or who's dragging it into the end zone? And that's what you want. Like, I'm shocked. And I always say this to people that I'm trying to prospect is I've always been the person that wants the ball. Like if somebody else gets the, is taking the last shot, I'm upset about it. I mean, I want the ball. And so I want a team of people that want the ball. Okay. I'm going to start calling you Dan. Nice.

[00:28:11] Exactly. So I want to thank you for joining me today. We probably could talk at least another hour. For sure. But, you know, one thing I keep coming back to is that a company brand isn't just this logo, it's its website or whatever it says about itself on LinkedIn. It's how people experience the company. And that includes the people who never actually get hired. So, and with AI becoming a bigger part of the hiring process, I think companies need to

[00:28:38] remember that efficiency and human connection shouldn't have to be competing priorities. So, Nicole, thanks again for sharing your perspective. It was amazing. You're welcome. And I got to get back with you on some names because I got some people I want to talk to you about. And to everyone watching, if you've been through the hiring process and have a story you'd like to share, I'd love to hear it from you. Send me a message. Make sure to follow and subscribe to Ghosted by the Machine. I'm Mark Lane. And this is Ghosted by the Machine because behind every application, there's a human. Thanks again, Nicole. Have a wonderful day.

[00:29:08] Thanks, Mark. You too. Congratulations on being my one-year anniversary show. I was just going to say the congratulations is all you for happy one-year anniversary. Thank you. And let's make hiring human again. Have a great day. Bye. Bye. Bye.