Tamara Thompson

Thank you to all our guest speakers who have shared their time and experience with our students over the past three weeks Abhiram Boddu , Devyani Matcha , and Harish Jaisankar . Your honesty and practical guidance have helped make the path ahead feel clearer and more approachable. This series is important to me because I have seen how much changes when students begin early learning to understand their strengths, build confidence, and form genuine connections before career decisions feel pressured or overwhelming. I believe confidence and networks are not built suddenly later; they grow through small steps taken early. I believe each student carries a light ,a set of strengths, curiosity, and potential that deserves to be seen and supported. I have wanted to create spaces where that light can be recognized, strengthened, and shared with others. We are now moving into our final session on Networking & Confidence, focused on building relationships, seeking mentorship, and approaching opportunities with clarity and self-belief. I invite you to join me for our closing session with Avinash B. (Software Engineer, Microsoft), who will share insights on early career choices, skill building, and intentional growth in the technology field. I look forward to finishing this journey together. Thank you VT Seva and Kiran Vangala for this opportunity!

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As demand for faster, smarter logistics grows, DoorDash continues to double down on AI and ML to power the next phase of our platform. This week, we expanded our partnership with RELEX Solutions to roll out more AI-driven supply chain tools across DashMart, our network of first-party convenience and grocery fulfillment centers. These models help us automate replenishment, reduce waste, and make real-time inventory decisions across a fast-moving, high-variance network. What’s exciting is how seamlessly these systems connect with the work our New Verticals engineering teams are already doing. These teams build and scale: 🔥 Real-time inventory syncing and data accuracy 🔥 Merchant integrations and catalog infrastructure 🔥 Store selection, multi-store fulfillment, and dasher logistics 🔥 DashMart’s core backend systems, from selection to replenishment This isn’t just about streamlining operations. It is about building an adaptive platform that responds intelligently to demand, supply, and customer needs at scale and in real time. And we’re just getting started. #MachineLearning #SupplyChain #DoorDash #Engineering #DashMart #Relex #NewVerticals #AI #Infra #Logistics #MLInfra #Hiring #Growing #SWE

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Everyone’s racing to add AI. But if your staffing stack is fragmented, AI just accelerates the chaos. More tools. More duplicate data. More reporting gaps. Leverage doesn’t come from features. It comes from infrastructure. Staffing firms that scale remove friction. They don’t buy more software. Where’s your biggest bottleneck right now? #StaffingIndustry #StaffingTechnology #StaffingLeaders #RecruitingOperations

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Tag it, find it, and protect it with Samsara’s smallest, most powerful Asset Tags yet.  From power tools to generators, the new Asset Tag XS brings real-time visibility to your smallest high-value equipment. With a three-year battery life and AI-powered recovery, you can reduce downtime and improve efficiency. Discover how organisations can protect their high-value assets: https://bit.ly/4bGWXqy

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Why go contingent? Contingent recruiting cuts down on the risk associated with outsourcing your talent acquisition needs. Clients pay only if they hire a candidate sourced by their recruitment partner. https://lnkd.in/eBReHFK8

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Two different recruiters can try the same role and both fail. That doesn’t automatically mean the role is impossible. It means no one slowed the process down enough to test reality. Most contingent recruiting works like this. Take the job. Run the play. See what happens. That approach quietly teaches the CEO something dangerous. If no one can fill this, the expectations must be fine and the market must be the problem. But without mapping the actual population of candidates first, that’s just guessing. And guessing makes reasonable leaders believe unrealistic asks are normal. GrowthWise starts differently. The market is quantified. The full population is shared transparently with the client. Then a decision is made together about whether the role, scope, or structure needs to change before outreach ever begins. Sometimes the answer is that the market is thin and the pool needs to be widened. Sometimes the answer is that the role, as designed, doesn’t exist. Both answers are useful. Only one wastes a year. If you’ve been told “the market is the problem” more than once, this is usually the moment leaders reach out for a more honest starting point.

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AI is transforming recruiting, but it won’t fix poor candidate experience. You can automate emails, screen faster, and run smarter outreach. But if you ghost candidates, make them jump through hoops, or delay decisions for weeks… That’s not AI’s fault. That’s a people problem. ✅ Use tech to enhance humanity, not replace it. #Recruiting #CandidateExperience #Synergis https://hubs.li/Q03DfV920

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A new EZ Recruiting Academy course is live. AI plays a bigger role in candidate search than ever. When someone asks an AI tool where to work, the answer comes from your site, your reviews, and every public signal tied to your brand. Our new course, GEO and the Future of Candidate Search, shows recruiters how to strengthen that visibility with clear, practical steps that work across search engines and LLMs. Start the course → https://lnkd.in/gCehH8gV

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Fractional RPO vs In-House TA: What Smart Federal Contractors Are Choosing If you’re running between $10M and $30M as a federal contracting firm, you’re probably juggling BD, capture, delivery, compliance, and staffing cleared roles all at once. But here’s the truth: you probably can’t (and shouldn’t) build a full-time talent acquisition team just yet. Not because you don’t need great talent, but because you need cost control, speed, and flexibility more than you need headcount. Enter Fractional RPO. It’s the smarter way for growing federal contractors to bring in recruiting firepower without the overhead of a salaried TA team. With Fractional RPO, you get: ✅ Dedicated recruiters with cleared and federal hiring experience ✅ Surge support for contract wins and proposal efforts ✅ A flat monthly cost (no surprise invoices) ✅ No long-term commitments or fixed overhead Let’s be honest... most cleared candidates aren’t scrolling job boards. They don’t apply inbound. You need someone who knows how to hunt passive talent, who understands clearance levels, billability, and the urgency of federal contract delivery. An in-house team might make sense at $50M+, but if you’re still sub-50 and scaling? ❗ The salaries, tech stack, and ramp time for an internal TA team can crush your margins. ❗ You’ll lose valuable months recruiting recruiters. ❗ And if the contract doesn’t land? You’re left holding the bag. Fractional RPO gives you embedded, senior recruiters who plug into your system, speak your language, and focus on cleared and uncleared talent across delivery and proposal work without the long-term cost. You get the results of a full-stack recruiting team with none of the fixed expense. In federal contracting, we know that timing is everything. Hiring shouldn’t be the bottleneck. I’d love to show you how to speed up your hiring process to meet tight RFP and Task Order response deadlines while building a year-round pipeline of pre-vetted candidates you already know you’ll need. #FederalContracting #GovernmentContracting #FractionalRPO #8a #MBE #SBA #SDVOSB #HubZone #WOSB #ClearedTalent #ProposalStaffing #RecruitingStrategy #FederalHiring #TalentAcquisition #ContractDelivery #SurgeStaffing #HiringTips #KBOtek

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What does the future of connected operations look like? At Samsara Beyond, customers took the stage to share how they’re putting AI into action—from reducing incidents to optimizing dispatch and automating tank monitoring. Read the recap from FreightWaves: https://lnkd.in/gPMY2Pkn

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The future of staffing isn’t human or artificial. It’s the two working together. Bullhorn’s 2025 Talent Trends Report shows: 🔹 77% of candidates say their AI recruiting experience was positive 🔹 Automated onboarding can boost loyalty to 85% We’ve seen the same with Sierra, our AI assistant who helps candidates get connected faster while giving our recruiters more room to do the meaningful work. Here’s what Sierra handles well: ✨ Instant responses to applicants ✨ Friendly voice-based interviews ✨ Real-time match sharing with recruiters And here’s what happens next: Our recruiters step in with the empathy, context, and relationship-building that no tool can replace. AI brings efficiency. Humans bring connection. Together, they build better teams. Would you trust an AI recruiter like Sierra to start your next job search? 👇 #MasisInsights #AIScreenerbyMasis #MeetSierra #MasisStaffing

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NVIDIA is partnering with PulteGroup and SPAN to turn residential spaces into mini data centers. 🤏🔋 “The ability to leverage existing locations that have access to power makes a lot of sense. … We believe that we can bring on AI solutions quicker, and it should add to the affordability story,” said Marc Spieler, NVIDIA’s Senior Managing Director for the global energy industry. Read the blog: https://cnb.cx/4wmamOg

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New Dice Report: The Trust Gap in Tech Hiring 2025 AI is transforming tech hiring, but not always for the better. Our latest research reveals a growing trust gap: - 68% of tech professionals distrust fully AI-driven hiring - 92% say AI tools miss qualified candidates who don’t optimize for keywords - Nearly 30% are considering leaving tech due to hiring frustrations The future of hiring isn’t AI versus humans. It’s about human + AI working together to restore trust and attract top talent. 🔗 Get the full report: https://lnkd.in/ghR5kWMU

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🌈 Great technology is built by diverse teams. Serve Robotics is proud to be sponsoring the LGBTQ+ Diversity Job Fair in Long Beach on March 7. Our team will be onsite and excited to connect with talented professionals interested in robotics, autonomy, engineering, operations, and other technical and business roles. As we continue scaling autonomous delivery, we’re always looking for people who want to help build technology that operates in the real world and serves real communities. If you're attending the fair, stop by the Serve Robotics booth to learn more about our work and explore opportunities to help shape the future of last-mile delivery and real-world robotics. We’re looking forward to meeting incredible talent and continuing to build a team that reflects the diverse communities our robots operate in. #ServeRobotics #Hiring #DiversityInTech #LGBTQInTech #Robotics #AutonomousSystems #TechCareers #LongBeach #InclusionInTech

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For years, the industry treated recruiting excellence like a training challenge. In reality, it was a scaling problem. You could not manually replicate the speed, judgment, and execution patterns of elite recruiters across every requisition. Den M., Director of Enterprise + Talent Solutions, explores what changes when AI moves beyond copilots and content generation into autonomous, agent-augmented workflows that can execute sourcing logic, calibration, and candidate discovery at scale. The real opportunity is not replacing recruiters. It is removing operational drag so humans can focus on trust, nuance, and decision-making where it matters most.

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Many of the tasks slowing down staffing operations shouldn’t be manual anymore. AI Voice Recruiters are already taking on the high-volume communication and coordination that prevent teams from scaling. In 2026, the fastest-growing teams will be the ones who automate this layer first. Learn how AI Voice Recruiters transform operational efficiency: https://bit.ly/3KYbFjo #AI #VoiceAI #StaffingTech

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Cookie-cutter TA isn't just inefficient. It's a liability. 🚫 When every org gets the same recruiting playbook, no one wins — and the cracks show up fast. ❌ Frameworks lifted from a different industry ❌ ATS tools that manage data but don't drive decisions ❌ RPO partnerships built on one-size-fits-all models ❌ Metrics that measure speed instead of quality Here’s the problem with that second one: most ATS platforms were never built to drive decisions. They were built to store them. Hiregate was built to fill that gap — augmenting your existing ATS to complete the talent cycle and connect every step of recruiting back to your business objectives. The organizations winning at talent aren't spending the most. They're thinking the clearest — and using tools that match how they actually hire. We've spent decades helping companies move from reactive hiring to intentional strategy. That's what Talent Acquisition Evolved actually means. What cookie-cutter assumption have you had to push back on? Tell us below. 👇 #TalentAcquisition #Recruiting #HRLeaders #TAStrategy #PeopleScience #TalentAcquisitionEvolved #RPO #HiringStrategy #Hiregate

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