Some of the best conversations at conferences happen away from the keynote stage: no slides, no scripted talking points, just people who’ve spent decades in this industry saying what they actually think. That’s exactly what happened when our Chief Strategy Officer, Dwaine Maltais, joined hireEZ co-founder and CEO Steven Jiang, along with John Redig of Talroo, for an unscripted fireside chat on AI, recruiting, and where the industry goes from here.
If you couldn’t make it in person, you can watch the video above. Here’s what stood out.
Why Nexxt and hireEZ paired up
Dwaine walked through how the Nexxt/hireEZ relationship came together, and the phrase that stuck was “built in, not bolted on.” Rather than trading APIs to check a marketplace box, hireEZ approached Nexxt by recognizing the distinct value Nexxt brings to recruitment marketing and talent acquisition, and asked Nexxt to bring that expertise into the hireEZ platform at full strength rather than trimming it down to fit a template. It was put plainly: too many vendor partnerships amount to a checkbox in a marketplace. This one was built around the actual recruiter workflow from day one.
Steven added the context from hireEZ’s side: the company has built a strong reputation on professional-role sourcing, but a growing share of its customers now operate in high-volume hiring. Rather than build that capability from scratch, hireEZ went to a proven player in the space it trusted.
Stop letting legacy vendors set the bar
The most pointed moment of the conversation was John’s challenge to the room: don’t assume the results you’ve gotten for the last 10 to 15 years are the best you can get. Legacy players have benefited from sheer inertia. Once a workflow is entrenched, switching costs (real or perceived) keep TA teams locked in even when better options exist. His message to recruiters: make every vendor earn your business every day instead of assuming it’s owed.
Dwaine picked up a related thread: relying on one or two sourcing channels because they’ve “always worked” is a bet on a very small group of options. With AI lowering the friction of testing and integrating new tools, he argued this is a good moment for TA teams to diversify rather than consolidate.
AI as a habit, not a feature
Steven framed hireEZ’s product direction around a simple question: what would it take to build “the ChatGPT of recruiting,” a tool recruiters actually want to open, the way people now reflexively open a chat window instead of a search bar.
Dwaine connected that back to Nexxt’s own approach to candidate search, candidate outreach, and programmatic advertising: the goal isn’t just faster tools, it’s tools recruiters trust enough to actually build a daily habit around.
What AI still can’t do
The most memorable exchange of the day was Steven’s analogy: AI-generated output today is a chicken nugget, manufactured, fast, tasty enough. Human judgment, built over years and backed by real accountability, is the steakhouse. As more of the “chicken nugget” work gets automated, he argued, the trust that only a human recruiter builds becomes more valuable, not less.
Steven closed the loop from hireEZ’s side: even the most automated workflow still starts with a person typing what they’re looking for. AI accelerates the middle of the process, but it doesn’t originate the need or make the final call.
In the end, the three panelists were not selling an AI-replaces-recruiters story. The consistent theme was AI expanding what recruiters can reach and see, while judgment, trust, and the decision to actually hire someone stay firmly human. It is wWorth watching the full video above.
Nexxt is a leading HR technology company that uses today’s most effective marketing tactics to reach candidates at scale. Learn more about hiring with Nexxt.