Tech Talent Drop - Edition 29

AI is quickly becoming the operating system for hiring. This week brought privacy changes candidates will ask about, agentic browsers that change how people research your roles, and funding signals that show where teams will grow next.

The Drop

Agentic browsers are here, and friction is rising
Perplexity upgraded its Comet assistant to multitask across tabs with stronger autonomy. Soon after, Amazon filed suit over alleged automated shopping behavior. Translation for hiring: candidates and teams will do more research inside AI sidebars, while sites push back with stricter policies. Plan for both.

LinkedIn’s AI training policy is live in multiple regions
From Nov 3, LinkedIn may use member data to train generative AI by default in the UK, EU and EEA, Switzerland, Canada, and Hong Kong. Opt out is available in Settings. Expect questions in outreach, so include a one line privacy note and point to the opt out path.

New LLM security guidance to use in your stack
OpenAI published a prompt injection primer and practical mitigations. If your team uses LLMs for sourcing, screening, or internal tools, fold these checks into code review and ops runbooks.

AI Tool of the Week

Ashby AI Notetaker
Records, transcribes, and summarizes interviews inside Ashby so feedback is faster and easier to query. Best if you already run Ashby and want fewer tabs and cleaner debriefs. Pilot on one high volume role and track time to feedback and review quality.

Hiring and Interview Insight

Test for judgment, not only speed
Add a 15 minute exercise to your loop:

1. Audit an AI generated lead list for consent and regional data constraints, then outline verification steps.

2. An automated outreach flow is underperforming. Do you pause, alter, or continue, and why.
   Score on risk triage, documentation, and communication. This maps directly to this week’s privacy and agent updates.

Funding Watch

All announced Nov 3 to Nov 9

• Ripple — crypto infrastructure — $500M

• Metropolis — AI parking platform — $500M Series D at about $5B

• Armis — cybersecurity exposure management — $435M pre IPO

• Synchron — neurotech BCI — $200M Series D

• Hippocratic AI — healthcare AI agents — $126M Series C at roughly $3.5B

Why it matters: capital is clustering in infrastructure, applied AI for operations, and regulated domains. Expect demand in platform reliability, integrations, trust and safety, and compliance.

Quick Bytes

• Coverage this week shows some candidates prefer AI interviews for consistency. Decide where human touch matters most, then let AI handle scheduling and summaries.

• WhatsApp policy changes on general purpose chatbots keep surfacing. If you rely on WhatsApp for sourcing, tighten opt ins and stage email or SMS fallbacks.

What to do this week

1. Privacy note
   Add one line to outreach that explains how candidates can opt out of LinkedIn’s AI training and include the exact Settings path.

2. Agent readiness
   Make careers pages clear and structured so AI browsers surface the right info. Sanity check with Comet or a similar assistant.

3. Interview leverage
   Pilot Ashby AI Notetaker on one role and measure time to feedback, review quality, and next step latency.
   

That’s all for this week’s Tech Talent Drop — stay informed, and see you next week!