ScopeAT

Imagine opening Netflix and having to apply to watch a movie.

You find the title you want, fill out a short form, wait two weeks, and hope the algorithm approves your request. Sounds ridiculous, right?

Now think about how most companies hire.

A need emerges, we open a job, craft a description, post it, wait for applicants, screen them, assess them, interview, decide. It’s slow. It’s reactive. It’s expensive. 

And it’s not built for how the world of work is evolving.

But what if hiring wasn’t something we did anymore? 

What if talent just flowed in — on demand — ready, vetted, matched, and priced in real time?

That’s a potential future I’ve been exploring recently as I’ve been mulling over what hiring looks like in the next decade: the AI-driven, continuous talent marketplace. And it’s coming faster than most of us think.

Recruiting goes from event-based to always-on

Recruitment today is largely event-based. A job opens. We go find people. Simple.

But increasingly, that process doesn’t match how organizations operate — or how workers want to work.

Work has become more fluid. Project-based. Dynamic. The skills you need today aren’t the ones you’ll need in six months. Demand shifts, teams reconfigure, priorities pivot. 

Hiring needs to keep up.

Enter the continuous talent marketplace.

Rather than waiting for jobs to open, AI is constantly monitoring what skills are needed across your organization — and who’s available to fill them. Whether it’s internal talent, alumni, freelancers, or external candidates, the system prematches people to jobs to be done before you even know you need them.

The result? 

Hiring becomes less of a process and more of a flow.

A talent marketplace, powered by AI, will replace hiring as we think of it

This is more than a smarter ATS or a better CRM. It’s a full ecosystem built around supply and demand — powered by AI, fueled by data, and structured like a marketplace.

You’ve probably seen early versions of this in the gig economy. Amazon Flex is a great example. Drivers opt into shifts based on availability and pricing. If no one takes a shift, the price goes up. Supply meets demand in real time. Now apply that to professional hiring.

You’re a hiring manager who needs a copywriter next week, let’s say. You don’t post a job — you open the marketplace. The system shows you available talent already matched to your needs: internal folks who are wrapping up other projects, pre-vetted external candidates who’ve interviewed before, alumni with relevant experience.

Each person is scored. Each profile includes availability, projected cost, past performance, and skills currency. The system even suggests likely future needs based on project forecasts and helps you proactively build pipelines.

You click. They’re hired.

No posting. No sourcing. No delay.

Work will become more fluid

This shift doesn’t just change how we hire. It changes how we work. 

Instead of fixed roles, we move toward flexible assignments. Workers might be allocated to different teams, departments, or even partner companies depending on where their skills are needed most.

One week you’re on a product launch. The next, helping sales with enablement. Or maybe you float out of your organization entirely — temporarily joining a partner company for a project, as Hilton and Marriott did early in the pandemic, sending workers to CVS and Walgreens.

This kind of cross-pollination isn’t science fiction. It’s already happening at the edges. And AI makes it scalable.

Imagine your “career agent” – an app that monitors your goals, skill gaps, and preferences. It recommends your next assignment not just based on availability but on growth. 

Want to build your skills in negotiation? There’s a role that pays slightly less but gets you the experience. 

Want to earn more? Take on an urgent short-term project doing something you don’t particularly enjoy doing but, hey, it’s paying a premium.

Talent becomes liquid. Work becomes modular. And career growth becomes dynamic.

The role of TA will be radically redefined

So, the big question: What does this mean for TA teams?

First, recruiting won’t go away if this scenario becomes reality. But it will be radically redefined.

Some recruiters become talent marketplace strategists — the people who work with the business to forecast demand, manage budgets, and ensure the AI is tuned to what the org actually needs. They don’t post jobs — they optimize supply chains. Instead of working on 40 open reqs like some recruiters do today, you’re overseeing the supply for 400 roles.

Others become AI-powered career agents — specialists who guide talent through their next move. They’re not sourcing anymore (AI handles that) but they’re trusted advisors. They know their niche, their candidates, their market. They’re part influencer, part agent, part coach.

Today’s sourcer becomes tomorrow’s rep for the top 200 copywriters in Chicago, for example. If you’re a brand that wants access to that pool, you court them. And TA as a function becomes the curator and connector of a living, breathing talent ecosystem.

The infrastructure already exists for a transformation of TA

This isn’t all theoretical. The infrastructure is already in place.

Companies like Appcast are dynamically managing job ad spend with algorithms that move budget in real time. Fiverr and Toptal already run global talent marketplaces for creative and tech work. IBM decoupled sourcing from requisitions years ago — building evergreen pipelines for critical roles so that talent is always “on the shelf.”

Even inside of companies, there are seeds of this. Teams borrowing high-performing employees for key projects. Internal mobility platforms matching people to gigs. Simulations that let someone practice a new role instead of waiting for the experience to come first. We’re just at the beginning.

The continuous talent marketplace is built on adaptability

The move to an AI-powered, continuous talent marketplace isn’t just about efficiency — it’s about adaptability.

In a world where skill requirements shift monthly, project scopes change weekly, and people expect more flexibility than ever before, the traditional hiring model just can’t keep up. If we want to compete for talent, we need to change how we think about talent.

That means:

• Less hiring. More matching.
• Less process. More flow.
• Less job board. More Netflix!

The organizations that figure this out first? 

They won’t just be faster. They’ll be better. More agile. More attractive. More resilient. Because when talent is ready to move and you’re ready to receive it, everyone wins.

This post was originally published in Johnny Campbell’s Talent Leader Insights Newsletter.

Johnny Campbell is a serial disrupter in the world of talent and HR. As founder and CEO of SocialTalent, the learning platform that helps you drive hiring excellence, he partners with some of the largest enterprises in the world (such as Accenture, Cisco, and CVS Health) to help them future-proof their organizations and build better workplaces.

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