The Government is Resorting to Recruitment Speed Dating
The Government is Resorting to Recruitment Speed Dating
The shortage is biting so hard that the Government is literally funding "recruitment speed dating" events for the manufacturing sector. It’s a clever pivot to bypass the painfully slow traditional hiring rigmarole, but it exposes a deeper rot: our standard pipelines are broken. For candidates, the message is stark—if you aren't visible in these rapid-fire, face-to-face environments, you're invisible. Salaries are flattening as companies trade cash for "stability" and "upskilling," which is code for doing more work with cheaper tools. If you're banking on a massive 2026 pay bump without a niche specialisation, you're dreaming.
This Week's Key Signals
Govt “Speed Dating” Model Cuts Hiring Risk (3 min read) In a move that screams "we need bodies now," the Government has backed a speed-dating recruitment model to plug gaps in the manufacturing tech sector. It’s designed to de-risk hiring by putting employers and candidates in a room for rapid assessment, bypassing the CV black hole. Expect this low-friction, high-contact model to bleed into general IT recruitment as desperation mounts.
In-Demand Jobs for 2025: The Specialist Squeeze (4 min read) Randstad’s latest data confirms what we’re seeing on the ground: the generalist is dead. The market is aggressively filtering for "Green IT" specialists, AI Ethics trainers, and high-level Cyber Architects. If your CV still lists "Cloud Enthusiast" without specific certifications in sustainability or security compliance, you're being filtered out by the ATS before a human even sees you.
Airbyte and Zerto Shake Up Data Movement (2 min read) Airbyte has dropped a major update making Snowflake syncs 95% cheaper, while Zerto is pushing a new disaster recovery service for the post-VMware world. For NZ infrastructure teams looking to cut the "VMware tax" and optimise data pipelines, these are the tools that will actually save your OpEx budget this quarter.
Security for AI: The Shadow AI Nightmare (5 min read) A new report highlights that 65% of employees are using "Shadow AI"—unsanctioned tools that are leaking corporate data like a sieve. We aren't just talking about ChatGPT; we're talking about unvetted agents processing sensitive IP. If you don't have a policy to lock this down, you don't have a security posture; you have a wish list.
🚀 Deeper Dive: AGI 2028
The Arrival of AGI | Shane Legg (Co-founder of DeepMind) (53 min watch) While NZ recruiters are playing speed dating, Shane Legg is predicting the end of cognitive labour as we know it. In this candid interview, DeepMind's co-founder doubles down on his prediction: there is a 50/50 chance of AGI by 2028. He explicitly details the shift from AI as a "tool" to AI doing "meaningful productive work," forecasting a future where a software team of 100 is cut to 20. If you think your coding job is safe because it's "complex," you need to watch this. The bandwidth of the human brain is 100Hz; the data centre is running at 10 billion Hz. Do the maths.
🔒 AI Tools Gaining Traction
Kiro AI: The CLI Co-Pilot (4 min read) AWS is pushing Kiro, an AI agent that lives in your CLI. It integrates directly with AWS services to automate local file management and deployment scripts. Its core value is reducing context switching; you stay in the terminal, and the AI handles the documentation lookups and syntax generation.
Shadow AI Discovery Tools (5 min read) Highlighted in the Security Boulevard report, new classes of discovery tools are emerging to map "Shadow AI" usage across the network. These tools don't just block traffic; they analyse the intent of the AI interaction to determine if sensitive PII or IP is being exfiltrated to public models.
Zerto for VMware-to-Nutanix Migration (2 min read) While not a "generative AI" tool, Zerto's new automated failover capabilities use intelligent orchestration to manage the complex migration from VMware to Nutanix. In a market where Broadcom's pricing is killing budgets, this automated migration path is a lifeline for infrastructure managers.
⚡ Quick Takes
Airbyte Updates: 95% Cheaper Syncs (1 min read) Optimise your data ingest costs immediately. If you're using Snowflake, this update is effectively free money for your budget.
Randstad 2025 Skills Report (2 min read) A quick checklist of what skills are paying the bills next year. Spoiler: It's all Cyber and Data.
Govt Manufacturing Recruitment Drive (2 min read) Worth watching if you're in the industrial tech space. If this model works, expect it to roll out to broader IT sectors soon.