(Editor’s note: The information from this article by Top Echelon Recruiting Software has been taken from an Expert Recruiter Coaching Series webinar by Henna Pryor titled, “The Power of AI: Using Next-Level Strategies to Bring the Human Edge to Staffing” Click HERE to watch the video of that training webinar for free.)

At a time when nearly every recruiter feels pressed for speed—more calls, more submissions, more touchpoints—Henna Pryor is arguing for something that sounds almost countercultural: slow down just enough to get sharper.

In a recent Top Echelon webinar introduced by host Todd (who called her “science backed and refreshingly honest”), Pryor delivered a practical framework for using generative AI not just to crank out more messages, but to become better in the moments that matter most, when a conversation gets tense, when expectations aren’t aligned, and when saying the honest thing feels risky.

Pryor, a former staffing professional with 14 years at Kforce spanning both permanent placement and contract hiring, didn’t position herself as an outsider lecturing the industry. She positioned herself as someone who grew up in it and who, for most of her career, didn’t have the luxury of “winning on brute hours and force alone.”

“I was uninterested in playing the game on pure effort and force,” she said. “I was very interested in what are those levers that I can pull that will make me even more effective at my job.”

Right now, she believes one of the biggest levers is AI. But not in the simplistic “use it to fix grammar” way most professionals have already adopted. Her argument is that recruiters and salespeople are facing a deeper, quieter crisis: we’re more connected than ever, yet less aligned than we think, and we’re avoiding the conversations that create clarity.

The AI Maturity Question Recruiters Can’t Dodge

Early in the session, Pryor referenced a Harvard Business Review “AI maturity pyramid” to help attendees self-assess where they fall. The point wasn’t to label people as behind or ahead. It was to prompt an honest inventory of how seriously they are engaging with a tool that is rapidly becoming unavoidable.

“This is where everybody kind of needs to get at because you don’t get to not use AI,” she said. “AI is here and if you’re not using it, it’s using you.”

Her framing was simple: most people are somewhere on a maturity ladder that starts with basic AI knowledge (understanding what it is and how to use it responsibly), rises to mindset (curiosity and experimentation), then skill building (using tools daily in ways that matter), and culminates in leadership (using AI strategically to innovate and guide others through change).

For recruiters, the maturity question isn’t academic. It’s about relevance. AI is already embedded in CRMs, sourcing platforms, marketing tools, and communication workflows. But Pryor’s central thesis was that the biggest opportunity isn’t efficiency. Instead, it’s effectiveness.

And effectiveness, in recruiting and staffing, still lives and dies inside conversations.

When Touchpoints Create a False Sense of Closeness

Pryor described a scenario that almost every recruiter recognizes: you’re in constant contact with a candidate or client: emails, LinkedIn messages, quick check-ins, post-interview follow-ups. It feels like momentum. It feels like you’re “tight.”

Then you get on a live call and realize something unsettling: you’ve been talking a lot, but you haven’t really been connecting. The relationship is active, but the alignment is missing.

She shared a recent example from her own work: a week full of email, Slack, and text exchanges with a frequent collaborator, followed by a face-to-face conversation that revealed they’d been circling the real issue the entire time.

Her takeaway was blunt: recruiters often “mistake frequency for depth.”

In staffing, being responsive is a point of pride. We answer fast, follow up quickly, send the note, keep the plates spinning. But Pryor drew a clear line between being quick and being clear.

“Being quick isn’t the same thing as being connected and clear,” she said. “We’re great at exchanging information. We are less practiced at having the hard conversations… where we speak up or we name something that needs to be said in order to move something forward.”

When recruiters don’t name what’s actually happening beneath the surface—misaligned expectations, fading interest, unrealistic timelines, or confusing signals—relationships can become artificially “smooth.” The conversation stays polite. The cadence remains. But truth is deferred.

And deferred truth creates fragility.

Artificial Intimacy and the Silence That Kills Momentum

One of Pryor’s most memorable concepts was her warning about what she called “the other AI”: artificial intimacy.

We have more tools than ever to stay in touch: messaging platforms, meeting tools, collaboration apps, AI-powered CRMs, AI-powered everything. Yet Pryor argued that these tools can accidentally train us to avoid the very interactions that build trust.

“We’ve gotten so good at staying in touch that we’ve forgotten how to stay in the harder conversations,” she said.

Artificial intimacy looks like connection but feels hollow. It signals harmony but doesn’t build honesty. It’s the email thread that stays active while the real issue remains unnamed. It’s the polite update that avoids the hard truth. It’s the steady drip of messages that create a false sense of closeness.

The danger isn’t simply that hard conversations are avoided. The danger is what fills the gap: assumptions.

“When a hiring manager stops replying, we assume alignment,” Pryor said. “Or when a candidate ghosts, we assume disinterest.”

Her point: silence isn’t neutral.

“Silence isn’t neutral,” she said. “It’s a stop sign for trust, momentum and forward motion.”

In recruiting, silence can be a symptom of confusion, discouragement, dissatisfaction, overwhelm, fear of conflict, or competing priorities. Treating it as “fine” is often how small gaps become large breakdowns.

Social Muscle Atrophy: a Hidden Performance Leak

Pryor’s warning got even sharper when she introduced research from her team on what she calls “social muscle atrophy,” which is the gradual weakening of social skills due to fewer meaningful interactions, limited stimulation, and less real-world practice.

She was careful to clarify that this isn’t about being shy or introverted. She described herself as neither. Social atrophy is a broader cultural phenomenon reinforced by modern convenience: hybrid workplaces, on-demand delivery, constant texting, fewer spontaneous conversations, and the strain of navigating five generations at work simultaneously.

Most professionals, especially recruiters, will push back instinctively: “I talk to people all day.” Pryor’s reply is that many people are in practice with touchpoints, but out of practice with courageous conversations.

Her most striking statistic landed like a gut punch:

“Our study found that one in three employees would rather scrub a toilet than ask for help at work.”

In staffing terms, social muscle atrophy shows up in quiet but costly ways:

• A recruiter senses the hiring manager’s expectations are unrealistic, but doesn’t say so.

• An account manager notices candidate feedback is trending negative, but doesn’t surface it early.

• A recruiter hears a red flag from a candidate, but avoids probing because it might “rock the boat.”

• A client relationship manager sees misalignment on comp or schedule, but “waits to see what happens.”

This avoidance creates what Pryor called a “slow leak in performance.” The work keeps moving, but results degrade.

And that is where she believes AI can help, not by replacing conversations, but by preparing people to have them.

Level 1 AI vs. Level 2 AI

Pryor acknowledged that most people in the webinar were already using AI in “Level 1” ways:

• Cleaning up emails for grammar, typos, and spelling

• Summarizing meeting notes

• Drafting basic follow-ups

Those uses are fine, she said, but they don’t address the real bottleneck: the human hesitation to confront tension with clarity.

“Today, we’re going to talk about level two,” she said. “How do we use the technology to strengthen the social muscle we need to constructively challenge?”

Recruiters, she argued, tend to react to tension with one of two instincts:

• Rush: send the short email or text, trying to move quickly past friction

• Retreat: avoid the conversation entirely

AI can help reverse that pattern by creating space to prepare, so the recruiter can show up steadier, clearer, and more intentional.

Her method is not “rehearse your lines like a robot.” It’s closer to training: practice the mindset, explore the risks, anticipate the pushback, and strengthen your ability to stay calm.

“Deliberate performance means choosing to prepare,” she said. “You’re going to ready yourself with the help of AI and it’s still on you eventually to step into the moment.”

What Won’t Change: the Human Need Beneath Every Placement

Before giving specific use cases, Pryor offered a grounding principle: amid rapid technological change, recruiters should start asking not “what’s changing?” but “what won’t change?”

Her answer: people will still need to feel seen, heard, and understood.

“Staffing is a human game,” she said. “We are wired for it at a cave person level.”

That perspective reframes AI as an amplifier, not a replacement. The goal isn’t to be “high tech or high touch.” It’s to be both.

“It’s not about high tech or high touch,” Pryor said. “It’s about high tech and high touch. It doesn’t make you more human, but it does make you more aware of where your humanity is needed.”

From there, she moved into two practical use cases that recruiters can apply immediately.

Use case #1: Simulate Difficult Conversations, Then Show Up

Pryor’s first recommendation was straightforward: use AI as a role-playing partner to practice hard conversations before you have them.

She framed it in a way every recruiter understands: mentally rehearsing a tough conversation 15 times, then still walking away thinking, “That didn’t go the way I planned.”

AI, she said, can offer “courage reps,” which is a safe scrimmage before the real game.

“AI gives us courage reps,” she explained, “the chance to practice naming discomfort in a safe scrimmage before the real game.”

She offered a three-step approach:

1. Organize your thinking.
   Tell the AI what’s happening, with detail. Ask it to help outline a calm, clear way to express your concern.

2. Anticipate emotional responses.
   Ask what might trigger defensiveness and how to adjust language so it lands better.

3. Practice the pushback.
   Ask AI to play out a version where the other person disagrees, then practice responding “respectfully, but firmly.”

This matters, Pryor argued, because the worst time to figure out what to say is the moment you need to say it.

“The most successful professionals practice before high stakes conversations,” she said. “The worst time to think about what you want to say is in the moment that you need to say it.”

For recruiters, this can apply to:

• Negotiating offer pushback

• Naming unrealistic client expectations

• Addressing repeated interview delays

• Delivering hard feedback to a candidate

• Resetting boundaries with a demanding stakeholder

The AI isn’t having the conversation for you, it’s helping you be more prepared when you do.

Use Case #2: AI-Assisted Empathy and Perspective Taking

Pryor’s second use case was her favorite: using AI to step into someone else’s shoes before a conversation.

Everyone “knows” empathy is important, she said. But under pressure, most people wing it. They do a mental rehearsal in the car and hope it goes well.

“Influence starts with understanding,” she said. “AI can help you see multiple viewpoints, a 360 view before responding.”

Her three-step approach:

1. Prompt different perspectives.
   Ask AI to act as a skeptical client, a stressed hiring manager, a disengaged candidate, or a frustrated teammate.

2. Practice multiple scenarios, not just the ideal one.
   Pryor recommended running three versions:

   • Easy mode: they agree immediately

   • Realistic mode: they push back hard

   • Uh-oh mode: they misunderstand your point entirely

3. Debrief and adjust.
   Ask what worked, what triggered resistance, and how to close stronger.

She also noted this can be done in real time, or with a recorded call (with permission) or an email thread pasted into the tool for analysis. Done well, it helps recruiters identify blind spots and build an empathy map without needing a psychology degree.

She emphasized a caution: this isn’t about stereotyping people. It’s about leveraging patterns in human behavior so you can choose your approach intentionally.

A Live Demo: Why a Hiring Manager Might Say ‘Not Now’

To make the concept tangible, Pryor demonstrated a prompt that recruiters can copy instantly:

“Act as a time-pressed hiring manager. What would make you say ‘not now’ to this submittal email below?”

The email was a typical candidate submission full of positive descriptors and resume-like bullets. The AI’s feedback generated a rich set of critiques and improvements that Pryor argued many recruiters wouldn’t naturally think of in the moment.

Key insights included:

• The opening lacked a clear hook or differentiator.

• The email read like pasted resume bullets, not a tailored note.

• There was no company-specific context.

• The structure lacked narrative flow.

• Some elements made the candidate feel transactional.

What mattered wasn’t whether the AI was “right” about everything. Pryor even said she would ignore some suggestions (like removing salary details) because staffing realities sometimes require that information.

The value was the perspective shift: the AI helped translate “here’s everything I’ve ever done” into what a hiring manager actually wants: “here’s exactly how I’ll solve your current problem.”

The One Conversation Challenge

As a practical call to action, Pryor issued a challenge for the week: run one role-play with AI—client or candidate—and ask for three versions of the response:

• Cooperative response

• Resistant response

• Distracted response (half paying attention)

Then watch your own reactions:

• Where do you stay calm?

• Where do you scramble?

• What adjustments would help you stay sharper?

Her line captured the philosophy perfectly:

“If you want to be good on the fly, you need to be good ahead of the fly.”

A Final Warning: Tech Moments vs. Trust Moments

Near the end of the session, Pryor delivered a simple decision framework recruiters can use daily: every interaction requires a choice.

Is this a tech moment, where speed and precision matter? Or is it a trust moment, where honesty and connection matter more?

If you treat a trust moment like a tech moment—by automating, shortening, or avoiding—you may keep the process moving, but you weaken the relationship underneath it.

“AI can’t fix distance,” she said, “but it helps you see clearly.”

Her closing message was that AI can optimize process, but it cannot automate sincerity or courage. Only people can rebuild trust, repair relationships, and step into constructive challenge.

“The goal is not to outpace technology,” she said. “It is to outgrow avoidance.”

Or, as she put it in a line that sounded like a rallying cry for a relationship-driven industry entering a tech-saturated era:

“One hand on the keyboard, one hand on someone’s shoulders.”

Q&A: Free vs. Paid, Writing Voice, and When AI is ‘Garbagey’

The Q&A portion added practical nuance recruiters often want: what tools to use, whether to pay, and where AI actually helps versus hurts.

When asked whether the demo prompt worked because of a “trained personal AI,” Pryor said the free version is sufficient for many tasks. The real difference between free and paid versions, in her experience, is memory and personalization.

With the paid version (she uses ChatGPT at $20/month), she no longer has to repeat tone instructions. The system learns her preferences over time.

“I no longer need to tell it that I want it to respond in a warm and friendly tone because it has learned that about me,” she explained.

But she cautioned first-time users not to pay immediately. Start with free tools, learn what you like, then upgrade later if the value is clear.

When asked about using AI to generate candidate submission emails, Pryor didn’t sugarcoat it: generic AI output often sounds terrible.

“Not regular AI, no,” she said. “It’s all garbagey, those emails sound terrible.”

Her reasoning was that most general models are trained on “the internet’s writing,” which includes endless examples of low-quality outreach. That doesn’t mean AI can’t help, but it does mean recruiters need message fundamentals to evaluate and improve what they’re given.

“Your success using AI… hinges on you as a human having some fundamental understanding of what makes for a good email,” she said. “If you don’t know that, then you don’t even know how to edit what AI is giving to you.”

She also addressed the idea of teaching AI your voice. Some people upload writing samples; Pryor said she built her system over time, using strong examples as references.

A particularly memorable exchange involved someone saying they wanted AI to learn their voice, but they hadn’t done much writing historically.

“If you haven’t done a lot of writing in the past, then you don’t have a voice for AI to learn,” she said. Her advice: find a few pieces of your best work, upload those as examples, and refine from there.

She gave a personal story about building a “warm, friendly no,” a boundary-setting email for people requesting her time. It took iteration, but once it worked, she saved it and used it as a template going forward.

That, in her view, is how AI becomes genuinely useful: not as a one-click shortcut, but as a tool you train with your judgment and your standards.

Resources: a Course, a Custom GPT, and a Library Card

Pryor wrapped by sharing resources for attendees who wanted more prompts and a deeper framework for persuasive messaging.

She highlighted her “Recruiters Copy Clinic,” a program designed to improve recruiter messaging fundamentals. The course now includes a custom GPT trained on the course content. She offered a discount code (“ROBOHENA”) bringing the price down to $197.

She also pointed attendees to a handout (via QR code) containing the prompts from the session and bonus resources, including a LinkedIn Learning course called “Boosting Influence with Generative AI.”

And in one of the most practical tips of the entire webinar, she reminded attendees that LinkedIn Learning is often free, not only through free trials but also through many public libraries.

“If you have a library card,” she said, “most public libraries offer LinkedIn learning for free.”

The Bigger Takeaway: AI as a Mirror, Not a Mask

Recruiting has always been a human profession disguised as a process profession. Yes, there are workflows, steps, and systems. But placements happen when trust is earned, misalignment is addressed, and conversations are handled with skill.

Pryor’s message wasn’t that AI will make recruiters more human. It was that AI can make recruiters more aware of when their humanity is required and more prepared to deliver it.

Used well, AI becomes a mirror: it reflects how your message might land, where you’re being too generic, where you’re avoiding the uncomfortable truth, where you’re assuming alignment without confirming it.

Used poorly, AI becomes a mask: it creates artificial intimacy, hides discomfort behind polished words, and encourages more activity without more honesty.

The edge in the next era, Pryor argued, will belong to recruiters who can do both: leverage the technology and show up with courage.

“Use AI to support your own courageous conversations,” she urged, “not to skip over them.”

If the staffing industry is entering a future where speed is cheap and automation is everywhere, then perhaps the most valuable thing a recruiter can offer is the one thing that can’t be automated: a real conversation that moves the truth forward.