The Human Element

What if AI could make HR faster, clearer, and more human?

In this episode of The Human Element, David Hanrahan, SVP of People Success at SolarWinds (formerly of Eventbrite, Twitter, and Niantic), breaks down where AI is already paying off across the people lifecycle—and what’s next.

David shares how SolarWinds is piloting HR chatbots to deflect high-volume, low-complexity questions, freeing teams for higher-value work. In recruiting, he explains how AI is reshaping sourcing, screening, and scheduling so recruiters operate as true talent advisors, plus why AI-generated interview summaries (like in Greenhouse) are raising hiring quality.

He then paints a future-state candidate experience—frictionless, transparent, and surprisingly more human—with real-time status visibility, smart nudges, and a “virtual recruiter” guiding the process. Post-hire, he dives into how AI can assist with performance management: writing assistants inside the HRIS, signal aggregation across tools, and manager “nudges” that enable timely coaching without the annual review scramble.

David closes with the one AI tool he’d keep and shares a simple cadence to stay sharp: “One demo a week.”

Show Notes

Guest: David Hanrahan, SVP of People Success at SolarWinds
Host: Barb Bidan, host of The Human Element

Key Takeaways

• Automate tier-one HR tickets with chat and give employees instant, policy-accurate answers.
• Elevate recruiters by using AI for sourcing/screening so they can advise, pitch, and close.
• Deploy AI-generated summaries for interviews and engagement comments to surface real themes.
• Redesign the candidate experience to be status-rich, nudge-driven, and supported by a virtual recruiter.
• Implement AI-assisted performance workflows that aggregate signals and prompt timely manager feedback.
• Build an AI learning habit: evaluate one new tool or demo every week to inform your roadmap.

Timestamps

[00:45] – Guest intro: David Hanrahan’s path and mandate at SolarWinds
[01:02] – Automating tier-1 HR inquiries with chatbots inside the HRIS
[03:55] – AI in recruiting: from sourcing and screening to the recruiter-as-talent-advisor model
[06:21] – Scheduling automation and AI-generated interview summaries (e.g., Greenhouse)
[09:22] – The future candidate journey: faster, transparent, and more human
[11:01] – Status visibility, recruiter/candidate nudges, and the “virtual recruiter”
[13:46] – Post-hire: AI writing assistants and an “omniscient” performance view
[16:06] – Persistent performance feedback: manager nudges and better coaching
[18:31] – Personal stack: how ChatGPT changes exec workflows
[20:15] – One tool to keep: AI comment summaries in engagement surveys
[22:14] – Advice to HR leaders: book a weekly 30-minute AI demo

Transcription

Barb Bidan:
Welcome to The Human Element, presented by Wisq. I’m Barb Bidan. In each episode, I sit down with CHROs and senior HR leaders to explore how AI innovation and human insight are reshaping the future of HR. We’ll share stories, practical ideas, and strategic perspectives to help you lead what’s next.

The Human Element is brought to you by Wisq — the leader in agentic HR and creator of Harper, the world’s first AI HR Generalist. Learn how Harper can resolve up to 80 percent of routine HR tasks autonomously at wisq.com.

Joining me today is David Hanrahan, Senior Vice President of People Success at SolarWinds. David has led culture change at Eventbrite, scaled teams through hypergrowth at Twitter and Niantic, and is helping SolarWinds bring AI into HR to unlock human potential. David, welcome to The Human Element.

David Hanrahan:
Thanks, Barb. It’s great to see you. I’m excited to talk about this topic. There are so many changes happening right now in HR because of AI. It feels like we’re at a turning point.

I’ll start with a question I often ask people on my team: what’s one HR problem you wish AI could solve that felt impossible a couple of years ago? For us, there are a lot, but one clear example is the volume of inbound requests we get.

Our People Success team might receive a thousand emails on a single topic — for example, contractors. “How do I bring on a contractor? What’s the process? Who approves it?” Traditionally, those messages go into an inbox or a ticket queue. Someone has to track them, respond, and follow up. It takes a lot of time, and most of the questions are routine. There’s already a policy or a clear answer.

So we started piloting a chatbot inside our HRIS. It can handle those high-volume, low-complexity questions automatically. It creates real-time visibility for employees and saves hours for the HR team. Instead of digging through emails about benefits or payroll, the team can focus on strategic projects and coaching leaders.

Barb Bidan:
That is such a smart use case. You can feel the excitement on HR teams when they see what automation can free them up to do.

David Hanrahan:
Exactly. And since we both come from talent acquisition backgrounds, let’s talk about recruiting. That’s where AI is moving fastest right now.

Recruiting represents over half of the HCM tech landscape. Every part of the process — sourcing, screening, scheduling, and assessment — is being reimagined with AI.

Take sourcing. It involves mining huge amounts of public data and profiles, something AI is naturally good at. If a role has an addressable market of a million people, or even a thousand for a local job, that’s an impossible load for a recruiter to manually process.

AI tools can analyze that data and narrow a thousand profiles to fifty and then to ten qualified candidates. They deliver a shortlist to the recruiter or hiring manager in minutes.

That lets recruiters move into a true talent-advisor role. Instead of spending hours searching, they can spend time advising hiring managers, understanding team needs, and shaping the process strategically.

We’re also seeing AI support scheduling and assessment. At SolarWinds, we’re experimenting with AI-generated interview summaries. Tools like Greenhouse can now pull together all the interviewers’ notes and generate a concise summary — what went well, what concerns were raised, and key themes. That helps the team make more consistent decisions and see patterns they might otherwise miss.

Barb Bidan:
That makes so much sense. Humans tend to focus on one stand-out moment in an interview, but AI can surface the themes that really matter. It’s an excellent example of technology making recruiting both faster and fairer.

When you think about the future candidate experience, what do you imagine it will look like a few years from now?

David Hanrahan:
I think it’s going to be faster, clearer, and more human — which might sound surprising.

Today, the candidate journey is still pretty clunky. You upload a résumé, then have to re-enter all the same information. You might get an automated confirmation, and then radio silence for weeks. Out of nowhere, someone reaches out again. It’s inconsistent, and it doesn’t feel good.

AI can help fix that.

First, it will make the process frictionless. The experience should feel as seamless as ordering a ride or tracking a package. Everything — application, communication, and updates — should be connected.

Second, AI can improve transparency. Candidates will be able to see exactly where they are in the process: “Your résumé is under review,” “Your interview is being scheduled,” or “You’re awaiting feedback.”

And finally, it will make the experience more human. Not because humans are replaced, but because they’re freed to focus on connection. Imagine a virtual recruiter that gives updates, answers questions, and keeps candidates informed.

Recruiters will spend less time on repetitive communication and more on building relationships. AI can make the process more efficient and empathetic at the same time.

Barb Bidan:
I love that framing — faster, clearer, and more human. If we can make the candidate experience better, we also improve the recruiter experience. They get to focus on the parts of the job that require real judgment and creativity.

Let’s move beyond recruiting for a moment. Once someone joins the company, where do you see AI having the biggest impact on the employee experience?

David Hanrahan:
Performance management is a big one.

We’re starting to roll out a module in our HRIS that includes a writing assistant. One key use case is helping managers write performance reviews — making them clearer, more balanced, and more consistent.

Performance management is really a synthesis problem. There are all these different data points: self-reviews, peer feedback, one-on-one notes, project documentation, messages in collaboration tools. It’s too much for a manager to process alone.

AI can aggregate that information and surface what matters.

I think the future is an “omniscient” view of performance — a single lens that combines multiple signals to help managers and employees have better conversations.

And it’s not about surveillance or replacing human judgment. It’s about awareness. We’ve all seen situations where a manager says, “This person isn’t performing,” but when you dig deeper, you realize the employee never got direct feedback. Not because the manager was unwilling, but because they were stretched too thin.

AI can help prevent that. It can send a gentle nudge: “It’s been a while since this person received feedback,” or “This person may be struggling with communication on a recent project.”

Those reminders help managers be more proactive and intentional, which leads to better coaching and better performance outcomes overall.

Barb Bidan:
We could do an entire episode just on that. AI-driven performance management has so much potential to make feedback fairer and more timely.

It’s good for the company, but it’s also good for employees. Continuous feedback is so much healthier than once-a-year reviews.

Before we wrap up, let’s do a quick lightning round.

What’s one AI tool you personally use every week that saves you time?

David Hanrahan:
ChatGPT, hands down.

A year ago, if I needed to prepare for a conversation or come up with a framework, I would Google it or ask peers for examples. Now, I start with a prompt.

If I’m about to talk with a leader about organizational design, I’ll ask ChatGPT for best practices or examples of how other companies structure teams of a certain size or scale. It gives me a foundation to work from, and it helps me go into those conversations more prepared and confident.

It’s not replacing critical thinking, but it’s accelerating it. I still compare ideas with colleagues and use my own judgment, but it makes me sharper, faster.

Barb Bidan:
If you could only keep one AI tool in your HR tech stack, what would it be?

David Hanrahan:
It would be the AI comment summaries in our engagement survey platform.

When you run engagement surveys, you get a lot of open-ended responses. Reading through all of those takes a huge amount of time. AI can summarize those comments, highlight themes, and connect them to quantitative data.

It’s incredibly powerful. We can see, for example, that people are happy with communication in one department but frustrated with workload in another. Those insights help us act faster and smarter. It’s one of those tools that immediately shows value.

Barb Bidan:
That’s a great example. And it brings us back to what we talked about earlier — how AI can help HR teams focus more on the human side of the work.

Instead of sorting through endless comments or tickets, we can spend our time coaching, developing, and connecting with people.

One last question. What advice would you give HR leaders who are just starting their AI journey?

David Hanrahan:
Take the demo.

Seriously. Every week, set aside thirty minutes to explore a new AI tool. Watch a demo, try it, or just read about how others are using it.

That habit keeps you sharp and helps you build intuition about what’s possible. It’s how I stay current. There’s so much happening, and the best way to learn is to see it in action.

Barb Bidan:
I love that — a weekly AI workout.

David, thank you so much for sharing your insights today.

And thank you to everyone listening.

You’ve been hearing The Human Element, presented by Wisq. Follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I’m Barb Bidan. Thanks for listening, and see you next time.