---
title: "Recruiting Brainfood with Hung Lee | SocialTalent"
description: "Hung Lee warns email deliverability is a permanent asset, noting a healthy spam complaint rate sits at two per ten thousand messages before reputation suffers."
url: "https://www.socialtalent.com/podcasts/recruiting-brainfood-with-hung-lee"
last_modified: "2026-07-21T11:46:24+00:00"
---

The Hiring Excellence Podcast **· Episode 9**

# Recruiting Brainfood with Hung Lee

Hung Lee curates the week's most actionable recruiting insights—from Gartner's nine post-COVID workplace trends to why your email domain is your most valuable asset. Learn what separates signal from noise in talent acquisition.

![Johnny Campbell](https://www.socialtalent.com/wp-content/themes/socialtalent-v3/src/posts/post-podcast/img/johnny-avatar.png) **Johnny Campbell** Host · Co-founder & CEO, SocialTalent

Listen on [Apple](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hiring-excellence-with-johnny-campbell/id1522711595) [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/4z0PfHNk1Dtek9IVlSWnOd) [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/social-talent/)

What you'll learn

Explain your search process instead of just handing over candidates

Schedule demanding tasks around your energy rather than the clock

Remove unopened-email subscribers after about ten sends to protect deliverability

Anticipate employers hiring less if welfare obligations keep expanding

Now playing

## Recruiting Brainfood with Hung Lee

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Episode notes

## Episode key takeaways

Employers are expanding their role beyond traditional employment into social safety nets—health, education, and community support. The risk: if this obligation becomes untenable, companies may respond by hiring fewer full-time employees and shifting to contingent or offshore models, creating a secondary pressure on the labour market that few are discussing.

Recruiters have a credibility problem, not a value problem. When a CEO can publicly mock the profession without backlash, it signals that the industry has failed to articulate its work. The antidote isn't defensive outrage; it's showing the pain—the market research, the failed placements, the hours invested—before presenting candidates.

Email deliverability is a permanent asset, not a transaction. A healthy spam complaint rate sits at two per ten thousand messages; anything higher degrades sender reputation globally. Recruiters who treat their domain like a builder treats tools—maintained, protected, never neglected—preserve their most critical outreach channel.

Energy management beats time management for knowledge workers. Hung emphasizes that scheduling high-stakes work (business development, strategic hiring) during peak energy hours, not arbitrary calendar slots, multiplies output. Larks and owls have fundamentally different productivity curves; forcing both into 9-to-5 wastes talent.

Rest is a productivity input, not a luxury. Eliminating screens two hours before sleep and protecting seven-plus hours of uninterrupted rest directly improves focus and decision quality the next day. The remote-work shift has revealed this: many professionals discovered they need more sleep than office culture allowed them to take.

Good to know

## Frequently asked questions

The quick answers behind this episode.

What are the nine Gartner future of work trends post-COVID? +

Gartner identified: increased remote working, expanded data collection, contingent worker expansion, expanded employer role as social safety net, separation of critical skills and roles, humanisation or de-humanisation of employees, emergence of new top-tier employers, transition from designing for efficiency to designing for resilience, and increased organisational complexity. The research reflects recruiter and HR sentiment, offering a strong summary rather than novel insight.

Why do recruiters struggle with brand and differentiation? +

The staffing industry operates on contingency economics: recruiters work on 80% of jobs unpaid. This systemic pressure incentivises shortcuts and volume over brand-building. When bad recruitment can still be profitable, there’s no market force pushing agencies to invest in storytelling, positioning, or value articulation—only to close placements.

What email metrics should recruiters monitor? +

After ten unopened emails, the open rate on the eleventh drops to 2%; after fourteen, it’s 1%. Remove non-engaged subscribers immediately to protect sender reputation. Maintain a spam complaint rate below two per ten thousand messages. Protect your email domain like a builder protects tools—it’s your permanent outreach asset.

How should recruiters schedule high-impact work? +

Align demanding tasks—business development, strategic hiring—to your peak energy hours, not arbitrary time slots. Larks peak before 9 a.m.; owls peak late afternoon and evening. Minimise interruptions during focus work by batching communication. Rest and sleep quality directly improve next-day decision-making and output.

Why does recruitment timing not fit the 9-to-5 model? +

Candidates cannot take calls or answer emails during work hours, yet recruiters operate standard office hours—creating a structural mismatch. Effective recruitment scheduling would shift to early morning and evening windows when prospects are available. Remote work enables this flexibility; asynchronous workflows should follow.

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