Insights

A blog for leaders who care about recruiting and retaining the next generation of talent.

The Rise of the AI Generalist: How to Adapt Your Entry-Level Hiring Strategy to Hire Difference-Makers
Aug 26, 2025

If you lead early-career hiring, you’re probably bracing for tougher conversations with your CFO. In most industries, hiring targets are getting smaller, budgets are tightening, and the instinct might be to scale back entry-level hiring. After all, if AI is automating more of the “starter” work, do you still need as many junior hires?

Ushering in a New Era at RippleMatch: Building the Future of Hiring
Aug 18, 2025

Three years ago, I chose to join RippleMatch because I felt an immediate connection to its mission of expanding access to opportunity. I saw a product and a team with the potential to fundamentally change how hiring works in today’s world, making it fairer, faster, smarter, and more human. My own journey began in another country at a school few people here had ever heard of, so joining the leadership team of a New York-based tech startup felt like a major milestone in my career. I had worked hard to get to that point, but I also had quite a bit of luck along the way. I was fortunate enough to cross paths with some amazing people who helped me push my career and life forward in ways I never thought were possible. To me, RippleMatch has always felt like a way to pass some of that luck forward and help others access the kind of opportunity that changed my own life.

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Outstanding Leader Spotlight: Kathy Bowman
Kate Beckman
RippleMatch is proud to recognize Kathy Bowman, the Talent Acquisition Manager of Program Management at Catalina, as an Outstanding Leader in the Campus Recruiting Community!
RippleMatch at NACE22: See You This June in Portland
RippleMatch
RippleMatch is proud to be making its way to Portland this summer to participate in NACE22, the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ annual conference for college career services and corporate recruiting professionals. As sponsors of the conference, you’ll spot us everywhere from manning our booth in the Expo Hall, to taking the stage to present our latest benchmarking data on Gen Z. We are very excited to see you there!
8 Common Misconceptions About Early Career Hiring
RippleMatch
You may have heard that early career talent is becoming an increasingly crucial talent pool, but who exactly are these candidates, and do you really need to tailor your recruiting strategies to interest them in your company?
7 Unique Challenges to Crafting an Early Career Hiring Strategy
RippleMatch
While recruiting for any role at a company can be tough in today’s tight labor market, early career hiring has its own unique set of challenges. The way that you attract, evaluate, and ultimately hire entry-level employees will likely differ from your approach to recruiting more experienced professionals. As you develop your early career hiring strategy, here are some of the main challenges you may encounter (and some of our recommended solutions).
Program Innovator Spotlight: Ashley Wodarek, Senior Campus Recruiter, MKS Instruments
Kate Beckman
RippleMatch is proud to spotlight Ashely Wodarek as a Program Innovator! Ashley Wodarek is currently a Senior Campus Recruiter at MKS Instruments leading the recruitment and program design for its Graduate Internship Program on a global scale (North America, EMEA, and APAC regions). This is far from Ashley’s first award in the early career talent space —-she has been a consistent achiever and role model since the start of her career, and was nominated by a colleague as a RippleMatch Program Innovator.
50 Recruitment Event Ideas to Attract Top Gen Z Talent
Kate Beckman
Recruitment events are a critical component of any campus recruitment strategy — and benefit both recruiters and candidates alike. Events allow recruiters to meet and engage with top candidates either in-person or virtually, and help candidates learn more about your company and get excited about starting a career in your industry. They open the door for you to connect with candidates and follow up with resources and applications, and give candidates a friendly, human connection to your company who they can feel comfortable reaching out to with any questions or concerns they might be grappling with.
Outstanding Leader Spotlight: Kayla Woitkowski–Director, Early Career Talent Acquisition, SAS
Kate Beckman
RippleMatch is proud to recognize Kayla Woitkowski, Director of Early Career Talent Acquisition at SAS, as an Outstanding Leader in the Campus Recruiting Community! Kayla has spent the majority of her career honing her skills as an early career recruitment specialist in the tech/software industry. She has over a decade of progressive experience, including strategy development for an award-winning intern program, university and diversity outreach strategy development and execution, recruitment technology implementation, data driven decisioning, global UR consulting, and a dedication to developing team members to achieve their full potential.
100 Reasons Why Our Employees Love RippleMatch
Kate Beckman
When I started at RippleMatch in March 2021, I was the 46th employee to be added to our thriving company Slack channel. Since then, I have watched our exceptional team expand nearly as fast as our product has grown. And while there’s a lot of change happening here at RippleMatch, one thing has remained the same: the environment is one that makes everyone feel valued and celebrated, and everyone is motivated to make a difference for job seekers and employers everywhere.
What Gen Z Workplace Values Say About the Future of Company Culture
RippleMatch
As employers navigate new working models in the wake of COVID-19 — such as remote-first, fully on-site, or hybrid — showcasing company culture to prospective employees has been more challenging than ever. Recent research from RippleMatch’s What Gen Z Wants report shows that company culture remains a key factor in the Gen Z job search, indicated by the value that these candidates place on work-life balance, a sense of community at work, and how companies have supported employees’ well-being during the pandemic. Our data further illustrates that company culture is not only helpful for recruiting new talent, but also for retaining interns for full-time positions after graduation.
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