In honor of HR Day 2025, explore 17 essential books empowering recruiters and HR leaders to elevate volume hiring with purpose.
Every year, HR Day shines a spotlight on the professionals who build, shape, and elevate the workforce. In 2025, we’re celebrating the recruiters who take on one of the most complex challenges in the talent landscape: volume hiring.
In today’s fast-moving job market, recruiters aren’t just filling roles. They are brand ambassadors, strategic decision-makers, data interpreters, and above all, people connectors. Managing hundreds or even thousands of applicants requires not just strong systems, but stronger minds. And that’s where continuous learning comes in.
Whether you’re an early-career recruiter or a seasoned HR leader, the following book list will sharpen your ability to hire smarter, faster, and more human.
HR Day 2025 Theme
This year’s theme, ‘Humanify AI: Leading change together,’ puts the spotlight on how HR teams can blend technology with empathy, automation with authenticity, and efficiency with ethics.
AI is transforming hiring processes. But without a strong human foundation, automation can lead to bias, alienation, and poor culture fits. Volume hiring in particular can become mechanical if not rooted in human insight.
These 17 books empower recruiters and HR leaders to keep the human element alive, even when using the most advanced tools. From building predictive hiring models to reducing unconscious bias, they offer practical ways to lead change together in the age of AI.
17 Must-Read Books for Volume Hiring Recruiters
Spanning themes like candidate experience, data-driven hiring, bias reduction, and leadership, each book brings valuable insight. Dive in to hire smarter and lead better.
1. 'Who: The A Method for Hiring' by Geoff Smart and Randy Street
This book delivers a repeatable hiring method grounded in behavioral interviewing. Geoff Smart is a top talent advisor to Fortune 500 CEOs, and his co-author Randy Street brings operational clarity to their famous “A Method.” A must-have if you’re scaling your recruitment process.
2. 'AI Revolution in HRM – The New Scorecard' by Ashwani Kumar Upadhyay, Komal Khandelwal, and Jayanthi Iyengar
AI Revolution in HRM explores how artificial intelligence is transforming the HR landscape from recruitment to employee development. It addresses challenges like bias, data privacy, and upskilling with real-world examples, helping recruiters and HR leaders implement AI tools effectively and ethically. A must-read for those navigating high-volume hiring while striving to maintain a human-centered approach in an increasingly automated world.
3. 'Hiring for Attitude' by Mark Murphy
Instead of focusing only on resumes, this book teaches you to spot the traits that actually predict performance. Mark Murphy, a leadership expert and founder of Leadership IQ, shares how the right attitude can beat the right skills in volume hiring.
4. 'High Velocity Hiring' by Scott Wintrip
Ideal for recruiters in high-demand industries, Wintrip introduces a just-in-time hiring system that drastically reduces vacancy time. His sales background brings a fresh, actionable perspective to talent acquisition.
5. 'Topgrading' by Brad Smart
Used by GE and other top firms, this book introduces rigorous screening techniques to identify high performers. Brad Smart‘s Topgrading method is time-consuming but powerful when hiring in bulk for impact roles.
6. 'Recruit Rockstars' by Jeff Hyman
Jeff Hyman has recruited for over 25 years. His book feels like a behind-the-scenes playbook for identifying, attracting, and retaining A-players. Bonus: He offers scripts and email templates for real-world use.
7. 'Work Rules!' by Laszlo Bock
As Google’s former SVP of People Operations, Bock gives rare insights into what makes great hiring tick at scale. He combines storytelling with data to show how you can humanize recruitment while keeping it tech-savvy.
8. 'How to Hire A-Players' by Eric Herrenkohl
Herrenkohl targets leaders in growing companies. His frameworks help teams with limited recruiting capacity make strong hires quickly and repeatedly. Especially useful for recruiters handling internal volume hiring projects.
9. 'The Best Team Wins' by Adam Robinson
Robinson dives into predictive analytics to build hiring systems that reduce mis-hires. The book is accessible even if you’re new to data and shows how structured processes create better teams.
10. 'The Robot-Proof Recruiter' by Katrina Collier
With automation everywhere, this book reminds us how vital it is to be human. Collier, a well-known voice in recruitment, blends personal stories with best practices to help you build trust with candidates, even in high-volume campaigns.
11. 'Talent Wins' by Ram Charan, Dominic Barton, and Dennis Carey
This is a leadership-level view of talent strategy. It discusses how CEOs, CHROs, and recruiters must work together to treat talent as a business-critical function, especially when hiring at scale.
12. Hiring Success' by Jerome Ternynck
Ternynck, the founder of SmartRecruiters, lays out a new model where recruitment is seen as a revenue-driving function. It’s a smart read for HR leaders looking to prove ROI on their talent strategies.
13. 'The Talent Delusion' by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
This book digs into the psychology behind hiring. Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology, critiques outdated hiring beliefs and replaces them with research-backed approaches.
14. 'Social Media Recruitment' by Andy Headworth
If you’re not already leveraging Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok for hiring, this book is your gateway. Headworth shows how to meet candidates where they are, with tactics for both paid and organic reach.
15. 'Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us' by Daniel H. Pink
Though not directly about hiring, this book explains what truly drives people. A recruiter who understands intrinsic motivation can craft offers and roles that actually retain top talent.
16. 'Decisive' by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
The Heath brothers, Chip and Dan, explore how to make better decisions. Their framework helps recruiters avoid tunnel vision when dealing with high volumes of similar-looking resumes.
17. 'The HR Scorecard' by Dave Ulrich, Brian E. Becker, and Mark A. Huselid
This influential book bridges the gap between HR practices and business performance. Ulrich and his co-authors introduce a framework that helps HR professionals quantify their impact and align talent strategies with company goals. For recruiters managing volume hiring, it offers a strategic lens to show how hiring quality talent at scale directly contributes to bottom-line results.
Final Thoughts
On HR Day 2025, we’re not just celebrating systems, metrics, or technology. We’re celebrating the humans behind hiring. Recruiters and HR leaders who make hundreds of choices every day, knowing that each one can impact a life or a business.
This book list is your toolkit to stay sharp, stay human, and lead change together.
Happy HR Day 2025!
