What's Up with Tech?

Rethinking Tech Hiring With AI

• Evan Kirstel

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A billion-dollar talent marketplace doesn’t happen by accident—it happens when access, scale, and experience come together. We sit down with  Michael Morris the head of Torc at Randstad Digital to unpack how a once-independent platform now matches millions of professionals with work, why the talent market feels like a “teenage” phase, and how AI is reshaping recruiting without removing humans from the loop.

The conversation gets practical fast. Automation now handles the busywork—sourcing, screening, scheduling—so recruiters and hiring managers can focus on what actually drives outcomes: culture fit at the team level, long-term growth, and a great candidate experience. We challenge sacred cows like resumes and rigid job descriptions, and explore how a next-generation marketplace will let customers express needs via prompts, voice, and examples. The result is faster, clearer matching that opens doors for more diverse, AI-enabled talent, from Python developers to marketers fluent in prompt-driven workflows.

We also dig into the skills that matter most as enterprises chase AI readiness. Coding is no longer the bottleneck; user experience and domain fluency separate good from great. That’s why soft skills and communication sit alongside credentials from Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI, and why personalized learning beats one-track training. Whether you’re building a data team in healthcare, prototyping fintech apps, or scaling a platform, the path forward is the same: invest in people, modernize how you describe work, and use AI to upgrade—not replace—the human touch.

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SPEAKER_02:

Hey everyone. Fascinating chat today as we talk about how companies are redefining the way they find, train, and deploy tech talent worldwide with the head of Torque at Ramstart Digital. Mike, how are you?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm great. How are you, Evan?

SPEAKER_02:

Great. Great to have you here. Really intrigued by what you guys are up to. Let's start at the top. How do you describe Torque these days and the role it plays within Ramstart Digital?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, sure. So Torque is a talent marketplace. So for companies, organizations, large enterprises that are looking to find digital talent, Torque is the platform that will match them with that digital talent. So on one end, we have our customers, and then the other end, we've got now a community. To give you a little hit, a little of a preview. So we were Torque was independent a year and a half ago. Say we were roughly 10 million in revenue running through the platform and about 30,000 people on the platform for talent. Today, now that we're part of Ronstadt Digital and we've put all of their digital business inside of us, at least in the North America, we are at um about one and a half billion dollars running through the platform, and we have 3.1 million talent on the platform. So a huge expansion from where uh from where we were when we were acquired about a year and a half ago.

SPEAKER_02:

Fantastic. And we're in this uh moment where there's a race for AI skills. Uh traditional recruiting models are being turned upside down. Um so why is this the right strategic home for Torque right right now?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you know, it's really about um it's about scale. So at on our own as a uh as a private equity-backed company, um, we were limited at our reach, right? We had uh we we didn't have the breadth of the customer base, we didn't have a breadth of the talent base base, our brand wasn't well known. Now we're part of Ronstadt. Ronstadt uh as a whole, so not just digital. Uh it's a global company, you know, exists in probably just about every country around the globe in many in some way, shape, or form. Um, they put to work about 750,000 people per year. So it's a giant organization with a huge amount of reach and a large global customer base. So for us, it's really access. We get this access to this um this uh this global um you know uh uh customer base, these buyers looking for digital talent. We get access to their community of talent, which we onboarded into torque, um, and we get the jobs, right? They have a steady stream. I mean, their job flow is consistent and it's it's um it's it's it's high. And we've only just, you know, I wouldn't say we've scratched the surface, but the US and um in India is where we focus so far uh from a uh from a customer and talent perspective. We had our Lactan business that we added onto that. So we've kind of got those three areas of the globe covered, but we've got a lot more expansion to do in Europe, in Canada, in um Australia. So there's still a lot more that we can do and in Asia that I'm excited about.

SPEAKER_02:

Fantastic. How would you describe the reality of the tech talent market right now? For some, it's the best of times, others, it's kind of the worst of times. There's a tight, it's shifting. It's difficult to get your arms around.

SPEAKER_01:

We are in something that I I don't know about you, but in my lifetime, I've never seen this. And I don't know that we will see it again. And and what I mean specifically is this investment into training people on new skills, specifically AI skills, right? A lot of it led by the White House and their initiatives, but there's tens of billions of dollars of commitment from the large tech companies to train talent on AI skills, you know, for our strengthening our nation, for strengthening our workforce, for upskilling resources, all those great reasons, right? Um, and that that translates into over a hundred million of people have been committed to get trained, right? You look at open AI alone, they've committed to 10 million people trained by 2030. So this investment, I am an optimist. I think it's going to be a good thing, but we're in this transition phase right now where you you you look one direction, and there's companies that are cutting jobs and and claiming AI is the reason why. And you look at the other direction, then there's companies that are investing in training and upskilling their organization. I feel like it will move more towards that upskilling and training. So think about I know I graduated college way back when I didn't have gray hair. There were you you you looked at some of these organizations like a GE, you know, like a Raytheon, like an Accenture, that they invested so much in their talent, right? They had these leadership programs, these training programs, these, and and a lot of that is doesn't exist as much as it used to, right? And and I think this is an opportunity for companies to move back into that and be that workplace where it's like, hey, don't worry about it. Your skills are going out of date, you might get replaced. We've got you. We're going to train you, we're going to mentor you, we're going to upskill you. And they're and that they're going to build a workforce that's going to propel them into the future. And I think those companies are going to do really well. And I think the companies that are just looking to save a buck and have their Wall Street stock go up for a short period of time, you know, because of a uh an efficiency gain in and cost, um, I think they're going to be looking and regretting losing that talent. Um, so I'm an optimist, but that's kind of where I think things are going. Um, so I wouldn't say it's the best of times. I wouldn't say it's the worst of times. I would say it's a it's a uh it's a it's a it's a teenage time, an awkward teenage time.

SPEAKER_02:

Makes sense. And speaking of AI and its impact, I mean, you where's the real impact on recruitment and workforce development? I mean, you mentioned some amazing headlines, um, but be beneath the uh the headlines of the journal, what's happening on the ground where where you see things firsthand?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, automation is is a good thing when you increase the experience. So this is this is true for our our think about our personal lives, right? Our ability to click a couple buttons and have my burrito ordered ordered at 2 a.m. is a great thing. I can get it whenever I want, wherever I want, however I want. It's hot, it's ready to go. Um now apply that to like a recruiting you know industry. The experience has to increase in order for automation to really make sense, in my opinion, right? So, what I mean by that is we can take a lot of those, you know, what a recruiter used to do is oh, hey, let me go get a list of people. Okay, let me go, you know, email 250 people. Okay, let me find out that these 50 people said they're interested. Okay, which ones actually have the skills, which ones are available, which now we can automate a lot of that. And instead of spending the time on pushing lists and moving paper, we can spend our time on saying, well, what what is your career? You know, what's your career goals? And does this line up with that? And then the company is like, hey, what are you looking for from this person? You know, not for just the next 30 days. What do you really want out of a new resource? Now that experience gets better, and that's where we are focused on at Ronstadt Digital is how do we improve that experience for both our customers and our talent? Um, you know, my my background from Torque and my previous life at uh building Top Coder, um, I am I love the talent side of this business. It makes me wake up in the morning. Like that's what drives me, like providing talent access to jobs and opportunities and career paths that they wouldn't have if there wasn't a platform in the middle of it. Um, so for me, that's still the exciting part of it is how do we make this a great experience for the talent?

SPEAKER_02:

Fantastic. Well, that's a great philosophy. Uh, in the meantime, we we have a running joke, not so much a joke of AI generated resumes, even whole candidates being sent to AI recruiters without a human to be seen. Uh, but you you talk a lot a lot about AI with humans in the loop. What does that look like day to day in hiring and delivery? What's what's your philosophy there?

SPEAKER_01:

It's um, you know, you're going down the freeway and you're going as fast as you can legally, but every once in a while you gotta get you gotta off-ramp, you know, and you've got to go fill up for gas or you've got to go check on something or use the restroom or do something. That's a human in the loop model. You know, it's it's when you need to off-ramp, when you need assistance, it's there for you, it's there to help you, and it's educated and it's highly trained, and it's highly skilled. Um, today there's a lot of off-ramping. And as we get more mature and the technology gets better, there'll be less and less off-ramping. Um, so you know, that's how we're looking at it. Like we never want there, there are models that are built just to stay on the freeway. And that's not what we're looking to do. We're looking to have a very um, we're looking to have off-ramps wherever it makes sense for the talent for the customer, and making sure we have high quality, skilled um associates on our side that are handling those those uh those needs. And um, you know, I've always been a fan of uh human in the loop. I think that that is the powerful model. Um, you know, what especially when you're dealing with complex things, like hiring a software developer, hiring digital talent, hiring a network architect is not a um is not a three clicks of the button. You know, it's a little more complicated than that. Uh so um, yeah, I mean that that that's what it looks like for us is like how how do we how do we view the world of where it is today and what customers are looking for? I mean, customers still want to see a job description. Like, why? Why does a job description exist anymore? Just because we're used to it is the only reason, right? Why does anybody somebody ask me for a resume? I'm like, are you kidding me? I guess I like like I haven't had a business card in the last, I don't know, 15 years. Why would I have a resume? Um when you have LinkedIn out there or you have your Ranslaw Digital Torque profile. Uh so we're just not, you know, we're we're we're slow to change. And as those things change, you know, the human and the loop model will require less um off-ramps.

SPEAKER_02:

Well said. Yeah, I typically ask people to ask ChatGPT about me, and I get a much better description of my skills and what I'm doing than even I could put together in a resume. So uh I guess something's working there. Uh in the meantime, enterprise IT teams are really struggling as they try to build AI ready solutions and applications. Um, what are some of the challenging points for getting that that talent, that know-how into the enterprise, which, you know, it's it's uh, you know, a huge hurdle.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, you know, I I still think the the soft skills side of this business um is is a is a frontier that has not been cracked. Like it it's it's it's how do you really know that this person is a good cultural fit? Not not for the company, right? For that team, right? For that five-person team that they're gonna be a part of. Like, is this person a good fit culturally for that team? Do they you know, um, are they a good fit? Um, you know, uh, you know, all I mean, all the communication skills-wise. And so I think that's that's still a uh a huge area that that can be we can innovate. We definitely can innovate. Um, we definitely can apply technology and automation more and more. Uh, and AI is helping with that immensely. Um but I think that's one of the hurdles still. And that's you know, the other thing, just to kind of take it a little different direction for a second, I think we're also in a time where, you know, I I'm a computer scientist by background, but I will tell you that I won't say that coding is being commoditized, but coding's no longer the hard part. You know, like you know, it used to be that coding a an e-commerce site that had a search engine and didn't, you know, and could take a credit card was was technically complicated. And it is that stuff is like table stake. To build things, to build applications now is not very difficult, but to create a great experience is still extremely hard. And you see it everywhere. You see you when you see a product that does it right, it pops out to you, you know, like a sonos in the music world, an iPhone in the mobile space, um, a Spotify in the music apps, you know, it's it's you those those products just pop out because their user experience drives you to them. And um, and I think that's where a lot of our both technical talent and our um domain expertise is gonna really need to um be strong on. So, you know, you got this merge of yeah, you need to understand the technology, you need to understand the domain expertise, and you really need to understand uh the experience.

SPEAKER_00:

Like, you know, what what are we trying to accomplish? And you can I personally I think you can apply that, you can apply that to the healthcare field, you can apply that to financial services, you can apply that to automotive, you can apply that to um digital goods, you know, consumer and retail. Um so uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, really well said. I mean, my son's a junior in college, and you know, since he was eight, I was trying to get him to learn to code and get into computer science as I was, and he would have no part of that. He absolutely rejected that. So now he's an economics and statistics major. And what is he doing? He's he's learning to code through Claude, through through these uh no-code, low-code tools, chat GPT and more. And he loves it. And he's he's building apps and he's using it in his studies, and it's like but he's doing it on his terms, so he didn't have to grind through uh 12 years of of computer science classes to do it. So Brave New World. Speaking of talent, uh, what are some of the skills that are in highest demand? Certifications otherwise, and emerging you know, skills that will matter most. You mentioned soft skills, but uh it's kind of hard to get a certification in in soft skills. What would you recommend to that 20-something who's embarking uh in into uh their career?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, um I I don't mean to simplify it, but the I think that the the the how the in-demand skills that we've traditionally had are s haven't disappeared. They've just are now you know they they come with an AI expectation, right? So you know, I mean in my world it's easy to say, but you know, it's like okay, you want a Python developer that is an AI-enabled Python developer, you know. But I I'd also put that true for somebody in marketing, right? Like you, you know, there's somebody that has that you know creative marketing mind and that creative marketing um background that's AI enabled, you know, and so I think that um and back to what I was saying at the beginning, this opportunity to take advantage, like every college student should be looking at, you know, what is Microsoft putting out there via LinkedIn learning that's for free for them to learn AI skills and get a certification that sits in their resume. What is Google? Um Google Google Dreamer is uh Google Dreamers is a platform that Google has where you can go and get AI certifications. Um, you know, open AI certifications is another platform where you can go and um and jump into these uh and and earn these credentials um that are going to get you the job that your next job. Like that that's my advice. Um yeah, that's my advice. Yeah. Wonderful advice.

SPEAKER_02:

Um what about the modalities? I mean, you you uh you have a unique insight into learning. I mean, there's community-based learning, there's there's self-learning, ongoing learning, uh earning while learning models. Any any models there proven super successful for your clients and your teams?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, um I mean I'll just give you my opinion on this one. I think and mostly from a parent perspective, um my kids all have different learning styles. You said it too. Like the son is learning how to code on his own terms, and uh, and some some of my kids are not the traditional sit in a lecture hall type of students, and they want to go do their their projects on their own and experiment and and try things. So I do think that the learning style, you have options, which is lucky. Like we didn't have options when we were kids. It was sit and listen and take out your pencil, you know. It was uh there wasn't options, they now have options, and uh, and I think you know, allowing people to be I I said I had a conversation with one of my kids recently, and I I said, Listen, our our relationship is changing. I'm I'm stepping away from being an approver to being an advisor, and like, you know, and like it's your time to go and experiment and try things out and um and be you know be your own person, start your one person company. Why not? You know, um, so I think just to answer the question, I think it's there's plenty of options on how to learn. You can learn your traditional route, you can go and you know do it on your own, you can do it as part of an experiment, you can do it in you know all sorts of different ways, but uh it's whatever works for the person.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, personalization is such a key now. Um looking into the future at torque and ramstop digital, any peek into the future in terms of roadmap or new initiatives? What's up for 2026? What are you most excited about?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we we are going to be launching a um a digital marketplace on the customer side. So we are we're heavily focused on the talent side on the torque platform today, and um we will be launching a uh uh what we think is kind of one of the you know next generation um customer uh front end to be able to find find talent. And and and I I'll pull this all together for you. And uh my one of my goals of this is like can we finally get away from needing a job description? And we have a roadmap that kind of takes us to a path where eventually it's not. Needed right. Like we'll we'll still you'll still have an ability. If that's really how you want to work, and that's really how you want to look at it, we'll have a path for that. But we're gonna have all these other paths that are gonna be much easier. You know, we're all really comfortable on uh telling a prompt what we want and what we're looking for and how we want it, um, and talking back and forth with that prompt. We're all very comfortable speaking, you know, verbally and and saying this is what we want. Um, we've grown up in a world where we compare, compare, we we compare people together where it's like, hey, I just want something just like this, like mirror this for me. So there's all these different ways that we can give um companies to find their um next generation talent, and that's some of the innovation that we're gonna be working on coming out um next year.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, congratulations. Sounds fascinating. Can't wait to see an update. And thanks for joining and sharing your philosophy and vision and mission at Torque.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, great. Uh appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_02:

And yeah, thanks for having me. And thanks everyone for listening, watching, sharing this episode. Also, check out the TV show, techimpact.tv, known Bluebird TV and Fox Business. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Mike. Bye.