The HIRE. A new book by Nicole Barbano, Founder, Hunter Ambrose & Co.
Edited by Nick A.M.
Narrated on Audible by Vinnie Adams
Leadership, Hiring and the Evolving Nature of Work
The HIRE traces the history of hiring—from early guilds to the Manhattan Project and modern job boards—to explain how we ended up here and how both sides of the interview table can do better.
5 million people are hired every month in America, and yet most professionals feel locked out of opportunity. The problem is not effort. It is visibility. It is access. It is understanding where and how hiring actually happens.
Recruitment today is a multibillion-dollar industry built on algorithms, job boards, and “black box” systems that rarely work for the people who actually need results. The HIRE pulls back the curtain on how hiring really happens, showing you where decisions are made, why so many smart people are stuck, and how to stop playing by rules from a game that ended years ago.
Where hiring actually happens. The HIRE tells the unknown story.
5 million people start a new job every month in America. Most of them never got there by clicking “Apply” on a job board.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 5.2 million hires and 7.6 million job openings in May 2026, yet the public story of hiring is dominated by three platforms: LinkedIn, Indeed, and ZipRecruiter.
In The HIRE, Nicole Barbano calls them “LIZ”—the triumvirate that spends billions telling you this is where hiring happens.
The truth is very different. Roughly 80% of those monthly hires never came through a traditional job board.
They were made through personal networks, referrals, recruiters, direct applications to company career pages, and confidential searches. The jobs exist. The hiring happens. Most job seekers are just not where the hiring is happening.
Meanwhile, the online ecosystem looks enormous. LinkedIn alone draws hundreds of millions of visits a month. Add in the rest of LIZ, more than 400 niche job boards, and an estimated 25,000 job boards in the United States that scrape and recycle postings, and you get a digital hall of mirrors—an endless echo of the same jobs, designed to monetize attention and hope more than actual hiring.
Only a small fraction of the 5.2 million people who start new jobs each month got there by doing what the job boards tell them to do. The HIRE is about understanding where the real hiring happens now—and how to get yourself to that side of the table.
Excerpts from The HIRE
“We have built an industry worth billions of dollars around a process that, by almost every measurable standard, doesn’t work well for anyone involved.”
“From guild halls to job boards, every era has invented a new way to match people with work. What has never changed is the one thing hiring still depends on: human judgment, exercised under pressure.”
“The system was never a meritocracy, and it was never designed to be one. Its primary function has always been to fill seats.”
“Understanding the other side isn’t optional anymore. You can’t hire well without understanding what job seekers are experiencing. You can’t get hired without understanding what employers need.”
“The Manhattan Project didn’t just build a weapon; it built a workforce. In total secrecy, the U.S. recruited and moved more than half a million people into roles so specialized that most of them didn’t even know what they were building—only that their skills, judgment, and trustworthiness had been handpicked for a mission that would change history.”
About the Author- Nicole Barbano
Nicole Barbano founded Hunter Ambrose in 2006 in San Diego, California, building what she deliberately called a “lifestyle firm” so she could prioritize raising her three young children while doing work that mattered.
Motherhood was her motivator to leave a six-figure job at one of the largest firms in the United States, with $12,000 in retainers, and to start her own firm.
Two decades later, Hunter Ambrose celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2026, with more than 1,000 executive and specialized placements across healthcare, legal, corporate, and leadership roles. She grew Hunter Ambrose into the 21st-largest healthcare firm in 2022 (Modern Healthcare).
And after seeing up close how often smart people and good organizations were failed by a broken hiring system, she wrote The HIRE to put that playbook in the hands of the people who need it most.
Today, through NicoleBarbano.com, Nicole focuses on executive coaching, corporate consulting, and serving as an expert resource for organizations that want to hire smarter—and for candidates who want to get hired faster.
Nicole is the Mother of three adult children, is married to Justin Wade Sipe, and they reside in Kansas City, Missouri.
Nicole Barbano is available for interviews, editorial commentary, speaking engagements, and conversations about hiring, leadership, career strategy, and the evolving nature of work.
Drawing on twenty years in executive recruitment and more than 1,000 placements, Nicole connects the history of hiring—from medieval guilds and Leonardo da Vinci’s résumé to the Manhattan Project, job boards, and artificial intelligence—with the decisions employers and candidates face today.
Potential conversation angles
How hiring evolved from community reputation to algorithms
Why millions apply online without receiving a response
What the Manhattan Project teaches us about identifying talent
Where hiring actually happens outside traditional job boards
What employers and candidates misunderstand about one another
Whether AI is improving hiring—or amplifying its existing problems
Media & Interviews
About Hunter Ambrose Int.
Founded by Nicole Barbano in 2006, Hunter Ambrose International began as an executive search firm and grew into a nationally recognized professional services company supporting leaders and organizations through hiring, growth, transition, and change.
Over the past two decades, the firm has completed more than 1,000 executive and professional placements across 40 states and has expanded its work beyond search to include advisory, consulting, executive coaching, publishing, media, and selected strategic engagements.
That experience became the foundation for The HIRE—Nicole Barbano’s exploration of how hiring evolved, how opportunity is created, and what the changing world of work means for employers and professionals.
Today, Hunter Ambrose International serves as the business platform behind Nicole Barbano’s advisory, consulting, publishing, media, and professional services work.
Because markets change. Companies change. Careers change. The work is understanding what comes next—and helping move it forward.
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