AI tools have made it easier than ever to apply for a job — and that's the problem. In this episode of Freedom of Work, host Leah Cottham talks with Heather Erickson, COO at Obra, about why application volume has roughly quadrupled since AI hiring tools took off, while candidate quality hasn't moved at all.

Heather draws on two decades scaling operations across SaaS, tech, and services companies - plus her work with Obra, a platform that searches 800 million profiles to help hiring managers find real talent fast — to break down what founders get wrong about global hiring as they scale. They cover the hidden cost of misclassifying international talent, what hiring managers are actually screening for when they search global talent pools, and how to decide between direct hire, contractor, and EOR at each stage of growth.

If your inbox is drowning in AI-generated applications and you can't tell signal from noise anymore, this one's for you.