Liz Hall

“I don't care how smart AI gets, it will never replace the head or the heart.”

When Liz Hall arrived at Medical Solutions 25 years ago, the privately held startup employed about 100 people. Today the Omaha company counts roughly 2,700 employees, including about 800 in the Philippines, and Liz has watched, and helped steer, nearly every stage of that expansion.

As Vice President of Talent Management at one of the nation's largest healthcare staffing and talent companies, she now sits at the intersection of growth, technology and people strategy. Her tenure is rare in an industry known for movement, but Liz describes it less as staying put than as being continually reinvented by a business that never stops changing. In 2023, Omaha's Inspire awards named her a finalist for Excellence in Business in the large company category.

Running through her work is a conviction that has only sharpened as artificial intelligence reshapes recruiting: tools can transform how talent professionals work, but the judgment and empathy at the center of the job remain stubbornly human.

A Business Built on People

Liz came to Medical Solutions through a referral. Someone she had worked for across a couple of different roles saw qualities in her that would be valuable to the young company and brought her in. That early vote of confidence turned into a quarter century inside a single organization.

What has held her attention all that time, she says, is that healthcare recruiting refuses to stand still. The business is agile by nature, and its constant evolution has kept her challenged and learning. Just as important is the work itself. Placing clinicians and building teams carries real consequences for the people involved. "We change people's lives," Liz says, and that sense of impact still drives her. She values connection, and she likes that in her line of work, the product is the people.

The People Who Pushed Her

Liz does not sort her professional relationships into good and bad experiences. In her view, every interaction offers something to learn. The people who shaped her most, though, share a common trait: they saw more in her than she saw in herself and refused to let her settle.

Those mentors challenged her to think differently and to value perspectives other than her own, a lesson rooted in her belief that no problem has only one answer. They pushed her outside her comfort zone and expected her to keep getting better. The former colleague who first recommended her to Medical Solutions is a fitting example: someone who recognized potential before it was fully visible.

Liz now tries to play that role for others. She makes a point of stretching the people she leads, convinced that the leaders who did the same for her are the reason she is where she is today.

AI as an Addition, Not a Replacement

Liz has approached artificial intelligence the way she approaches most change: by studying it early, on the assumption that it is inevitable. The core message she shares with her team is simple. No matter how sophisticated the technology becomes, it will never replace the head or the heart. AI cannot feel emotion or necessarily think critically, and it still depends on people to feed it the right information. People will remain central to doing business, even if the way they show up changes.

She sees the technology as additive, and her own workflow proves the point. Preparing a deck for the company's board of directors once consumed 10 to 12 hours of gathering information, editing, presenting and revising. Now she can finish it in less than an hour, still checking the output herself. The reclaimed time, she says, lets her show up better in ways that would otherwise be impossible given how few hours the day holds.

Across the organization, Liz credits AI with helping teams do more with less, more effectively, and with cutting redundancy out of routine tasks. She acknowledges that some roles will be affected, but her prescription is to skill up rather than resist. Those who fight the technology, she warns, will be left behind. Her own experience has made her an enthusiast: learning the tools along the way, she says, has made her better every day.

Advice for 2027

Heading into 2027, Liz is challenging her talent acquisition team, and the wider industry, to look at talent differently. That starts with clarity about what quality of hire actually means. A recent college graduate without much real-world experience can add value just as surely as someone with a decade in the field.

The deeper shift is in how potential gets measured. Historically, she notes, recruiters have treated past accomplishments as the best predictor of future performance. Liz no longer believes that holds. Instead she wants teams focused on character skills: adaptability, resilience, grit and a genuine desire to learn. The question is how a person will thrive as technology reshapes work, whether they will embrace new tools or resist them.

It is a mindset change she has made herself over the past year, particularly in talent reviews and succession planning. What someone achieved ten years ago matters less than whether they have the attitude and openness to change that will carry the organization forward. For Liz, the best hires are the ones who will help the business take its next step into the future.