Sean Cogdell is the chairman and CEO of The Panther Group, a staffing and recruiting firm that is working to make recruiting more efficient. He’s also a member of the New England Advisory Council. We spoke to Cogdell about the hurdles job seekers face and how AI is helping employees and employers clear obstacles.

Tell me a little about The Panther Group.

The Panther Group is a Massachusetts-based staffing firm with more than 30 years of experience connecting talented professionals with roles in IT, engineering, life sciences, legal, and beyond. We work with clients and candidates throughout New England, across the U.S., and internationally.

Your company uses artificial intelligence to match jobseekers to jobs. How is AI changing the recruiting process?

Staffing has long been about simply filling roles, but today, AI is transforming that process. It makes recruiting faster, more precise, and more inclusive. By automating time-consuming tasks like resume screening, AI frees recruiters to focus on relationship-building and strategic advising. These platforms also learn from hiring outcomes, which improves future recommendations. The result is shorter “time-to-fill” cycles, higher offer acceptance rates, and better matches overall.

Just as important, AI helps level the playing field. It surfaces qualified candidates who might otherwise be overlooked due to unconscious bias or a recruiter’s limited bandwidth, giving employers a broader and fairer view of the talent pool.

What does AI “see” that gets missed by traditional employment-matching techniques?

There’s no substitute for the judgment of an experienced recruiter, but AI can enhance that expertise. It analyzes factors like career trajectory, context, and transferable skills and can even infer soft skills from data. Traditional systems may pass over a candidate whose job titles don’t align perfectly, but AI recognizes patterns and potential.

For example, it might flag that a healthcare project manager has the right competencies to succeed in tech consulting. That creates new opportunities for candidates and provides employers with stronger, more diverse talent matches. Panther has developed a generative AI hiring platform, OpenWorX, to help both employers and jobseekers realize these benefits.

What is the biggest hurdle job seekers face right now?

Visibility. Many qualified candidates struggle to get noticed because they don’t fit traditional molds or because their resumes don’t fully reflect their potential. AI-powered tools like OpenWorX help overcome this by looking beyond titles and keywords.

Why did you decide to join the New England Advisory Council?

I want to help bridge the gap between workforce development and economic opportunity. Talent is abundant, but access to the right information and opportunities isn’t. Serving on the council has given me insight into regional challenges – such as skill mismatches, limited training access, and shifting workforce expectations – which I can then address in my work with Panther.

More broadly, I see this as a chance to help build a more agile, inclusive, and future-ready economy for New England. I want to ensure underrepresented communities benefit from emerging opportunities and that employers have the tools they need to adapt quickly to a changing labor market.