Tell us your career path before you were in TA
Before I found my way into internal recruitment, I cut my teeth at two tech recruitment agencies, mostly hiring across software engineering.
But long before recruitment was even in my vocabulary, I was behind the bar (quite literally). I spent my early career in pubs and bars, eventually becoming a bar manager at the grand age of 18. I regularly clocked up 50-60-hour weeks. This experience taught me resilience, people skills, and the kind of work ethic that no corporate onboarding can ever replicate.
Like many recruiters, I didn’t set out to be one. A friend suggested I give it a go, so I fired off my CV, bought a suit (which I wore exactly once for an interview)… and the rest is history.
No regrets. Just a lot of learning, and a much more comfortable wardrobe.
From your personal experience what's the best thing about being in talent acquisition?
What’s the best thing about talent acquisition? Honestly… where do I even start?
It’s the little wins, like chatting with a candidate who’s exactly what the hiring manager has been searching for.
It’s the big wins, like finally marking a role as “hired” after 1,000 applications, 300+ hours of collective work, and nine final-stage interviews.
But, if I had to pick the real magic of this job (yes, I’m going full cliché here), it’s this: we get paid to listen. We get to hear people’s stories. Their highs, their pivots, their grit, their goals. We’re trusted with moments that matter, and with a bit of luck, we get to make someone’s day a little better.
Over the years, I’ve spoken to everyone from someone building an army of squirrels in their spare time to engineers who helped build iCloud and casually dropped stories about eating burgers with Steve Jobs.
If there’s one thing I love about this industry, it’s the people. The conversations. The privilege of listening.
Since you've been in TA, how have you seen it change?
Since starting my journey in recruitment, the landscape has shifted massively.
Now, I’m not claiming to be a veteran, but even in the relatively short time I’ve been in this corner of the working world, the change has been undeniable.
We’ve seen the rise (and frustratingly, sometimes the fall) of meaningful diversity efforts. We’ve ridden the rollercoaster of the job market from boom to bust, and everything in between. And of course, we can’t have a conversation about the future of talent without mentioning AI.
What’s struck me most is how the role of Talent Acquisition has evolved. We’re no longer just recruiters. We’re data analysts, DE&I consultants, brand marketers, HR advisors… and now, AI explorers too.
We wear a lot more hats than we used to… and honestly? I’ve grown to love my random collection of hats.
How do you see AI impacting the future of talent acquisition?
AI is here. It’s happening. And it’s impacting every industry, including ours.
There’s no doubt we’re becoming faster, smarter, and more efficient thanks to AI. But let’s be honest: we’re also spending a lot more time formatting outputs than actually typing, and sometimes it feels like Skynet is just around the corner, ready to automate us out of existence.
It all comes down to how you view it. Personally? I love AI. The more tools, the better.
But like any tool, say, a hammer, not everything is a nail. And not everything needs AI to be improved.
Used wisely, AI can supercharge the way we work. But it’s still up to us to bring the context, creativity, and human touch. That’s not something an algorithm can replicate (yet).
What advice would you give to job seekers today?
The advice I’d give to job seekers right now? Don’t give up.
I won’t sugarcoat it, it’s tough out there. The market is cold and competitive, and at times, it can feel like humanity has logged off entirely.
But please, keep going.
It’s easy to slip into the comfort of cynicism, to start believing that maybe it’s just you. It’s not. You're not the problem.
You are talented. You are valuable. You are so much more than a CV in a stack of 1,000. And someone, somewhere, is going to see that.
Remember: you can apply to a thousand roles. You only need one yes.
Go get that yes.
Archie Watson, Talent Acquisition Advisor at SMG