Andrew Reid

Andrew Reid

Talent - SignalFire

Like many talent leaders, Andrew Reid didn't begin his career knowing exactly where recruiting would take him.

His career started immediately after university, when he joined a recruiting agency based in Manhattan Beach as an intern.

At the time, the work was what many in the industry would consider classic recruiting grind.

The firm specialized in high-volume sourcing, often recruiting Big Four consultants away from competing consulting firms such as Deloitte, Accenture, KPMG, and Ernst & Young.

It was an environment where Andrew could learn the fundamentals of sourcing at scale.

This was around 2015 or 2016, before AI had become a major part of the recruiting landscape.

There weren't nearly as many recruiting tools available, and AI was barely part of the conversation.

For Andrew, recruiting largely meant using LinkedIn Recruiter, learning how to identify talent, and developing the discipline required to operate in a high-volume environment.

That experience became the foundation for his next step.

Andrew eventually joined SPMB, an executive search firm based in San Francisco.

The work was dramatically different from the high-volume recruiting environment where he started.

Instead of focusing primarily on individual contributors, Andrew worked on executive searches involving vice presidents, C-suite leaders, and board advisors.

His clients included companies at very different stages of growth.

Some were businesses like Uber and Lyft before they became household names.

Others were companies further along in their growth journeys, including organizations such as Google and Facebook.

He also worked with smaller companies ranging from Series A startups to public companies.

That combination of experiences gave Andrew exposure to both the mechanics of recruiting and the broader business and venture ecosystem surrounding executive talent.

Learning From Leaders Who Saw Recruiting Differently

Throughout Andrew's career, several people have had a significant influence on how he approaches recruiting and talent.

One of the first people he immediately identifies is Andy Price, the co-founder and former CEO of Artisanal Talent.

Andrew describes Andy as someone with an unusually broad perspective—not only on recruiting, but on the venture ecosystem as a whole.

Andy had previously built talent functions at funds such as Index and Redpoint before using that experience to create a different model within his recruiting firm.

The firm developed an investment arm that allowed them to invest in clients and gain a firsthand perspective into how companies operate and who is leading them.

For Andrew, that approach created a unique advantage.

Rather than simply advising companies from the outside, recruiters could gain a deeper understanding of the businesses they were supporting.

That inside-looking-out perspective could make diligence easier and provide a more complete understanding of the companies and leaders involved.

Beyond his strategic approach to recruiting, Andrew also remembers Andy as someone who invested heavily in developing people early in their careers.

Through mentorship, observation, and hard work, Andrew saw firsthand what strong leadership within the recruiting industry could look like.

Another major influence was Nicole North, who now leads the platform team at Lightspeed Ventures.

Nicole was Andrew's first partner at SPMB and played an important role in developing his foundational recruiting skills.

Andrew credits much of what he has accomplished in his career to what Nicole taught him.

She helped him understand how to run a healthy, concise, and professional search process.

That included the fundamentals of recruiting, client relationships, and stakeholder management.

For Andrew, those foundational skills became an important part of how he approaches the profession today.

AI Is Creating Opportunity—and Noise

Andrew believes the recruiting industry is currently experiencing a tremendous amount of excitement around AI.

From early-stage startups to large public enterprises, nearly every organization is having conversations about what AI means for its business.

But that excitement also creates noise.

There are countless companies building AI-powered tools, platforms, and applications designed to assist recruiters.

Some are focused on sourcing.

Others are exploring content generation, job descriptions, interview questions, candidate qualification, and other parts of the recruiting process.

Andrew sees Noon as one example of this broader movement.

At the same time, he believes the market may currently be over-indexing on what AI actually is and what it can accomplish.

Having watched other technology trends rise and evolve, Andrew expects there will eventually be some correction back toward normalcy.

But he doesn't believe AI is simply another temporary trend.

He believes it is here to stay.

For recruiters, that means the opportunity is significant.

AI can help professionals explore new ways of generating content, building job descriptions, creating interview questions, sourcing talent, and qualifying candidates.

And recent developments in AI infrastructure have opened up possibilities that were much harder to access only a short time ago.

Andrew points to major AI companies and models as part of that shift, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Gemini.

APIs and increasingly capable models are making it easier for professionals to access information, work with complex datasets, and build tools that previously would have required much more technical expertise.

For Andrew, that means recruiters don't necessarily need to wait until they become technical experts.

They can start experimenting.

The Power of Starting as a Beginner

One of Andrew's strongest recommendations is surprisingly simple:

Start.

The speed at which AI is evolving can make the landscape feel overwhelming.

There are countless tools.

There are questions about which platform to use, when to use it, how much it costs, and what each tool is actually capable of doing.

For some talent professionals, that can create analysis paralysis.

The result is staying with what they already know rather than experimenting with something new.

Andrew encourages recruiters to reconsider that approach.

Instead of trying to understand everything before getting started, he recommends testing things out.

Start with basic plans.

Experiment with tools that cost a fraction of what larger investments might require.

Learn what AI can do.

But perhaps even more importantly, learn what it can't do.

That foundational understanding can help remove some of the uncertainty surrounding AI.

And once that uncertainty starts to disappear, Andrew believes that's when the fun begins.

One of his own strategies has been particularly effective: telling the AI agent that he is a beginner.

When he first began building a talent platform with Claude, Andrew essentially asked the system to provide additional hand-holding.

The approach changed the experience.

Instead of assuming he already understood the technical concepts, the model continued explaining where to click, which datasets to search for, and even what things would cost.

That simple approach allowed Andrew to learn while he built.

He doesn't consider himself an expert today.

But the AI can effectively treat him as someone who is learning and continuously provide opportunities to build his knowledge.

For Andrew, that is one of the most powerful aspects of the technology.

Learning What AI Can—and Cannot—Do

Andrew's advice isn't simply to embrace every new AI tool.

It's to develop a practical understanding of the technology.

The first step is experimentation.

The second is learning its limitations.

AI capabilities will continue to change, meaning today's limitations may not remain limitations forever.

But understanding the current boundaries is essential.

Recruiting professionals need to know where AI can genuinely create leverage and where human judgment remains necessary.

They also need to remain aware of the regulatory environment.

As AI becomes more involved in recruiting and hiring, regulations and legislation are continuing to evolve.

Andrew specifically points to states such as California, New York, and Illinois as examples of places where recruiters need to pay attention to changing requirements.

For talent leaders, the future therefore isn't simply about adopting AI.

It's about understanding the technology, experimenting responsibly, and remaining aware of the broader environment in which it is being used.

Andrew's AI Toolkit

Andrew's own AI usage reflects the different strengths he sees across today's major platforms.

For quick, one-off searches and everyday questions, ChatGPT remains his go-to largely because of familiarity and habit.

When it comes to building, however, he has increasingly relied on Claude Code and Anthropic's ecosystem.

For deeper infrastructure projects, complex back-end work, and more involved processes, Andrew finds Gemini particularly useful.

Together, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini make up the three major AI platforms he uses most frequently.

His approach isn't about choosing a single tool and using it for everything.

Instead, he evaluates the problem and chooses the technology that best fits the task.

Curiosity as a Competitive Advantage

Ultimately, Andrew's advice to other talent leaders comes down to experimentation and curiosity.

The AI landscape can feel daunting because it is changing so quickly.

There are more tools than ever before.

There are new capabilities appearing constantly.

And it can be difficult to know where to begin.

But Andrew believes the answer isn't to wait until everything becomes clear.

It's to start learning.

Test different tools.

Build a foundation.

Understand what works.

Understand what doesn't.

And then continue experimenting.

The professionals who do that will be better positioned to understand where AI can genuinely improve their work.

For Andrew, the biggest unlock isn't necessarily finding the perfect AI tool.

It's becoming comfortable enough with the technology to explore what might be possible.

The Future of Recruiting Is Still Being Built

Andrew's career began in a world where recruiting largely meant LinkedIn Recruiter, high-volume sourcing, and traditional executive search.

Today, he is working in an environment where AI can help recruiters build platforms, surface information, generate content, qualify candidates, and explore entirely new workflows.

That transformation is happening quickly.

But Andrew doesn't see the speed of change as a reason to step back.

He sees it as a reason to become more curious.

The recruiting professionals who take the time to experiment will develop something increasingly valuable: an understanding of both the possibilities and limitations of AI.

And as the technology continues to evolve, that knowledge may become one of the most important advantages a talent leader can develop.

For Andrew Reid, the future of recruiting isn't about knowing every answer today.

It's about being willing to ask better questions, test new possibilities, and keep learning as the technology changes.