Angela Barron

Angela Barron

Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition - BILL

For many talent leaders, recruiting is not the career path they originally envisioned. For Angela Donnelly, the journey began with a business degree, a passion for sales, and an unexpected introduction to talent acquisition.

“I was a marketing business major with a sales minor at Michigan State,” Angela recalls.

Initially, she planned to pursue a career in sales. But after a friend working at TEKsystems suggested she explore recruiting opportunities, she decided to give it a chance.

What she discovered was a profession that allowed her to combine many of the things she enjoyed most.

“I realized I actually liked helping people find jobs versus trying to sell people products,” she says.

Recruiting gave her the opportunity to leverage her sales skills while creating meaningful outcomes for both candidates and businesses.

“It felt like a cool opportunity to connect people with jobs that could change their lives while also helping companies find talent that could potentially change the future of their business.”

That realization launched a career that has since evolved into talent leadership, business partnership, and innovation.

Learning to Think Bigger

Throughout her career, Angela has been fortunate to work alongside leaders who challenged her to think beyond traditional recruiting metrics and become a more strategic talent partner.

One of the earliest influences was Ashley Barden, a recruiting leader she worked with during her time at Uber.

Ashley helped Angela see sourcing and recruiting through a different lens.

“She was so innovative around her approach to sourcing and how we thought about talent,” Angela says.

Rather than focusing solely on activity metrics such as calls made or candidates sourced, Ashley emphasized strategic thinking, long-term planning, and understanding the ultimate business impact of recruiting efforts.

“She taught me how to work backwards from outcomes and become a true strategic partner rather than just a service function.”

Another significant influence has been Dale Oscotto, a longtime mentor and leader.

Angela credits Dale with helping her develop a deeper understanding of business strategy and how talent acquisition can drive organizational success.

“He’s really taught me to understand the business first,” she explains. “That helps lead me to what needs to be done from a recruiting perspective.”

By focusing on business challenges before talent solutions, Angela learned how to create stronger partnerships with stakeholders and drive more meaningful outcomes.

She also points to Megan Lee, a senior leader at Bill, whose passion for technology and innovation has helped shape Angela’s perspective on artificial intelligence.

“She’s really pushed me to become a lot more technical,” Angela says.

Working alongside leaders who embrace innovation has reinforced Angela’s belief that recruiters must continuously evolve alongside the businesses they support.

AI Is Reshaping Talent Acquisition

When asked about the biggest shift impacting recruiting today, Angela points directly to artificial intelligence.

“I think AI is probably the biggest shift,” she says.

But she believes its impact extends far beyond recruiting alone.

“It’s shifting everything across all of what we do.”

Angela sees AI transforming not only talent acquisition processes but also the skills organizations need from their employees and leaders.

Traditional approaches to sales, marketing, and business operations are evolving rapidly, forcing companies to rethink what success looks like in many roles.

As a result, talent acquisition teams must become more proactive advisors.

“We’re really having to challenge ourselves and our hiring managers to think differently about what talent looks like today.”

At Bill, Angela’s team has embraced AI as a productivity tool designed to eliminate repetitive work and create more capacity for strategic partnership.

“We’re at about 30% time savings on manual tasks right now as a TA team.”

The team has developed AI-powered workflows that automate administrative work, streamline processes, and improve information management.

One example includes generating job descriptions directly from hiring intake conversations and automatically organizing them in centralized systems.

These improvements reduce operational friction while allowing recruiters to spend more time partnering with leaders and candidates.

Creating More Time for Human Connection

While AI is transforming recruiting, Angela believes its greatest value lies in enabling recruiters to focus on the work that matters most.

“It’s really taken away a lot of our manual tasks and given us time back for the business.”

Rather than replacing recruiters, AI allows them to spend more time building relationships, advising stakeholders, and solving business problems.

“We’re all so busy as recruiters, leaders, and talent teams,” she says. “There just isn’t enough time to do everything.”

For Angela, the future of recruiting is not about replacing human interaction but strengthening it.

By leveraging technology to handle routine tasks, recruiters can devote more energy to strategic thinking, business partnership, and creating exceptional experiences for candidates and hiring managers.

Advice for Talent Leaders

Angela encourages talent leaders to stay curious and invest time in understanding emerging technologies without feeling pressured to master everything at once.

“There’s such an opportunity for people who want to drive innovation within their recruiting organizations.”

Her advice is practical: focus on learning one or two tools deeply rather than trying to become an expert in every new platform that appears.

Even small improvements can create significant gains in productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness.

As recruiting continues to evolve, Angela believes the most successful talent leaders will be those who combine innovation, business understanding, and human connection.

By embracing technology while remaining focused on people, they can help shape the future of talent acquisition and deliver greater value to both candidates and organizations.