David Leech

David Leech

Head of Tech Recruiting & Campus/Early Careers Recruiting - Wayfair

For David Leech, recruiting started long before he ever realized he was recruiting.

Fresh out of college with a Political Science degree and aspirations of becoming a lawyer, David began his career in college admissions.

His role focused on visiting high schools, building relationships with prospective students, and helping them envision their future at the university.

Looking back, he laughs at the realization that he was already recruiting — just for a college instead of a company.

A move to Boston eventually changed everything.

A friend working in staffing introduced David to an opportunity at Aquent, a recruiting and staffing firm where he joined the business development team.

Initially focused on sales and client relationships, David quickly discovered that he enjoyed the competitive nature of the business, the conversations with people, and the challenge of solving hiring problems.

Success came quickly.

He eventually led the sales organization in Boston before taking responsibility for both sales and recruiting operations across the office.

The experience provided a crash course in every side of the talent business.

After seven years in staffing, another recruiter changed the course of his career.

That recruiter called David about an opportunity at Wayfair.

He joined the organization to lead UX recruiting and would go on to spend the next eight years helping scale the company's talent acquisition organization.

For most of his tenure, David focused on technology recruiting, leading large recruiting organizations during periods of significant growth.

More recently, he transitioned into leading campus and early careers recruiting, helping shape how the next generation of talent enters the organization.

Like many recruiting leaders, David never planned to work in talent acquisition.

But after discovering the profession, he never looked back.

Learning From Exceptional Leaders

David credits much of his early development to leaders who taught him both the discipline and the strategy behind great recruiting.

At Aquent, his leader Julie Robinson became one of the most influential people in his career.

She taught him the grit required to succeed in recruiting and staffing.

Recruiting, she emphasized, is often a numbers game that requires persistence, resilience, and consistency.

She also taught him the art of the close.

Understanding what motivates candidates, uncovering their priorities early, and reinforcing those priorities throughout the process became foundational parts of David's recruiting philosophy.

By the time an offer reached a candidate, Julie believed there should be no surprises left.

David still carries that lesson with him today.

Later in his career, Eric Trickett helped shape David's analytical approach to recruiting leadership.

From Eric, he learned how to think about recruiting as a system rather than a collection of individual transactions.

He developed a deep appreciation for recruiting analytics, conversion metrics, and diagnosing bottlenecks across the hiring funnel.

Application conversion rates, recruiter screens, interview stages, offers, and acceptances all became signals that could be measured, understood, and improved.

Those lessons continue to influence how David leads recruiting organizations today.

Leading Through the Age of AI

David views artificial intelligence as one of the most transformational shifts recruiting has experienced in decades.

He believes the operational gains are already undeniable.

Tasks that once took days can now be completed in hours.

Scheduling, sourcing, follow-up communication, interview summaries, and workflow management are increasingly being automated.

At Wayfair, AI-assisted scheduling has already eliminated the need for dedicated coordination teams.

The assessment side of recruiting is improving rapidly as well.

Skills matching, resume analysis, and AI-supported screening are helping organizations make faster and more informed decisions.

David believes skills-based hiring will become increasingly important as AI continues reshaping the labor market.

At the same time, he sees significant challenges that talent leaders must navigate carefully.

The central question is not whether companies can automate recruiting processes.

It is whether candidates and hiring managers are ready for that level of automation.

Candidate experience remains critical.

Organizations must avoid moving faster than their candidates are comfortable moving.

For David, the future is not about removing humans from recruiting.

It is about identifying where humans add the greatest value.

One area where this conversation becomes especially important is early careers recruiting.

As AI increasingly automates research, documentation, analysis, and administrative work, organizations are being forced to rethink the purpose of entry-level roles.

Some companies are reducing their early careers hiring significantly.

Others are investing more heavily than ever in internships and graduate programs.

David believes the industry is still figuring out what the future will look like.

What is clear is that every organization is grappling with the same questions.

Advice for Talent Leaders

David's advice to talent leaders begins with a simple principle:

Invest in AI now.

Leaders who delay understanding the technology risk falling behind organizations that are already building new ways of working.

At the same time, he cautions leaders against automating relationships.

"Automate the process, not the relationship."

For David, recruiting organizations of the future will look fundamentally different from those of today.

Recruiters will spend less time sourcing candidates and more time managing workflows, technology, and AI agents that support the hiring process.

As a result, learning agility will become one of the most important skills recruiters can possess.

The ability to quickly adopt new technology, understand new systems, and adapt to changing workflows will separate high-performing recruiters from everyone else.

Critical thinking will become equally important.

Recruiters must know how to interact with AI effectively, ask better questions, interpret information thoughtfully, and make decisions that balance efficiency with human judgment.

Technology may continue to transform the mechanics of recruiting.

But David believes the best talent leaders will remain those who can combine data, technology, and human connection into a single strategy.

By embracing innovation while protecting the candidate experience, David Leech represents the kind of talent leader helping define what recruiting looks like in the age of artificial intelligence.