Kim Wilkes

Kim Wilkes - Talent 100 Article

Leading Customer Marketing - BrightHire

For Kim Wilkes, recruiting wasn’t part of a carefully planned career path—it was something she discovered through experience, curiosity, and a willingness to take a chance on something new.

Before entering recruiting, Kim worked in retail B2B sales, where she gained exposure to interviewing, onboarding, HR paperwork and training and development. At the time, she was looking to relocate from Pittsburgh to Indianapolis and wanted a role that would allow her to utilize these skills in a more formal way.

While searching for opportunities, she stumbled across recruiting roles online and was immediately drawn to the idea of building relationships, having conversations, and connecting people with new opportunities.

At the time, however, recruiting wasn’t nearly as widely understood as it is today.

Even after discovering the profession, breaking into it wasn’t easy. Kim applied to several recruiting positions and was turned down multiple times before finally landing her first recruiting role at PrincetonOne RPO.

That opportunity changed everything.

A manager took a chance on her despite her lack of formal recruiting experience, recognizing transferable skills and a strong foundation in communication and relationship-building. From there, Kim immersed herself in learning the craft and quickly fell in love with the work.

What started as an unexpected career move ultimately became a long-term passion for talent attraction, employer branding, and candidate experience, as well as leadership.

What Shaped Her Leadership Philosophy

Kim credits several leaders throughout her career for helping shape the way she approaches leadership, coaching, and talent development today.

The first was Damon Grothe, her very first manager at PrincetonOne RPO. Entering recruiting with no formal experience, Kim relied heavily on Damon’s mentorship as she learned the fundamentals of sourcing, candidate engagement, and recruiting strategy.

She recalls how hands-on and intentional his coaching style was. She notes that it was uncomfortable at the time, but he had her record calls and voicemails, then review them together afterward. “That helped me take a step back and reflect on my approach from a different perspective.” 

He also introduced her to LinkedIn, taught her about networking, and introduced her to several highly impactful recruiting resources, including Johnny Campbell’s Social Talent courses.

During her time at PrincetonOne, Kim’s role expanded to a leadership position, where she began coaching and training a team of Recruiters. Damn was great about supporting her leadership capabilities and helped her grow in this capacity, too.

Another influential leader was Victoria Earle, who Kim met at Uber in 2019. It was under Victoria’s leadership that Kim began to delve into the area of employer brand. She recalls chatting with her manager about her desire to develop her skills in the EB space. She reached out to Victoria for an introduction (at the time, Victoria was a Sr. Manager of EB Marketing) and they began working closely on a few key EB projects.

Kim conducted candidate experience audits, learned how to create content campaigns, and helped launch a brand ambassador program. Victoria introduced Kim to other brand leaders in the space, including Raaj Govintharajah and his team at The Martec. Together they collaborated on a content campaign, and Kim attended their community events with other brand practitioners, where she was able to further hone her skills and build her network.

Kim shared, “If you’re looking to pivot into a new field or expand your skills, talk openly about it and ask for the opportunity to get involved. My career has completely shifted since asking for that introductory call with Victoria. She was an incredible coach and mentor, and I’m grateful that we’re still in touch today.

Kim went on to lead talent attraction and employer brand at Palo Alto Networks and Zapier. In 2025, she transitioned to a role with BrightHire, a leading interview intelligence platform, where she leads customer marketing.

“It’s incredible that it’s all come full circle. I’ve always had a desire to work in a creative capacity, so now calling myself a ‘marketer’ is kind of wild to me. I’m now in a role where I have the opportunity to use my experience across employer brand, social, and events to make an impact at a company I’ve always admired.”

Kim noted that she used BrightHire’s platform at Zapier and was a huge fan before joining the team. And coming from the talent space, she’s found it rewarding to continue working with TA leaders across industries, just in a different capacity.

She points to the marketing team at BrightHire for helping her get up to speed in this new capacity, and calls out Patrick Wolf, Head of Growth Marketing, for being a strong coach and mentor. “Pat has been wonderful about helping me learn the ins and outs of marketing. He regularly shares resources and offers context to help me deliver quality work in a very fast-paced environment.” Kim notes that she appreciates the balance Pat offers between being challenged and being supported and recognized.

How AI Is Reshaping Recruiting

Kim believes AI and automation have fundamentally transformed the recruiting landscape—particularly when it comes to creating efficiency, improving candidate experience, and giving recruiters more time to focus on human connection.

Her exposure to automation accelerated significantly during her time at Zapier, where she worked alongside teams building AI-powered workflows and automations across the organization.

Through that experience, Kim learned how to build workflows, agents, and automations that handled repetitive tasks behind the scenes, saving significant time and allowing her to focus more deeply on leadership, strategy, and communication.

For Kim, the biggest value of AI isn’t replacing recruiters—it’s giving them time back.

By automating administrative work, recruiters can spend more time having meaningful conversations, coaching teams, improving strategy, and building stronger candidate relationships.

Today, Kim continues to work at the forefront of AI-driven recruiting innovation through her role at BrightHire.

BrightHire’s AI copilots and agents integrate directly into a variety of ATSs and communication platforms to improve recruiting efficiency, scale a structured and consistent interview process, and deliver actionable insight that help talent teams and make higher-quality decisions.

For Kim, AI works best when it enhances human connection—not when it replaces it.

Kim’s Advice for Talent Leaders in 2026

As AI adoption continues accelerating across recruiting, Kim encourages talent leaders to take a thoughtful and strategic approach rather than rushing to implement every new tool available.

One of the most impactful exercises her team completed at Zapier involved mapping every stage of the hiring process—from application through offer stage—and evaluating where AI should and should not be used.

Each step was rated on a scale based on potential impact, followed by collaborative discussions about why certain areas made sense for automation while others required a stronger human touch.

For Kim, those conversations were incredibly valuable because they forced leaders to intentionally define where technology truly adds value.

Her biggest advice to talent leaders moving forward is to avoid trying to solve everything at once.

“There’s a lot of noise right now,” she explained. “Everyone’s trying to do more with less, and there are endless tools being introduced every week.”

Instead of constantly chasing every new platform, Kim believes organizations should identify one meaningful problem, test solutions carefully, gather feedback, and scale intentionally from there.

She also believes successful recruiting organizations in the future will be the ones that strike the right balance between technology and human connection.

AI can create efficiency, consistency, and scale—but relationships, empathy, and communication will always remain central to effective recruiting.

That combination of curiosity, strategic thinking, and people-first leadership is what makes Kim Wilkes a standout voice in modern talent acquisition—and a deserving member of the Talent 100.