Will Bronaugh
Will Bronaugh
Vice President, Global Talent Acquisition
Like many people in recruiting, Will Bronaugh did not set out to build a career in talent. After college he stumbled into his first recruiting role, found that the work genuinely interested him, and never left. Over time that first step turned into a thirty year journey across nearly every job in recruiting and talent acquisition. He has sat in individual contributor seats, run searches across functions, and eventually stepped into leadership roles where he could guide teams and shape how companies think about hiring.
That breadth of experience is part of what defines his leadership today. Will has seen recruiting from every angle, from the front line of candidate outreach all the way up to designing a function that can support complex business goals. When he talks about his career now, there is still a sense of surprise that three decades have gone by, paired with a clear pride in the teams he has built and the people he has helped grow.
In his current role, Will leads a TA organization that is in the middle of an important shift. When he joined, he saw an opportunity to move the function from something a bit more reactive and transactional into a strategic engine for the business. That meant building out a strong leadership team, putting real process in place, and modernizing the tools that support recruiters day to day. He thinks of this work as up leveling how the company sees TA. Not as a back office service, but as a core partner that helps the business hit its goals.
What energizes him most is the next chapter of that transformation. Will is focused on getting out in front of the business and telling a clear story. Where TA was, where it is now, and where it is going over the next several years. He spends time with leaders across the company showing how better hiring in sales directly supports revenue, how strong hiring in product and engineering strengthens the roadmap, and how thoughtful talent strategy can accelerate business outcomes. For him, that connection is the point. Recruiting has real impact when it is tied tightly to how the company grows.
He is also genuinely excited about what AI can do for the profession. Will has watched a wave of new tools and vendors come into the market, many of them focused directly on TA. There is hype, but there is also real opportunity. The part that excites him is not flashy features. It is the chance to remove repetitive, administrative work so recruiters can spend more time with hiring leaders and candidates. In his view, the heart of this job is relationship building. Anything that helps free up more time for that work is a win.
At the same time, he has a clear view of how challenging the past few years have been for the recruiting community. He remembers the COVID era boom when nearly every company was hiring and there were more recruiter roles on LinkedIn than software engineering jobs. It was, as he puts it, a golden age for recruiters. Then the pendulum swung. Layoffs, pulled back growth plans, and long searches for new roles became common. Many experienced recruiters took jobs that did not match the level or scope of their previous positions. The market is improving, but the lesson is lasting. Conditions can change quickly, and TA leaders have to be ready.
Through all of this, Will keeps his focus on agility, impact, and the future of the function. He wants teams to embrace AI, not fear it. He pushes leaders to tie their work to concrete business outcomes. And he keeps reminding people that the work of recruiting is still about helping organizations grow and helping people move into roles that can change their lives.
Will’s Advice for 2026
Stay agile in shifting markets
The balance between employer driven and candidate driven markets can swing very fast. TA leaders should be ready to adjust staffing models, processes, and candidate engagement strategies quickly. Waiting for perfect certainty is not an option. Build plans that can flex as conditions change.
Make AI a normal part of work
Will does not believe you need to buy every AI tool in the market. He encourages leaders to start simple. Use products like ChatGPT. Experiment with agentic tools. Automate small transactional tasks. Get your team comfortable trying things, even if some experiments fail. AI is not going away. Teams that embrace it will be more effective and more marketable.
Tie recruiting to real business outcomes
Traditional TA metrics still matter, but they are not the full story. Time to fill and offer acceptance rates are diagnostic. The business cares more about how recruiting drives revenue, supports product delivery, and enables long term strategy. Will urges leaders to show exactly how their hiring plans connect to those outcomes. If TA cannot make that connection, it risks being seen as a cost center that AI can replace rather than a strategic partner that the business cannot do without.
Will’s career has tracked the evolution of recruiting over thirty years, from a function that was often purely reactive to one that can sit at the center of business strategy. His message to other leaders is simple. Stay flexible, lean into new tools, and always link your work back to the outcomes that matter most to the business.
