Five Things I Learned This Year. On My Birthday. Again. Ten Years Later.
I was 44 when I wrote the first version of this, 45 when I posted it (Read here).
And now, I am 55.
That sentence alone deserves a moment.
Ten years ago I was writing about office friendly fire, bullying managers, and using a Scroobius Pip poem to process feelings I couldn't find words for. That post took me nearly two years to publish. I kept parking it, probably as I was scared someone important would read it.
I'm not scared of that anymore. That might be the first thing I learned this year.
1. The industry hasn't changed as much as it thinks it has.
Everyone spent the last year telling each other that AI had transformed recruitment. Our LinkedIn feeds were full of it, the conference stages were full of it, and the vendor decks were very, very full of it.
Here's what I actually saw: most TA teams still couldn't tell you their time-to-productivity on a new hire. Most hiring managers still thought a job description was a wish list rather than a contract, and most TA leaders were still stuck in the same place they were five years ago, caught between strategy they couldn't execute and operations they couldn't escape.
I’ve given that last bit a name: the TA Marzipan Layer. I've been calling it that for a while now. The industry caught up a bit this year, and that felt good, not in a smug way… more like… finally.
The tools changed, the conversation changed, but if we’re honest, the underlying dysfunction has remained largely intact.
2. Ageism in recruitment is worse than ever.
There's a particular kind of irony in spending your career fighting for fair hiring practices and then finding yourself on the receiving end of the thing you've been arguing against.
I am 55. I have 3 built companies, sold 2, built teams from nothing, and advised organisations on talent strategy across two decades. I have seen more hiring cycles than most TA leaders have had hot dinners.
And yet, I can feel the temperature drop in certain rooms.
It's not always overt. It rarely is. It's the assumptions baked into job specs that use "energy" and "hunger" as proxies for something else. It's the way certain conversations don't get followed up. It's the creeping sense that the industry you helped shape is now systematically undervaluing the people who, in my opinion, know it best.
I know I still have at least one more ‘big thing’ in me (although I don’t know what that is yet). And the people who've written me off because of a number on a LinkedIn post are going to find that a useful thing to have been wrong about.
3. Building something from scratch at 55 is harder and better than it sounds.
It’s been a little over a year since the rec hub acquired my business. In the main, I think it’s been a success. I think we are still finding our way, but I am optimistic. My new role is much more people-focused, looking at who and how we hire on a global basis. It’s the chance to look at TA with a new lens, a new perspective and a blank page (ish). I’m buying an ATS and everything.
What this will lead to is the build-out of a consulting practice. Again, not quite sure of the shape and size of it yet, I know it will feature AI in there somewhere, but combined with real humans who know what they are doing.
The bit I’vefound less easy is my sense of voice. Or more specifically, the loss of my own voice. I can’t post everything I used to post. Not that that is always a bad thing, but having to think about a company voice that is not my own is still a delicate balance.
The result, in the main, is I post less, which ironically makes me seem less relevant (looks back at #2). I’m also going to increase my content, and make the TA marzipan layer a thing. I am, in the most literal sense, building multiple things simultaneously with limited budget, limited bandwidth, and no shortage of opinions from people who aren't building anything.
This year I learned that the people worth listening to are the ones who are also building something. Everyone else is commentary. Whilst I’m at it, I also learned that AI tools don't replace judgement. They accelerate it, for better and worse. If your instincts are good, you move faster. If they're not, you make more mistakes more quickly.
4. Community is still the most underrated asset in this industry.
I've been running unconferences since before most of the people posting about "community-led growth" knew what a hashtag was. truManchester. truLeeds. The #tru model is two decades old, and it still works because it's built on the one thing no algorithm can replicate: people in a room talking honestly about things that matter to them.
In the last 12 months I’ve definitely put tru on the back burner but haven’t stopped or given up - just need to make it work better for me and, more importantly, the community that has found it useful over the years. My personal take is that I have 35000+ TA professionals in my network. Built over twenty years. Not from ads, not from a content strategy, but in the main from showing up, being honest, and not wasting people's time.
That network is a reflection of me probably more than anything else. But it’s been neglected, and I am going to do something about that.
5. I am exactly where I'm supposed to be, which is more unsettling than it sounds.
Ten years ago I was processing a professional trauma and using poetry to do it. I was rebuilding my sense of self after people I worked for tried to dismantle it.
Today I am 55, building a Talent Acquisition function from scratch, thinking about what a successful talent advisory business would look like. Thinking about what people actually want from this industry, so I can create content that people actually want and engage with. I’m looking at the calendar to put some dates in for more tru events in Manchester, Leeds and Whitstable. None of that was the plan. All of it feels right.
I don't have a five-year strategy for myself, but I have a direction, and I’m thinking about what I can do rather than hoping for what might be. That's more than I had at 45.
The next ten years are going to be the most interesting I've had. Not because things are going to get easier. They're probably not. But because I finally stopped pretending I wanted easy.
Here's to 55 and the next 12 months in talent acquisition.
There is lots more to come!
About
Martin Dangerfield, Talent Acquisition Strategist. Straight-talker. Community builder. Talent Strategy Director at the rec hub,
I help in-house TA teams get better with a combination of sharper strategies, smarter hiring, and no-nonsense support. Since selling my business, I have been helping to grow the rec hub in it’s global mission to deliver an amazing embedded recruitment solution. I’ve built TA teams from scratch, scaled global functions, sold a business, and consult on all things talent acquisition.
I run #truManchester and #truLeeds because I believe the best ideas don’t come from panels, they come from people talking honestly in a room. I’m not here for buzzwords or silver bullets.
I’m here to help TA people do the job properly.
South African-born, UK-based, and European in perspective, I’m Gen X, proud of it, and not afraid to say what others won’t.
This is the work I care about. If you care too, stick around.