Hanna Hilterman

“I love bringing people into an organization and making people feel welcomed and included.”

In the home Hanna Hilterman shares with her husband, recruiting is both the day job and the after-hours conversation. The two spend their days hiring, then come home and keep talking about it. As Head of HR & Talent at FieldPulse, the Dallas-based field service management software startup, Hanna brings that same passion to building the company's team.

Her path to FieldPulse ran through the agency side of the business. Hanna first recruited externally, filling roles for multiple companies, before moving in-house at FieldPulse. Recruiting externally and now inside a startup has been deeply rewarding, she says. Asked how she feels about the profession, her answer is simple: she loves it.

A Spark That Started on Campus

Hanna did not study recruiting in college. She practiced it. Throughout her college years she led recruitment for her sorority, and while she readily acknowledges that the work differs from hiring for a company, that is where the spark caught. "I love bringing people into an organization," she says. "I love making people feel welcomed, included, and bringing a good atmosphere." When she began weighing opportunities after graduation, recruiting was the path that stood out, a professional version of what she already enjoyed most.

The People Behind the Path

Two people stand out when Hanna traces her growth. The first is her husband. They met while working at the same recruiting firm, and she credits him with shaping her journey and helping her become good at the work. Both still recruit today, which has made theirs, in her words, "a very family-filled home of recruiting."

The second is FieldPulse CEO Gabriel Pinchev, to whom she has reported for six years. Her praise for him is unreserved. "He is absolutely incredible," she says. The lesson she draws from Gabe is about trust: he gives her room to develop and grow, welcomes her feedback and input, and lets her own the function. That autonomy, she says, has shaped both her career and who she is today. She does not take it for granted, either. Having the same manager for so long, and a great one, is something she counts herself fortunate for.

Technology That Raises the Bar

Hanna sees the recruiting landscape shifting even apart from artificial intelligence: outreach has changed, and fewer candidates answer the phone. Against that backdrop, AI tools have earned a central place in her process, starting with interview recording.

She calls recording a game changer, not only for herself and her team but for hiring managers. Recorded interviews let everyone refer back to conversations, confirm they are on the same page, and check whether the interviews are surfacing what the company needs and how the group is evaluating candidates as a whole. "Being able to record holds us to an even higher standard," she says, and it helps the team make key hiring decisions. There is a human benefit as well. Recruiters, she notes, learned to type a mile a minute to absorb everything a candidate says. Without the clicking in the background, interviews feel more personable.

She also values AI for analysis, with a clear boundary: she would not treat it as the source of truth. Inside FieldPulse, an emerging tech leader has worked through every department to help teams get the most out of their day, including automating tedious manual recruiting tasks so the team can focus on what Hanna calls the craft of consulting.

Advice for Talent Leaders in 2027

As year-end pressure builds and the holidays approach, Hanna's advice is simple and firm. "Don't take the easy route if it's not the best route," she says. In crunch time, a quick fix can feel good enough. In her experience, every Band-Aid applied under pressure tends to become a bigger issue in the long term.

Her alternative is due diligence. Do the work as well as possible, and do it the right way the first time. That approach, she says, sets teams up for success more than trying to do things fast and get them out of the way.