Nicky Russell

From the Front Line to the Hiring Table

Russell's origin story is a case study in the value of proximity. She had spent about six years in customer service when she noticed the attrition problem inside her own organization. It was, in her words, a revolving door. Her diagnosis was blunt and correct: the company was not hiring the right people coming through the doors. The trouble was that she only ever met candidates who had already been chosen by someone else, which meant she was inheriting decisions she had no hand in making.

That frustration became an opening. She moved into HR and then into recruiting specifically, starting out on site, meeting candidates face to face. Those early conversations taught her the lesson that still anchors her practice: recruiting is about the human, not the job. "Everybody works for a reason," she says. Skills and abilities are the easy part. A candidate can check every box on a requisition and still be unhappy six months in. The harder work, and the part Russell insists on, is understanding what an individual actually wants to do and whether the role in front of them is genuinely it.

Try Before You Buy

Russell has watched the last year of AI enthusiasm sweep through recruiting, and her position is not skepticism so much as discipline. Everybody wants to jump into the AI space. Fewer people are asking the only question she thinks matters: how does it actually work for you and your team?

"I'm like a try before you buy kind of gal," she says. Is that AI note taker giving your team everything it needs, or only most of it? Does that AI sourcing tool deliver against your specific roles, or will you end up buying something else to fill the gap anyway? She describes the current market as a parade of shiny new objects and argues that the rare, valuable move is to sit back, test, and genuinely understand the fit before committing. Seek to understand more, she says, rather than jumping on the bandwagon. It is a message she has carried onto conference stages, including a session last fall where an audience member put nearly the same question to her.

People Power Business

For all the change she has lived through, from job boards rising and falling to LinkedIn to remote work to the current AI wave, Russell's advice heading into 2026 is strikingly steady. The process will always change. The obligation will not.

Her counsel to talent leaders comes in two parts. First, put yourself in the seat of the people you are trying to bring into your organization. Be open with them, tell them plainly what your process is, and stay reachable. "I'm walking this journey with you" is a phrase she uses constantly, and she means it literally: if a candidate has a question, they should be able to come to her, and she should be there to answer it. Second, apply the same standard to your own team. Understand your recruiters' pain points, and do not simply listen to them. Be action oriented about helping them get better in their day to day.

Twenty years in, the through line is uncomplicated and very hard to fake. "I still treat other people with respect and how I want to be treated," she says. Technology will keep resetting the mechanics of the job. Russell's bet is that the leaders who remember people power business will still be the ones worth working for when it does.