Onedia White

“The only thing that really should be serious is your work ethic and your drive to succeed.”

Onedia White introduces herself with a rhyme: Onedia, like I need ya. Her name sounds best when she says it herself, so she offers the tagline to help people lock onto it. It is a small piece of marketing, which happens to be how she describes much of recruiting. At HCM Staffing and Consulting Group in New York, where she serves as Managing Partner, the work means presenting candidates to clients and presenting the firm to the market.

She studied marketing, and at first she could not see what it had to do with staffing. Over time the connection became obvious. Recruiters market their candidates, and firms have to market themselves, telling clients what they do and what differentiates them. It is a point she was discussing with her father not long ago, and her conclusion is a simple one: things do come full circle.

Onedia knew staffing from the other side of the desk long before she recruited anyone. Early in her career she worked as a temp and built a steady administrative track, moving from receptionist to administrative assistant, then executive assistant and office manager. With an associate's degree already in hand, she went back to school for a bachelor's in marketing, determined to keep growing.

The program required an internship, and her college advisor placed her at a staffing firm. Her first question was simply what this business was. The firm recruited recruiters, and that rec-to-rec model made it an ideal classroom. She touched many verticals, learned the processes different recruiters followed, saw what clients look for in recruiters, and watched how recruiters built brands for themselves and their candidates. She describes it as a bird's-eye view of the entire profession.

In September 2021, Onedia joined HCM Staffing and Consulting Group, a Black-owned firm whose ethos centered on diversity and inclusion within technology. That mission had always been part of her own, and companies aligned with it had been hard to find.

She was originally brought on as a recruiting manager. The firm had plenty of jobs and plenty of candidates but lacked organization, and it was in the middle of an applicant tracking system implementation. Onedia helped see that rollout through, got every candidate into the right system, and tightened the process so clients were satisfied with both the quality of talent and the experience of working with the firm. The work carried her from individual contributor, working both sides of the desk, to leading a team. When the CEO at the time moved on to another opportunity, his departure opened the way for her promotion onto the client side, and along the way she held the titles Global Delivery Manager and Vice President of Client Services.

Today she is a partner in a firm that has evolved with a market that looks very different than it did in 2020 and 2021. Technology remains a core focus, but the firm now runs both a tech team and a non-tech team and continues to expand its verticals.

The founder of the rec-to-rec firm where Onedia started was her first mentor in recruiting, and an early example of a mother who had built her own business. Onedia was not yet a mother herself, but the model impressed her. So did a phrase the founder often repeated: nothing is that serious. Anyone new to a company can feel that a single mistake might cost them their job, and the advice changed how Onedia worked. It made her more relaxed, more comfortable and more confident, and she began bringing that same ease to the way she prepares candidates for interviews. Mistakes are going to happen. What should be serious, in her view, is putting in the work.

The second leader was the original CEO of HCM Staffing and Consulting Group, the first time she had seen a Black CEO lead a company, something she notes is still uncommon. He was also a veteran, and watching his lived experience shape the way he did the job taught her how much a person's story can influence the way they lead.

Some of Onedia's most meaningful relationships began with a placement. One woman she placed roughly eight years ago still calls, not because she needs a job, but because she wants to talk. The two follow each other on social media, and Onedia recently saw her posts from a trip to Italy shortly before taking her call on the way to work.

Another began years ago with a simple LinkedIn message to a player coach in Boston, whom Onedia went on to place. That candidate has since risen to leadership partner at the firm where Onedia placed her and has introduced Onedia to her fellow partners. More than a decade on, they have watched each other's children grow up online. For Onedia, the point is the value you can provide to people long after you place them.

Onedia's view of artificial intelligence is nuanced. She wants the industry to pay closer attention to its environmental impact and to the communities bearing that cost. At the same time, she worries that dwelling only on the negatives keeps people away from the technology, when they could be exploring how it might improve their personal and professional lives.

In daily practice, she calls AI a game changer. She has learned to build custom GPTs that align a candidate's resume with a job description before the first call, then use that alignment to present the candidate to a client. Add help with calendar management and email organization, and the gains are hard to ignore. She compares the moment to the early internet, when people were warned to stay out of chat rooms. The same internet that connects people across any distance also brought trolls who harm them. As she puts it, you take the good with the bad, the same as with the internet.