Sarah Wilson

“I personally think recruitment is here to stay, and here to stay for a long time.”

In 2010, as Sarah Wilson took her first job in recruitment, people were already asking whether the profession would survive AI, robots and automated systems. Sixteen years on, she has answered that question with her own career, rising from graduate consultant to Director at Michael Page, with a promotion and a new role taking effect on 1 September this year. Based in Reading, England, she believes the profession she joined straight out of university is here to stay.

Her path through the business has been notable for its breadth as much as its height. Sarah has recruited across six or seven different industries and worked in both interim and permanent recruitment, sometimes moving sideways rather than straight up when an opportunity arose. She sometimes calls herself a jack of all trades, but the label undersells the advantage. That range of sector knowledge, gathered from many corners of a large organization, is precisely what she credits with preparing her for the role she holds today.

From Sports Studies to Recruitment

Sarah's first ambition lay in sport. A competitive swimmer and netball player, she studied sports studies at university and pictured a career with a sports club or governing body, organizing events, handling sponsorship or working on the management side of the game. Jobs in that world were scarce and fiercely contested, and as she finished her degree, few openings appeared.

What did keep appearing was recruitment. Once her CV was online, job alerts repeatedly matched her to a field she admits she barely understood at the time. Rather than dismiss it, she began exploring, applying to several of the larger firms alongside a few smaller ones. One criterion guided the search: she wanted somewhere that offered continued progression.

The more she learned, the better the fit. Recruitment combined the organizing and people management she enjoyed with something that appealed to her competitive streak: the chance to control her own market and be rewarded for her own performance. Michael Page won out because of how it felt. The culture struck her as inclusive and free of rigid hierarchy, and the firm was visibly invested in its people, an impression she says has held true for 16 years.

The Leaders Who Had Her Back

Sarah is candid that the journey has not been plain sailing. Shifting market conditions, dips in team performance and periods of being short of people have all tested her. What carried her through, she says, were the people around her, above all the managing director in whose region she has worked for roughly 13 of her 16 years.

That leader became the model Sarah set out to emulate: someone who holds high expectations of her people and gives a great deal back in return. She was also unafraid to deliver tough love when it was needed, and Sarah credits that honesty with helping her through difficult stretches and out the other side. Leaders like her made Sarah feel that someone had her back, believed in what she could do and handed her new responsibilities even before she felt fully ready. "I've never wanted to risk not having that in another business," she says.

Even the managers whose style did not suit her taught her something, whether a skill worth copying or a habit she resolved never to adopt. She has carried forward a principle she sees at the heart of Michael Page's culture: good ideas are not reserved for those at the top. Anyone, even a few months into the job, is encouraged to implement an idea, run with it and take ownership, and Sarah works to pass that ethos on to the people she leads.

Technology That Frees Human Work

Sarah finds a certain irony in today's debates about AI, since the same predictions of obsolescence greeted her when she first arrived, and she is still standing. What has changed is the pace: adoption has accelerated sharply over the past 24 months. The biggest gain so far has been the removal of time-consuming, laborious admin. Writing a job advert that would appeal to the right candidate used to take 20 or 30 minutes. Now a draft appears in moments, ready to be checked, tweaked and sent.

The time saved goes back into strategy, deciding where to focus and whom to approach. A recording tool used in client and candidate meetings, whether on screen or face to face, means consultants can stay fully engaged with the person in front of them and build rapport instead of writing everything down. Shortlist emails and candidate presentations can be produced faster, too.

The result, as Sarah sees it, is a profession returning to its core. Consultants are talking to more people and spending more time with each of them. "We're now actually doing recruitment," she says, "rather than doing the recruitment part half the time, and administration and coordination the other half of the time."

Advice for the Year Ahead

Since stepping into her new role on 1 September, Sarah has deliberately kept her eyes on the coming year rather than the current one. She has been putting structures in place with her teams, building client plans and mapping out a calendar of client-facing events and the information she wants to share with the market, so that January brings action rather than deliberation.

Her advice to other talent leaders follows directly. Use the remaining months to decide what you want to achieve, whom you want to target and work with, and what kind of specialist you want to be known as in your market. Then make sure the pieces connect: a candidate base ready for that focus, a client base that wants it from you, and relationships with both already in place. "Do the planning and the strategy now," she says, "so that when it comes to January, it's all done and you're just ready to go."