January 26, 2023
We’re excited to introduce Dave Sidlar, Head of Operations at Fetcher. Dave comes to us with 20+ years of experience in the recruiting, staffing, and HR tech industry, previously working at Kelly Services, Allegis Group, and nextSource. He stepped into his new role in October and is responsible for leading the organization’s operational strategy and overseeing the day-to-day success of Fetcher’s sourcing and QA teams.
To welcome Dave to the Fetcher pack, we asked him to share more about himself, his background in talent operations, and his hopes for Fetcher’s future.
I landed in the staffing world how I think everyone lands in the staffing world…and that’s by accident. My educational background is in health, safety, and environmental science. I worked for five at a chemical company as an Industrial Hygienist, and I was recruited by Kelly Services to start up their safety organization.
After doing that for several years, I realized that many of my peers didn’t have a lot of business operations experience. I decided I wanted to jump to the business side because that would give me a leg up. I started running operations at Kelly Scientific, and never went back.
The common thread has been continuous change and growth. In my 18 years at Kelly, I held more than half a dozen different roles. I got to see the ins and outs of staffing from a variety of perspectives, including health and safety, operations, shared services, account management, etc. I had the philosophy that my toolbox has wheels on it.
By that I mean – I look at my expertise and see where I can apply it and what can I learn. I would take my toolbox to my next role, apply my skills and add new skills to it. It’s served me well, and I’ve been able to impact a lot of employees, departments, and clients.
In a previous role, we were building our own internal talent technology system. We worked with Fetcher to see if we could do some level of integration and add it to our backend for recruiting. During that time, I looked at a lot of different AI companies. I recognized that AI is not the answer for everything.
For some positions, it works great, but the minute you get into nuance, you need a human in the middle who can fine-tune that search. I’ve always believed in that and I’ve always respected Fetcher’s model. That’s what really drew me here.
What has surprised me – and it’s been a pleasant surprise – is the passion and dedication of the teams. I’ve seen it across all the Fetcher teams, and you don’t see that at all companies.
Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency! Our platform is strong and our processes are good but we can always be better. My Six Sigma training essentially drives me to not leave anything alone and we will focus on continuous improvement. This year, it’s really about taking what we have and refining it to provide the best quality that we can to our clients.
Our clients expect us to be better at sourcing than they are, and we will deliver that with consistency and precision.
In my opinion, we are seeing a right-sizing of technology companies that are coming off a couple of years of hypergrowth. We’re in a space where unemployment is still low, and talent in the professional ranks is still tight. That means there’s an area for us to shine. At the end of the day, companies still need to recruit. Since unemployment is so low, and there are recession worries, active candidates may not be the best avenue for recruiting. Passive candidates are who our clients need infused into their funnels.
Take a peek at the other trends and factors experts say will define talent acquisition in 2023.
When you go to hire people, it’s a personal journey for the person getting hired. Our clients are the ones connecting with the individual, but Fetcher is looking at their qualifications and the needs of our clients while trying to decide whether or not the candidate meets the client’s needs.
AI is really good, but it’s only as good as the number of iterations you put it through. Where it’s challenging on the AI side is in looking at, for instance, very specialized data scientists for the NBA. AI alone is not going to help there, and that’s where, with Fetcher, we have the opportunity to talk to the client and fine-tune that search.
At the end of the day, we are providing sourcing at a more efficient level than what a sourcing team would give you – better quality, quicker service, at a better price.
A warm welcome to Dave, from everyone in the Fetcher pack! Thanks for letting us get to know you a little bit better.
Check out the full announcement about Dave’s new role.
Check out our other blog posts for more talent acquisition tips and insights into recruiting trends.
At Fetcher, our mission is to connect companies to the people who will help them change the world. Our full-service, recruiting automation platform automates those repetitive, top-of-funnel tasks, so you can focus more on candidate engagement & team collaboration.
Simplify Sourcing. Optimize Outreach. Hire Top Talent. Learn more at fetcher.ai.
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