Google to Aerospace: Building Teams That Matter - Mike Moriarty - Hiring Happy Hour - Episode # 024
"You learn a lot about a leader if they say, ‘Come work for me,’ versus, ‘Come work with me.’ I think that's a really important delineation to understand about the leaders you're supporting."
What separates recruiters who thrive in an AI-driven world from those who get left behind, and what does it take to build a team that runs through walls? In this episode of Hiring Happy Hour, Nicole reconnects with a powerhouse in the talent world, Mike Moriarty, Founder and CEO of Arsenal Pulse. Mike rose through the ranks at Google, where he built a data-driven recruiting model from scratch, then went on to lead a 160-plus person recruiting org at Dropbox, consistently hitting headcount targets within 1%. Now, he’s recruiting for hard tech, aerospace, and defense, the sectors where the talent bar isn’t just high, it’s mission-critical. Mike has spent his career proving that the fundamentals of great hiring don’t change, even when everything else does. In this conversation, he gets into what AI is actually disrupting (and what it isn’t) and why the recruiters who invest in people over process are the ones who will always have a place in this industry.
Takeaways:
Dig into a candidate’s mental model, not just their metrics. Understanding what drives someone, where their motivation comes from and why, tells you far more about how they’ll perform than any number on a scorecard.
How a leader frames an offer tells you more than their job description ever will. The ones who treat hiring as a partnership rather than a transaction build teams that actually want to be there.
AI isn’t replacing recruiters, it’s raising the bar for them. The human conversation is becoming the highest-value part of the process. Recruiters who double down on rapport, alignment, and candidate understanding will do the work of three.
Start building with AI now, not later. The TA leaders pairing that curiosity with the right hiring tech are the ones who will lead this industry forward.
Values can be your north star in hiring. Skills can be taught; integrity, work ethic, and genuine care for people cannot. Screening for characters first has compounding returns across any team, in any industry.
Individual AI and institutional AI are two different things. Personal tools make you faster; institutional AI alignment makes teams smarter together. Understanding the difference puts you ahead of most leaders in the conversation.
Quote of the Show:
“You learn a lot about a leader if they say, ‘Come work for me,’ versus, ‘Come work with me.’ I think that’s a really important delineation to understand about the leaders you’re supporting or working with. I always say, “Listen, you work with me. We’re in this fight together.” - Mike Moriarty
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