Rise of the Talent Advisor
Stephen Oakes
Happy new year to everyone except hiring managers who always want to add ‘just one more conversation.’
With the new year, we always look at predictions of what we expect to happen in our industry over the next 12 months. It seems as though every few years, recruitment announces a transformation. New tools arrive, titles get upgraded, and suddenly everyone is a strategic partner. Very little changes, except the slide decks.
But this year feels different. Not because the messaging improved, but because AI has started quietly removing the parts of the job that used to absorb most of the time and, conveniently, most of the cover.
Scheduling. Screening. First-touch engagement. Pipeline nudging. Coordination. Reporting. Matching signals across thousands of profiles. All of that is becoming faster, cheaper, and largely automated when implemented properly.
When that layer drops away, something uncomfortable happens.
The work that remains is the thinking and judgment.
And that’s why I’m seeing more and more roles labelled talent advisor. Not as a branding exercise, but as a response to a genuine shift in where human value now sits.
When execution gets cheap, judgement suddenly matters
For a long time, recruitment value was measured by throughput. Roles filled. Time shaved. Volume moved.
AI is excellent at this when used correctly and responsibly. It is relentless, consistent, and not prone to calendar fatigue.
Once that work is largely handled, the pressure moves upstream. The hard questions stop being “how do we fill this role?” and start sounding more like:
Why does this role exist in this shape?
Are we over-specifying because the last hire didn’t work out?
Is this actually a skills problem, or a workflow problem with a fancy job title?
What are we trading off by pushing for speed here?
Which risks are we implicitly accepting, and does leadership actually agree on them?
These are not operational questions. They’re judgement calls.
And that’s where the advisor earns their seat.
A brief word on “strategic recruiters”
Every time technology changes, recruitment rediscovers the word strategic.
It appears in job titles, LinkedIn headlines, and conference agendas, usually moments before someone opens a spreadsheet and measures time-to-hire.
The assumption seems to be that if we say the word often enough, something structural will follow.
AI is less polite.
When systems are doing the ranking, nudging, matching, and reminding, the human contribution becomes very visible, very quickly. Sitting in meetings and narrating market data stops passing for advisory work when everyone else can see the same dashboard.
Some people genuinely move upstream. They challenge role design, pressure-test assumptions, and help leaders make better trade-offs.
Others stay exactly where they are, just with a new title and a longer explanation of why the process still takes twelve weeks.
Same meetings. Same behaviours. Better branding.
AI isn’t fooled by this, and increasingly, neither are businesses.
Why “talent advisor” roles are showing up now
I don’t think organisations suddenly developed a deep appreciation for recruitment nuance.
I think AI forced clarity.
Once market data, supply signals, compensation ranges, and conversion patterns are surfaced automatically, there’s no value in acting as a messenger. The role shifts to interpretation.
A talent advisor is useful not because they have access to information, but because they can tell you what to do with it. They understand when the data is directionally helpful and when it’s misleading. They can factor in internal politics, delivery pressure, budget reality, and the unspoken fears sitting behind a hiring brief.
They’re the person who can say, calmly and credibly, “This role is hard to hire for because it’s confused,” without being dismissed as obstructive.
That’s a different job to moving candidates through a funnel.
This isn’t evolution. It’s exposure.
Here’s the part that tends to get glossed over.
AI is changing workflows and removing the camouflage.
When the coordination work disappears, there’s nowhere left to hide behind ‘being busy’. Activity used to look like impact, but won’t anymore.
You either add perspective or you don’t.
You either help leaders make better decisions or you relay process updates.
You either reduce risk or you generate motion.
That’s not a moral judgement. It’s a sorting mechanism.
Some recruiters will thrive in advisor-shaped roles. Others will prefer highly structured environments where automation does most of the heavy lifting. Both are legitimate paths.
Pretending they’re the same role with different titles is where the tension shows up.
What I’m watching this year
The trend worth paying attention to isn’t “AI in recruitment”. That conversation is already behind us and we’re very much living it.
What’s interesting is how quickly human effort is being pushed toward judgement, interpretation, and decision support once AI clears the noise.
Smaller teams. Sharper mandates. Fewer generalists doing everything. More expectation that recruiters have a point of view, not just candidate pipelines.
And a growing intolerance for people who can explain what’s happening but struggle to advise on what should happen next.
That shift won’t come with a launch announcement.
It’ll show up quietly, in job titles first.
Which, tellingly, it already is.