If you are building or scaling a SaaS team, you already know how difficult hiring has become. Expectations have shifted, markets move faster than ever, and AI is reshaping how recruitment works. In this episode of The SaaS Jobs Podcast, I spoke with Mitchell Gilbey, the 2025 Stevie Awards Gold Winner for Talent Acquisition Professional of the Year, about how founders, hiring managers and job seekers can navigate this new landscape.
Mitchell has built talent functions across FinTech, RegTech, SaaS and emerging markets. His experience spans the UK, Europe, USA and UAE, giving him a unique global view of how hiring really works today.
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Below is a breakdown of the most valuable lessons from our discussion.
Mitchell’s Career Journey: From Hands On Recruiter to Global TA Leader
Mitchell began his career like many recruiters. He fell into the industry and started on the agency side before moving in-house seven years ago. Over time he shifted from execution to strategy, building talent engines for early stage and scaling companies. His speciality is creating TA structures that adapt to a company’s growth stage. Winning the 2025 Stevie Award was, as he put it, the icing on the cake.
Why FinTech, RegTech and SaaS Attract Top Recruiters
Mitchell is drawn to fast moving sectors because they offer constant innovation and long term opportunity. These industries combine commercial, technical and people focused elements. They also evolve rapidly, which creates strong demand for skilled recruiters who can navigate complex hiring environments. In his view, automation and AI will increase the need for high quality recruitment, not reduce it.
How Global Experience Shapes Better Hiring
Working across the UK, EMEA, USA and UAE has made Mitchell more adaptable, more data led and more aware of cultural nuance. Each market has different norms, expectations and regulatory constraints. This experience allows him to give stakeholders realistic timelines, salary guidance and sourcing strategies that reflect local conditions.
What Scalable Talent Acquisition Really Looks Like
Mitchell defines scalable TA as an ecosystem, not a series of reactive actions. In practice this includes:
- Clear role qualification from the start
- Consistent competency based interviewing
- Strong systems with automation
- Proactive talent pipelines
- A feedback driven candidate experience
- Embedded workforce planning
The goal is a repeatable process that delivers quality hires, no matter the hiring volume.
Diagnosing a Broken Hiring Function
When Mitchell joins a new company, the first step is curiosity. He asks questions, maps processes, identifies pain points and listens to stakeholders across the business. He avoids tearing down systems that already work. Instead, he prioritises high impact fixes based on what aligns with the company’s values and operating style.
The Biggest Mistakes SaaS Companies Make With GTM Hiring
According to Mitchell, SaaS companies often fall into predictable traps when hiring sales, CS, marketing or growth talent. Common issues include:
- Assuming job titles equal performance
- Hiring for pedigree instead of stage fit
- Under qualifying the role
- Expecting instant results without enablement
- Hiring for personality instead of capability
- Misalignment between leadership on ICP, quotas and product maturity
Great go to market hiring depends on clarity and alignment before the search begins.
Speed vs Quality: You Can Have Both
Speed and quality are not competitors. You achieve speed when you have quality processes. Mitchell emphasises consistency, clear expectations and strong market networks. When a recruiter builds long term relationships, speed becomes a natural byproduct of trust.
How AI Fits Into Modern Talent Acquisition
Mitchell uses AI throughout the hiring lifecycle, focusing on reducing manual work rather than replacing human judgment. This includes:
Early stages: sourcing, outreach, competency frameworks, job descriptions
Middle stages: scheduling, interview notes and summaries via tools like Plaud
Later stages: analytics, dashboards, decision support via Notebook LM
AI is best at admin, mapping, research and pattern analysis. Humans remain essential for stakeholder alignment, interviews, candidate evaluation and final decisions.
AI in Recruitment: What Is Hype and What Is Real?
Mitchell is clear that AI will not run full interviews, make hiring decisions or replace human intuition. Companies that attempt this risk poor retention, poor culture fit and broken processes. The strongest hiring systems combine AI’s automation with human creativity and relationship building.
How Early Stage SaaS Founders Should Use AI
For founders without a TA team, AI can dramatically improve clarity. Mitchell recommends using it to:
- Create role scorecards
- Define success metrics
- Translate product needs into job descriptions
- Benchmark compensation
- Automate admin and early outreach
- Build analytics early
Founders should avoid relying on AI to “find candidates” before they clarify what they actually need.
The Hiring Landscape: FinTech vs RegTech vs SaaS
Mitchell summarises today’s market in one word: competitive. Each sector has unique challenges:
- FinTech: commercially driven and often salary inflated
- RegTech: niche roles with specialist expertise
- SaaS: stage dependent, from scrappy builders to enterprise strategists
The Hardest Roles to Hire Right Now
Two categories dominate the high difficulty list:
- Highly specialised technical roles
- Go to market roles requiring precise stage fit
Supply is limited and expectations often diverge between candidates and hiring teams, which increases the importance of qualification and stakeholder alignment.
How Candidate Expectations Have Shifted
Candidates today want clarity. They expect:
- Flexible working
- Clear progression and development
- Strong company values and meaningful culture
They also expect transparency early in the process.
Common Hiring Pitfalls When Expanding to New Markets
As companies scale internationally, the biggest mistakes come from assumptions. Mitchell highlights pitfalls such as:
- Relying on what worked in the home market
- Misaligned compensation
- Overlooking cultural norms
- Underestimating regulatory factors
- Hiring too quickly without infrastructure
What Candidates Get Wrong Across Regions
Mitchell shares in depth insights into typical candidate mistakes across EMEA, USA and UAE. These include:
- Talking about tools, not business impact
- Failing to tailor their story to company stage
- Underestimating the need for cross functional collaboration
- Poor understanding of new markets
- Asking shallow questions
- Weak communication and storytelling
Candidates should focus on outcomes, not task lists.
What Makes a Candidate Stand Out
To stand out, candidates need to show clarity, commercial awareness and curiosity. Mitchell advises job seekers to:
- Lead with transferable skills
- Tie experience to industry problems
- Demonstrate continuous learning
- Communicate impact clearly
- Ask strong, thoughtful questions
Breaking Into SaaS or FinTech Without Prior Experience
Mitchell’s advice is simple. Candidates should reposition their experience around the challenges SaaS or FinTech companies face. Transferable skills matter far more than titles. Self education, attending events and engaging with industry content all build credibility.
In House vs Agency Recruitment: What Candidates Miss
Both sides have strengths. In house TA teams understand culture, strategy and internal processes. Agencies bring market breadth. Mitchell recommends that candidates work with both.
The Future of Talent Acquisition
Mitchell believes TA teams will become smaller, smarter and more strategic. AI will remove admin and elevate TA into an intelligence led function. The value of TA will come from decision influence, not scheduling. Companies that fail to adopt AI will fall behind.
One Piece of Advice for Hiring Managers
Mitchell’s answer is clear. Spend more time defining the role before hiring. Clarity at the start reduces friction, improves speed and leads to better outcomes. Great hiring begins long before the first CV arrives.
One Piece of Advice for Job Seekers
Do not just show what you did. Show the impact you made. Companies hire outcomes, not responsibilities. Tailor your story, show curiosity and stay persistent. Even in tough markets, candidates who communicate impact clearly will stand out.
If you want to follow Mitchell’s work, you can connect with him on LinkedIn. And if you are exploring your next SaaS role or looking to hire, you can find thousands of opportunities on The SaaS Jobs and our AI powered matching tool, the SaaS Career Co-pilot.
