Not just a hire: What culture fit reveals that job titles don’t - Sarah White, Smile Digital Talent
Episode 09 - THAT MOMENT
What happens when you spend 25 years building other people's businesses and finally realise you've been driving them "like your own" long enough to actually own one? Meet Sarah White, co-founder of Smile Digital Talent, whose biggest career eureka moment didn't happen in her 20s or even her 30s. It happened last June, during a walk with former colleagues who became co-founders.
Sarah is the kind of recruiter people actually want to meet at networking events. After two and a half decades placing talent in agencies, tech firms, and creative studios, she's built a reputation on something uncommon in recruitment: telling the truth even when it costs placements. She's pulled candidates from final-stage interviews because they weren't the right cultural fit, despite clients wanting them. She sends 4-5 surgical CV matches instead of the industry-standard 20. And she's become known as "the networking queen" not through aggressive self-promotion, but because people keep saying, "You should talk to Sarah."
When Sarah started in recruitment, it was ruthless, fastest finger first, spot business, straight in and straight out. Somewhere along the way, she stopped playing that game. She started building passive talent pools cultivated over years, not job ads that generate 400 responses and one interview. She began coaching hiring managers through psychological interview techniques and designing entire recruitment processes, not just filling vacancies. Most importantly, she started working with agencies who shared her values: trust, transparency, and mutual respect for time.
But here's the tension: after managing divisions, building reputations, and driving businesses as though they were hers, Sarah was still working with one arm tied behind her back. Smile Digital Talent launched in January 2025, proving that sometimes the most important career moment comes not from early ambition, but from finally recognising you've earned the right to bet on yourself.
The Relationship-Driven Recruitment Manifesto:
From Ruthless to Relationship: How recruitment shifted from "fastest finger first" to surgical, values-driven partnerships that prioritise fit over speed
The Cultural Fit Veto: Why Sarah pulled a candidate from final-stage interviews despite client enthusiasm, and how honesty protects everyone long-term
Passive Talent Pools: Most placements don't come from job ads, they come from candidates Sarah's known for years, waiting for the right two boxes to tick
The Director Title Inflation: Why the same role has 20 different job titles across agencies, and how title strategy attracts (or repels) the right level of candidate
The Junior Talent Crisis: How remote work and AI adoption created a drawbridge effect, with agencies avoiding junior hires who need in-person learning to develop critical thinking
The Networking Superpower: When people started approaching Sarah saying "so-and-so told me to talk to you," she realised connection had become her competitive edge
Key Insights Uncovered:
Why Sarah works solely agency-side with narrow, deep specialisation rather than scattergun recruitment across any role that comes in
The exhausting reality of headhunting: surgical tone, credible messaging, understanding not just skills but which sector clients a candidate has worked with
How universities are finally opening programmes to recruiter input, with deans asking Sarah to critique computer science curriculums and manage student expectations
Why respecting time goes both ways, Sarah sends 4-5 targeted CVs and expects reciprocal respect for the research behind each one
The myth that 2025's market is "candidate rich" when actually, good candidates have 7-8 interviews and 2-3 offers each, agencies who wait for "11 out of 10" lose talent
Why the hardest role to fill in 2025 is client services, the post-Covid generation struggles with face-to-face critical thinking and difficult client conversations
The leadership philosophy that changed everything: "A good leader doesn't have a leadership style. They change it dependent on the person they're engaging with"
Why attitude trumps experience 100% of the time, you can teach skills and plug experience gaps, but you can't manufacture fire in the belly
From Sarah's perspective as someone who spent over 20 years building credibility before launching her own brand, witness how foundational work compounds. That network she built? It became referral-based business. Those relationships with Mark and Katie from two decades ago? They became co-founder partnerships. The values she practised managing other people's divisions? They became Smile Digital Talent's competitive differentiation.
Sarah shares what she tells students: "Do as many side projects as you can, even if you get paid peanuts, so you can show evidence of real working, not just theoretical knowledge." But her own eureka moment proves that sometimes the most important project is recognising when you've been driving someone else's business like your own, and it's time to actually own it.
This episode addresses the question every experienced professional wrestles with: when you've spent decades building expertise, trust, and reputation working for others, how do you recognise the moment to bet on yourself? And why does caring deeply, listening honestly, and pulling candidates from lucrative placements when they're wrong create more sustainable success than transactional speed ever could?
About Supo:
Supo provides people-first intelligence software for professional services firms, helping businesses maximise profit and motivate their people through powerful, AI-enabled business intelligence dashboards. By connecting over 500+ platforms and providing real-time data analysis, Supo helps firms make better data-driven decisions about their profit, projects, and people.
For more information about Supo: www.supo.co.uk
About Smile Digital Talent:
Smile Digital Talent takes the pain out of recruitment, one smile at a time. Specialising in tech, digital, and creative roles for agencies, they know the agency world from top to bottom. Their 360 talent approach embeds them in the industry, using extensive networks to genuinely understand client needs and pinpoint talent that gels with values and vision. When recruitment is this collaborative, the results speak for themselves.
For more information about Smile Digital Talent: https://www.smiledigitaltalent.uk/
Ready to discover why treating recruitment as relationship rather than transaction creates competitive advantage? This episode isn't just about hiring, it's about recognising when 25 years of driving other people's businesses prepares you to finally build your own.