James Thomas

Talent Acquisition | Apollo.io, Everlaw, Lyft, Airbnb

Oakland, California, United States

About

I'm a Talent Acquisition leader with experience building TA teams and foundational processes to scale. I’ve spent the past 15+ years helping companies find their most valuable assets: their team members. I started my career as an agency recruiter, then made the move to in-house recruiting. I’ve spent the past 10+ years leading Talent Acquisition teams at pre-IPO SaaS companies (Everlaw, ON24) and helping to scale online marketplaces (Lyft, Airbnb, Tapingo/Grubhub) as an individual contributor or team-of-one. I'm passionate about building diverse teams and equitable hiring practices.

Experience

  • Principal Recruiter at Apollo.io
    Jan 2026 - Present · 7 mos

  • Senior Contract Recruiter at SnapLogic
    Aug 2024 - Apr 2025 · 9 mos

    SnapLogic's AI-powered, all-in-one generative integration platform unifies your data and streamlines workflows to transform your business. Focused on global hiring for the GTM team, for positions including: - Director, Customer Success EMEA - Enterprise Account Executive (US, UK, & Germany) - OEM Sales Director - Cloud Partnerships Director - Channel Sales Director (US, Germany) - Business Development Representative - Senior Customer Marketing Manager - Senior Field Marketing Manager - Senior Solutions Engineer - Revenue Enablement Manager

  • Gap year at Career Break
    Jun 2023 - Jul 2024 · 1 yr 2 mos

  • Director of Recruiting at Everlaw
    May 2019 - May 2023 · 4 yrs 1 mo

    Cloud-based litigation platform. Joined post-Series B and grew Everlaw from 125 to 550+ employees through Series C (2/20) and Series D (11/21). * Achieved the hiring of over 575 employees (including backfills) in 4 years by building and managing a TA team focused on recruiting, sourcing, operations, and branding/events. * 248 hires in 2022, 164 in 2021, 114 in 2020, and 60+ in H2 2019. * Enhanced team performance and growth through regular coaching, weekly 1:1s, and performance reviews for up to 14 direct reports, including people-managers. * Increased sourced candidate hires from 8% to 19% of total annual hires between 2020 and 2022. * Aligned hiring plans with company objectives by developing partnerships with the finance team and business leaders, which included capacity planning and defining the recruiting team’s services and value. * Improved recruitment efficiency and satisfaction by utilizing data and metrics including Hiring Manager Satisfaction, Candidate Experience, DEI Sourcing, and Interview Efficiency. * Designed and implemented competency behaviors and leveling for Recruiter and Sourcer job families based on the Radford model. * Enhanced hiring manager effectiveness with the creation of a comprehensive Hiring Manager Playbook. * Streamlined compensation by co-creating the compensation analysis process using Radford, and performing comp analysis for all new positions for 2+ years. * Boosted employer branding by managing content creation for LinkedIn and everlaw.com. * Successfully led senior-level Exec team, Finance, and Legal searches. * Optimized recruiting tools and partnerships by managing vendor approval and partnerships with Lever, LinkedIn, Gem, and Byteboard. * Improved agency partnership efficiency for retained and contingent searches. * Key stakeholder in the successful migration from Lever to Greenhouse. * Enhanced recruitment processes by initiating and managing the implementation of a company-wide competency-based interview framework.

  • Head of Recruiting at Tapingo
    Jul 2017 - Apr 2019 · 1 yr 10 mos

    Acquired by Grubhub in Oct 2018. *Spearheaded business hiring in San Francisco and Denver, and supervised engineering hiring in Tel Aviv, enabling a successful pivot from an on-campus food delivery app to a self-pickup model. *Successfully staffed a new Denver office with over 30 employees, ensuring a seamless transition of positions from San Francisco. *Orchestrated and hosted monthly All Hands meetings for one year, fostering company-wide communication and alignment. *Led HR integration during Grubhub acquisition, ensuring smooth transition of compensation and benefit plans, and maintaining recruitment efficiency.