Blaise O'Hara

• Lead an international team of six recruiters supporting hiring across the USA, Canada and Ireland
• Introduced consistent recruitment standards across the Talent Acquisition team, improving hiring quality and the hiring manager experience.
• Designed and implemented Hiring Blitz campaigns by aligning recruiters to dedicated business units, achieving a 100% fill rate across priority hiring while reducing time-to-hire from months to weeks.
• Designed interviewer training programmes and created the HMH Today Talent Acquisition Hub, providing hiring managers with interview guidance, recruitment resources and best practice.
• Improved recruitment operations by introducing structured interview scheduling and feedback workflows, increasing consistency and reducing delays.
• Built recruitment dashboards providing visibility of pipeline health, recruiter capacity and hiring risks to support workforce planning.
• Partnering with senior leaders on hiring strategy, market insights and organisational workforce planning.
• Implemented CoderPad interviewer guidance and training to improve technical interview consistency and interviewer confidence.
• Partnered with HR, Compensation and business leaders to align recruitment activity with organisational priorities and workforce planning.

• Supported the EMEA Talent Acquisition build-out during a period of rapid organisational growth.
• Recruited mid and Senior Software Engineers across the UK and Ireland.
• Partnered with Engineering leaders, Global Mobility and Compensation teams to support international hiring.
• Advised hiring managers on talent availability, market trends and recruitment strategy within highly competitive technical talent markets.

Delivered full lifecycle technical recruitment across multiple EMEA countries, partnering with hiring leaders to recruit technical talent across Data Centres, Networking, Software Engineering, Procurement and Supply Chain.

Hiring Delivery

• 2019: 85 hires (Data Centres)
• 2020: 57 hires across Data Centres, Networking, Procurement and Supply Chain
• 2021: 42 hires across Network & Software Engineering

Key Achievements

• Partnered with 23 Hiring Managers across 8 EMEA regions to improve hiring delivery through workforce planning, regular business reviews and data-driven pipeline management.
• Introduced recruitment process improvements including POD interview days, Hiring Manager ownership models and Bar Raiser scheduling, increasing hiring capacity, improving candidate conversion and reducing interview cycle times.
• Redesigned interview processes for senior technical hiring by introducing structured intake meetings, enhanced screening and interviewer preparation, improving assessment quality and increasing successful senior-level hires.
• Partnered with HR, Compensation and business leaders to secure market-based compensation exceptions for hard-to-fill technical roles, resulting in the successful hire of critical talent.
• Selected to contribute to organisation-wide Talent Acquisition initiatives including recruiter onboarding improvements, diversity programmes, the Super Closer Committee and candidate experience projects.

• Delivered 45 hires, including senior leadership and executive appointments, during a period of significant international expansion.
• Partnered with business leaders to deliver end-to-end recruitment across multiple functions, ensuring a high-quality candidate experience.
• Represented Web Summit at international events, strengthening employer brand awareness and supporting global recruitment campaigns.