A very good TA convo with... S3-E7. Daria Mikolaevskaia

The superpower of curiosity

Daria’s recruitment superpower is her deep desire to understand exactly what a candidate does and to put herself in their shoes. Early in her career, she went as far as learning HTML and JavaScript to code a timer, simply to better understand the developers she was hiring. In a field where recruiters meet countless different people, this curiosity is what enables genuine connection and continuous learning.

"Curiosity indeed is... a key point to be successful in recruitment. We meet with so many different people and it is very important to try to connect".

The truth about cover letters

When asked what she thinks is pointless in the recruitment world, Daria pointed directly at cover letters. Candidates often spend hours writing them or navigating painful applicant tracking systems, yet the reality of the industry is that very few hiring teams actually review them. While she admits it might be controversial, she recognizes the frustration it causes candidates.

"You write a page or two pages of cover letters which in my practice honestly maybe 5% of all hiring managers and hiring teams will read them".

Navigating deep tech at Innatera

Innatera operates in a highly specialized, challenging market where Daria is tasked with filling incredibly niche roles like "RISC-V CPU digital design engineer". To find these candidates, her team must look beyond standard platforms like LinkedIn and source directly from specific Reddit threads, specialized communities, and tools like Avery. Before she joined, some of these complex roles sat open for 360 days; under her strategy, the average time to hire has dropped below 50 days.

The power of boldness and extracurriculars

Recruitment is rarely straightforward, and Daria emphasizes that it requires a recruiter to be "bold" to handle the constant ambiguity and lack of clarity. Sometimes this means inventing a job description on the fly when a great candidate appears. She also credits her hobbies outside of work - like singing and performance - for making her a better recruiter, as they help her comfortably pitch the company to candidates and confidently present at events.

"Sometimes in recruitment you have to juggle a lot of unknowns... So this boldness really help in ambiguity. So when you're not in control but you can control things that in your control".

Using data for workforce planning

Daria is a massive proponent of using data as a "bridge to leadership," helping to justify strategic business decisions and recruitment shifts. Whether it's mapping talent pools before opening a new office, adjusting salary expectations to stay competitive, or analyzing why a string of 50 candidates failed interviews, data guides her approach. She is currently building a project that breaks down organizational departments by specific technical skills (like ASIC or Verilog) to perform a skill gap analysis, allowing the company to predictively analyze what talent they will need up to four years in the future.

"Data can become this bridge to leadership, to the business to justify and help actually help with certain decisions".

The takeaway

Daria’s message to the TA industry - especially young recruiters - is to "be curious, be bold," and to never stop learning from hiring managers and candidates, who are the greatest sources of market knowledge. By deeply understanding the roles you are hiring for, leaning into your data, and not being afraid to ask questions, recruiters can successfully navigate even the most complex and niche technical markets

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