16 years across every type of company

Ayse's career spans the full spectrum. She started in banking and management consulting, moved through telecommunications, and spent the last decade working with scaleups, unicorns, and deep tech companies. Now she leads talent acquisition at Riverflex, a seven-year-old AI fullstack consultancy and accelerator based in Amsterdam. The company was founded by a former Deloitte partner and has grown organically into a hands-on, delivery-focused consultancy that helps clients with AI transformation. No academic consulting. Real implementation, tailored to each customer.

You can't copy a culture

Across all those companies, one lesson kept coming back: passion, motivation, and agency are the foundation. But culture matters just as much, and you can't fake it.

"You cannot copy a culture blindly. You cannot perform it. You have to build it, evolve it, and adapt to it."

Whether leading a team or collaborating with stakeholders, Ayse puts this at the center. It shaped how she motivates teams and how she approaches every new organization she joins.

The real problem: strategy, not speed

When asked about the biggest challenge in recruitment right now, Ayse didn't point to sourcing tools or AI adoption. She pointed upstream.

"What I see most of the problems in recruitment is often that they have unclear strategic solutions. There's a lack of planning, or organizational design, or job profiling, or a rushed intake, or decision-making processes that are all over the place."

Her take: the industry talks endlessly about speed and volume, but those metrics are meaningless without the right strategy underneath. Hire at the right time, with the right approach, and the speed follows naturally.

How to fix it: be intentional

Ayse doesn't think the solution is complicated. It starts with the right leadership, the right structures, and the right TA technology stack. Then it's about partnering with the business to understand what's actually needed, strategizing around it, staying on top of trends, and applying best practices immediately.

"It's not really big. It's not complicated. But just really be intentional about how you can do it more strategically."

The word "intentional" keeps coming back in her thinking. It's the opposite of reactive recruiting, and it's where she sees the biggest gap in most teams.

Corporate vs. startup leadership: completely different games

TA leaders at big corporations and TA leaders at startups are not the same profile, according to Ayse. In large companies, the job is about managing touchpoints, stakeholder relationships, prioritization, and high-level delivery. In startups and smaller companies, you're a generalist. You're hands-on. You do everything.

"One is more hands-on, one is more strategic. I don't say one doesn't have it, but it's the volume and the impact that you're supposed to deliver due to the size and complexity of the organization."

She's tried them all, and she prefers the growth-stage environment. Sustainability is a fine strategy, but for a recruitment professional motivated by pace and building, growth companies are where the energy is.

Executive hiring: the red carpet process

At Riverflex, Ayse is hands-on with executive hiring herself, recruiting for leadership team roles. She calls it the "red carpet process" because every executive hire requires a different approach. Busy schedules, different skill sets, higher stakes. You can't run the same playbook as mid-level roles.

When it comes to sourcing executives, she relies on a mix of social platforms, personal networks, and strategic presence at meetups, webinars, and thought leadership sessions relevant to where Riverflex is heading. It's about finding the right ICP in the right places.

The X factor you can't put on paper

When multiple candidates check every box, how do you choose? Ayse calls it the X factor.

"It might be the leadership team culture. It has to adapt the DNA of this culture in a way which is not always on paper."

Getting there requires deep conversations with the founder or CEO to understand what's really needed, not just what's written in the job description. Pay close attention to debriefs. Lead them yourself. Eventually, you develop a feel for who fits and who doesn't.

Budget cuts: protect the mid-senior T-shaped recruiters

When presented with the classic scenario of half the budget and double the hiring goals, Ayse's approach is layered. First, build a business case to keep the team intact for a defined period. Then look at non-delivery costs: vendors, L&D budgets, team engagement budgets. Cut those first.

If it truly comes down to people, she'd keep the mid-senior, T-shaped recruiters who can think strategically and execute independently. And she'd lean harder into AI agents and automation before touching headcount.

"In the final stage it should come to a human count. That would be your final lever."

AI adoption: no skeptics on the team

Riverflex practices what it preaches. The team works with AI agents, runs mini hackathons internally, and constantly explores new tooling. Ayse is proud that there are no skeptics left on the team. They've moved from beginner stage to genuinely maturing in their AI adoption.

"It's really helpful for helping us become more strategic and making more impact. And it's a lot of respect when you choose the right tools and use them for the right purposes."

The company also delivers AI transformation to clients, so the internal upskilling and external delivery grow together.

The unicorn TA leader doesn't exist yet

When asked what kind of TA leader would be worth a massive premium in the market, Ayse described someone with a beginner mindset who has rolled up their sleeves to genuinely upskill for the AI era. Someone who leads by example, not just delegates AI experimentation to mid-managers. A real strategist with hands-on appetite.

"This person should definitely have it as not only business skills, but also as hardcore skills to juggle, choose, see the tradeoffs, see the compliance part of the strategy, and make informed decisions."

Has she met this person? "I haven't met the unicorn yet. Maybe the ET."

The most insightful hire: replacing yourself

When asked about the one hire that taught her the most, Ayse's answer was unexpected: hiring her own replacement. She's done it two or three times when moving to a new opportunity.

"It was really insightful to see how I crafted the job description from my own angle after experiencing everything in the company. It's a good retrospective and reflection. And it's very confronting in a way that you see the impact, what legacy you are leaving behind."

As for mis-hires, her biggest lesson: trust your intuition. "If there is one red flag or even an orange flag, you shouldn't resist your intuition. You should just take it and make peace with it and make the decision as a no."

Who shouldn't be a recruiter

Ayse is direct about this: anyone who needs constant credit to stay motivated probably isn't cut out for recruitment. The work isn't always visible, the touchpoints are human and messy, and the challenging situations require thick skin.

"What we are doing is not really easy. Your most frequent touchpoints are people, candidates, stakeholders. And the challenging situations are sometimes not for people who would like to keep it low key."

Advice for new recruiters

Keep an open mind. Learn the fundamentals: strategic sourcing, behavioral interviewing, stakeholder management, pipeline management, candidate experience. Understand the company you're working for. And if it's not for you, change course early. That's okay.

"If it's a keeper, it's success. If it's not, it's also another success."

The BS in recruitment: obsessing over speed without strategy

Ayse's take on what the industry gets wrong: teams that only talk about speed and volumes while missing the bigger picture. To be a real strategic partner, you first need to understand the business language, then advise on when and how to hire. Speed and quality come after that foundation is built.

"The most successful recruiters work smarter. Working with AI, automation, exploring different tools, trying new methodologies. Keeping an open mind, exploring always, and iterating to streamline and optimize processes."

The takeaway

Ayse's philosophy is rooted in intentionality. Most recruitment problems aren't sourcing problems or speed problems. They're strategy problems. Teams rush into delivery without clear planning, unclear role definitions, misaligned stakeholders, and scattered decision-making. Fix the strategy layer first, automate the repetitive work, and let recruiters focus on what actually creates impact: advising the business, building relationships, and making informed hiring decisions. The future she sees is AI-native recruitment, where individuals, systems, and every touchpoint evolve together. Not as a buzzword, but as an operating model.