Reimagining Talent Acquisition
When organizations make leadership hires, the stakes are high, and the margin for error is small. For Jason Peetsma, BA'01, Founder and Managing Partner of Egility, that reality is exactly why talent acquisition needs a rethink.
Based in Toronto, with a client base spanning North America and international markets, Egility is a modern talent intelligence firm that helps organizations make more confident hiring decisions by combining human expertise with artificial intelligence.
"Clients turn to Egility for their most important hiring and leadership decisions," Peetsma explains. "We combine high-touch executive search with proprietary technology to bring greater speed, clarity, and confidence to how organizations build teams."
A Modern Approach to Talent Intelligence
At the core of Egility's work is the belief that the best hiring decisions come from blending data-driven insight with experienced human judgment. Central to this approach is Egility Intelligence, the firm's software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, which uses AI, psycholinguistics, and behavioural pattern analysis to predict leadership and culture fit between people and organizations.
Alongside executive search, Egility's talent intelligence arm produces decision-ready reports that support compensation strategy, employment branding, and diversity, equity, and inclusion outcomes, which help organizations look beyond résumés and titles to what truly drives success.
Where AI Ends and Human Judgment Begins
Egility's model doesn't replace people with technology; instead, it redefines how each contributes.
"At Egility, the 'human + artificial intelligence' blend is simple: AI augments human intuition with data and science, and our consultants apply judgment where context and consequence matter most," Peetsma explains.
"The result is that our consultants can review more information, faster, with greater consistency," he says. "The human side remains essential for defining the success profile, probing leadership depth, building trust, advising on trade-offs, and closing the right hire."
That approach has delivered tangible results. In one recent Canadian mid-market CFO search, AI-enabled tools helped expand the talent pool beyond obvious competitors and normalize candidate data into a consistent, comparable scorecard aligned with success criteria.
"The client moved from search launch to accepted offer in six weeks — versus a more typical 10–14+ weeks," he says. "Shortlist quality improved, with fewer late-stage 'no's' due to fit and faster internal consensus."
Advice for Job Seekers Navigating AI-Enabled Hiring
For candidates, the rise of AI in recruiting doesn't mean trying to "beat" an algorithm.
"The most important shift is understanding that AI doesn't replace human judgment — it shapes what humans see first," Peetsma says. "The goal is not to 'game' the system, but to make your experience clear, searchable, and comparable."
His advice includes using clean, standard formatting; anchoring experience to outcomes rather than titles; mirroring the language of the role accurately; and being explicit about leadership, decision-making, and accountability. Consistency across résumés, LinkedIn profiles, and interviews is also critical.
"Ultimately, strong profiles work because they reflect reality clearly," he adds. "AI simply rewards candidates who articulate their experience in a way that is structured, evidence-based, and easy to understand, which happens to be exactly what good hiring decisions require as well."
Advice for Students and Alumni Entering the Field
For students and alumni interested in talent acquisition or HR technology, Peetsma emphasizes that the profession is evolving, not disappearing.
"AI is not replacing the profession; it is raising the bar on what great practitioners look like," he says.
A strong foundation in business and human behaviour is essential, along with AI literacy — understanding where tools succeed, where they fail, and how to explain outputs responsibly. Just as important are the human skills often developed through a liberal arts education.
"The ability to reason, research, write clearly, and bring investigative curiosity is exactly what differentiates high performers in an AI-enabled world," he says. "As AI takes on more of the mechanical tasks, your value increasingly comes from judgment, curiosity, and the ability to connect dots."
For Peetsma, the blend of technology, human insight, and purpose-driven decision-making is not only the future of talent acquisition but the standard Egility is already building toward.