What if the future of recruiting was built on trust, not just tech?

After 13 years building engineering teams at Square, Waymo, and Lyft, Danielle McLaughlin walked away from corporate recruiting to start 18C Partners, a boutique agency focused on helping women in tech find roles that match their worth.

Now she’s taking that mission to scale with 18C.ai, an AI-powered recruiting platform designed to enhance human connection, not replace it.

In this episode, we talk about what happens when you bring AI into the parts of recruiting that matter most — not sourcing more resumes but understanding people.

What You’ll Learn

- AI & Recruiting: Why the smartest recruiters are using AI in the middle of the funnel for data, matching, and insight, not just at the top.

- Negotiation Power: How Danielle coaches women through high-stakes negotiations to unlock life-changing opportunities.

- Building with Purpose: The real story behind launching 18C, and why patience, resilience, and self-trust matter more than milestones.

- The Human Edge: Why empathy, context, and relationships will always be the real competitive advantage in an AI-driven world.

Danielle’s story is a reminder that while AI can make recruiting faster, it can’t replace what makes it work: trust, purpose, and real connection.

Learn more

18c.ai | linkedin.com/in/daniemclaughlin/

Uncomplicated: Humans vs. Machines is produced by Urban Podcasts.

The Wrong Problem: Why AI Recruiting Misses the Point with Danielle McLaughlin