What Recruiters Get Wrong: Sonya Heer on TA Ops, Candidate Experience, and Saying the Hard Stuff

Beyond the Offer Podcast | Hirewell Talent Insights Recap

Sonya Heer didn’t just fall into recruiting, she shaped it from every angle.

In Episode 5 of Beyond the Offer, we talk with Sonya, Manager of Talent Acquisition Operations at Delta Dental, about building a career that spans agency hustle, corporate recruiting, and now TA operations. Her perspective? Recruiters can’t hide behind process anymore. If you can’t have honest conversations with hiring managers, you’re holding the whole function back.

Sonya shares the tough lessons from working across insurance, HR services, and financial services, and breaks down what recruiting teams actually need to function well, especially in a remote-first world.

What we cover:

• Why TA ops needs people with real recruiting experience
• The most common mistake full-cycle recruiters make
• What tech and data do well and where human judgment still wins
• Her playbook for managing remote teams while keeping culture alive
• The benefits that actually move the needle in recruiting today

Plus: Sonya’s take on what makes recruiting uniquely hard, what leaders misunderstand about candidate experience, and why rejection (and ghosting) still cut deep.

If you’ve ever been stuck between hiring manager expectations and market reality, this one’s for you.

→ Listen to Episode 5

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Rosanna Snediker