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Ward argues top recruiters are scarce enough to merit the highest pay

Lenny's Podcast · The playbook for building high talent density teams | Adam Ward, Head of Talent at Cursor · August 9, 2026
Ward argues top recruiters are scarce enough to merit the highest pay
Lenny's Podcast
Lenny's Podcast
The playbook for building high talent density teams | Adam Ward, Head of Talent at Cursor
"One of your hot takes is that the recruiter the recruiting team should be the highest paid team within the company. Yeah, one of them. Yeah, if not the I mean if if you think about the this impact that they're having, um that uh and like the you know, I feel like there's a supply and demand crisis around really strategic recruiters."
Ward says he believes recruiting teams should be among the highest-paid functions because the best strategic recruiters are scarce and can have outsized impact on execution. He attributes the scarcity to recruiting becoming too transactional over time, limiting the pool of people who can operate at a more ‘executive search’ level.
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Lenny's Podcast
Lenny's Podcast

The playbook for building high talent density teams | Adam Ward, Head of Talent at Cursor

August 10, 2026 · 1h 30m · 6 Egleze moments
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