Stephanie Holman is a cleared defense and national security recruiter currently supporting Defense Unicorns, where she hires engineers working on highly sensitive, mission driven software inside secure environments. With a background that spans military service, government contracting, and tech recruiting, she has built one of the most trusted voices in the cleared hiring space by educating candidates on how security clearances work and what it actually takes to navigate this opaque corner of the industry. Her content focuses on transparency, access, and helping people understand a world that is intentionally hard to talk about.
We talked about demystifying cleared recruiting, building candidate trust through personal brand, and the advice for why recruiters shouldn’t let applicants take themselves out of the game. Stephanie shared what it looks like to manage hundreds of applicants in hours, how ATS knockout questions really work, and why rejection is rarely personal. We also covered scheduling engineers who work inside SCIF environments, the growing risks of candidate fraud and bad actors, and how AI can help recruiters focus on fewer, higher quality conversations rooted in. respect. At the center of it all was her belief that recruiting is human work, and that even in classified spaces, empathy, clarity, and integrity still win.
Thanks for coming on the show, Stephanie! Connect with Stephanie here.
Timestamps
00:00 A recruiter changed my life
02:30 What cleared recruiting actually means
04:50 Changing lives through recruiting
05:35 Why cleared hiring is so opaque
07:50 Building a creator brand in a restricted space
11:00 Candidate trust and personal reputation
14:00 Recruiting as hospitality and marketing
16:00 AI, signal, and fewer better conversations
19:15 Applicants vs candidates and high volume roles
20:15 200 applicants in 90 minutes and ATS myths
22:15 Bringing humanity to automated rejections
24:10 Do not take yourself out of the game
27:00 15 rejections before Amazon
29:00 Your social footprint matters
30:35 Scheduling cleared engineers in SCIF environments
32:35 Candidate fraud and security threats
34:40 Keep going one step at a time
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If you’re in recruiting and care about:
• Speed that actually improves
• Data you can defend in exec meetings
• Recruiter capacity that isn’t duct-taped together
• Trust from leadership
I’d love to have you join a webinar I’m moderating on March 5th at 12 p.m. ET
I’m sitting down with Luke Switkowski, Katie Wagner, and Jeremy A. Lyons for a live conversation on RecOps.
Register here.
