Sarah Arbuckle

Recruiter, Human Resource Services
Start Date: January 23, 2023

Sarah Arbuckle’s dream job is to help other people find theirs. In the process, she knows she’s helping employers grow and enhance their organizations, thanks to these talented individuals. She loves the “connector” aspect of the recruiting realm. As you can see on her LinkedIn profile, she defines this as “bringing two things together to make something bigger than it is now.”

Recruiting – and internal recruiting in particular – has been a passion of Sarah’s since she began her professional career in the Human Resources (HR) space about five years ago. Having worked at 1-800-flowers.com and a privately owned recruiting agency, she couldn’t be more excited to perform this function at the university she loves as much as the work … Stony Brook University. This is also where she received her master’s degree in Human Resource Management in 2021 … following an undergraduate, bachelor of science degree from SUNY Albany in Marketing and Management.

“I received my degree from Stony Brook online so had never stepped foot on campus. But I had friends who had come here and loved it, and I had great professors here,” she says. ”And as soon as I came to campus to work, I loved it. I loved every part of it – ‘the vibe’ and everything happening all around you.” And for this St. James native, it immediately felt like home. 

“I also feel so proud to work at a state university,” Sarah says. “An institution where I know there  is such a strong commitment to ensure that we hire people in the most ethical way. And that we provide equitable opportunity for an incredibly wide range of diverse candidates.”

Sarah further explains, “A big part of my job is to make sure all applicants meet the necessary, approved requirements before they’re moved forward for interviewing by the hiring managers. That’s where the ethics part comes into play because everyone is treated the same and everything is reviewed the same. There’s no ‘special treatment’.”

Specifically, Sarah recruits candidates for all of the School of Medicine and Health Science Center and also the Sayville Project department within the School of Social Welfare. While the main roles she fills are research support specialists and senior research positions, “other roles come into play as well,” she says. “Whatever the department really needs is what we in recruiting try to provide. And when you’re able to find a perfect match, it feels so good.”

Sarah sees Stony Brook as a great place to grow your career. That applies to her candidates and herself: “I see myself growing here at Stony Brook University,” she says. “And I would like to stay in the recruitment space because it's my passion. I also have such a great and helpful team all around me who have pushed me to be my best. So hopefully, I'll just keep growing within this team.”

Sarah is also excited about the trajectory the University is working toward in the recruiting world: “Human Resources’ new initiative, HR Now, is moving us toward more of a talent acquisition-based model. That’s where a recruiter like me would have more of a hands-on role in attracting, identifying, recruiting and retaining top talent.”

Mostly, she says, “I want people to work at a place I love now too.”

When she’s not working to bring more great talent to SBU, Sarah is happily spending time with her boyfriend Tyler, their little dog Ollie and kitten named Magoo. She enjoys dance – a life-long passion, though she’s moved “from the traditional dance world” to the more gymnastic form of ‘aerial silks’ (where one or more artists perform aerial acrobatics while hanging from a specialist fabric). And, with a nudge from her mom, she and Tyler have joined the pickleball craze for some fun R&R.