TA leaders are under real pressure to keep up with AI, new tools, and what they think other employers are doing. In that rush, a lot of functions are spending heavily on new technology without first understanding whether their existing processes are working, only to find the real problem was something no platform could have fixed. Getting this right means doing the internal work first, auditing what’s already in place, and being honest about organizational readiness.
So what does it take to turn the lens inward before looking outward?
My guest this week is Jalpa Trivedi, an experienced Global Head of TA who has built and centralized TA functions across more than 30 countries. In our conversation, she shares why the internal audit matters more than the technology choice, how to build TA foundations that hold across different markets, and how to approach AI adoption with the governance it requires.
In the interview, we discuss:
- The questions TA leaders aren’t asking about their own function.
- Investing in technology that solves the wrong problem
-The 80/20 approach to centralizing TA across markets
-Building an EVP on evidence, not assumptions
-What persuades leadership to back a TA investment
-Why the biggest AI risk isn’t falling behind
-Five data privacy questions to ask before signing with an AI vendor
-Where the dividing line falls between AI and human judgment
-What does the future look like?
A full transcript will appear here shortly.
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Transcript
Matt Alder
TA leaders are under more pressure than ever to adopt AI and invest in new technology. But many employers are spending money on this technology before they truly understand what actually needs fixing. When the real problem is a process that was never right in the first place, no platform is going to be able to solve that. So where should TA leaders be looking first? Keep listening to find out.
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Matt Alder
Hi there, and welcome to episode 811 of Recruiting Future with me, Matt Alder.
TA leaders are under real pressure to keep up with AI, new tools, and what they think other employers are doing. In that rush, a lot of functions are spending heavily on new technology without first understanding whether their existing processes are working, only to find that the real problem was something no platform could have fixed.
Getting this right means doing the internal work first, auditing what’s already in place and being honest about organisational readiness. So what does it take to turn the lens inward before looking outward?
My guest this week is Jalpa Trivedi, an experienced global head of TA who has built and centralised TA functions across more than 30 countries. In our conversation, she shares why the internal audit matters more than the technology choice, how to build TA teams across different markets and how to approach AI adoption with the governance that it requires.
Hi Jalpa and welcome to the podcast.
Jalpa Trivedi
Thank you so very much Matt for having me.
Matt Alder
Well it’s brilliant to have you on the show. Start off by just introducing yourself and telling everyone a little bit about you.
Jalpa Trivedi
So my name is Jalpa Trivedi and I’m a third generation Dubai resident. Began my career as a management consultant at KPMG and fell in love with the people consulting side of things, Matt, and never looked back, spent the next 20 years building talent acquisition functions across 30 plus countries. So that was wonderful.
As a TA professional, I have possibly covered every side there is in the TA space from being an executive search consultant to leading in-house TA functions globally.
What has really kept it interesting for me, Matt, is the fact that I’ve worked across very different sectors and industries, from consulting to healthcare, legal, and more recently to maritime and the logistics industry.
I guess I have been lucky enough to have had the opportunity very early on in my career to build, scale, and transform recruitment functions and partner with senior business leaders, to align talent strategies with business growth.
Matt Alder
You’ve got so much great experience. I’m really, really keen to sort of dive into that and really hear your thoughts about what’s going on at the moment. So as you say, you’ve built and run talent acquisition across lots of different organizations, lots of different markets, both industry markets and geographical markets.
When you look at the challenges that TA leaders are wrestling with right now, which ones feel the most urgent to you?
Jalpa Trivedi
Yeah, Matt, this one might not be the most urgent, but definitely tops the chart for me. What I see today is that many TA leaders are so focused on keeping up with the rapidly evolving landscape. By that, what I mean is whether it is looking at new technologies, AI tools, changing candidate expectations, or what competitors are doing, that at times they don’t always have the time to step back and assess their own function.
So in my view, before looking outward, TA leaders really need to step back and look inwards. They perhaps need to regularly audit their recruitment processes, their technology stack, what their candidate experience looks like.
What has been working for them in the past. Is it still working for them? What is their hiring manager satisfaction rates, et cetera? You know, questions such as, are we attracting the right talent? Are we losing candidates to our competitors? Is our employer brand still connecting with the market?
These are the kind of questions that unfortunately at times don’t get enough attention.
For instance, I’ve seen organizations invest heavily in a new ATS or an AI tool, only to realize six months down the line that the problem lied with their intake process with the hiring managers, which no technology could have fixed, essentially.
So, yeah, my take on the challenges of the TA leaders today is that, unfortunately, they might not have the time to look inwards, which needs to be done before they wish to invest in any new technology or a process or a new way of working.
Matt Alder
For lots of reasons, it’s just a great opportunity to completely reset how TA works at the moment. To do that, as you say, you have to kind of look inside first and understand what’s going on in your organization. Probably come back to that a little bit later in the conversation, actually.
But I’m really keen to ask you this next question because it’s an area I find really particularly interesting. So you’ve worked on a global basis and a lot of global TA leaders get asked to kind of centralize and standardize TA across the regions that they work in. While at the same time respecting how hiring actually works on the ground locally.
And that can be quite difficult. I mean, how do you approach the tension between that need for consistency and local nuance?
Jalpa Trivedi
Sure. Matt, I’ve had the opportunity to centralize talent acquisition function, twice in my career, once at Ernst & Young and very recently at Hafnia Shipping.
And what I’ve realized, at least for me, is that consistency and local nuance, don’t always have to be at odds with each other. If you’re very clear about that overall blueprint that you’ve created, my first approach has always been to very thoroughly understand what’s working locally and most importantly why is it working so, my first steps have always been to spend time with TA teams, hiring managers, the recruitment team locally, the vendors, the partners on the ground, equally I’ve understood the labor laws, what’s driving the market practices, the cultural nuances, if there is a practice, why is the practice so popular? And that always has been my first step.
Once I have that information, only then do I start creating that standardized blueprint or the standardized process to ensure that at least a good 80% of that can largely be adopted across all geographies. And the remaining 20% can be customized based on local norms.
So essentially, what I always try to do is that the core principles remain the same, but the execution can slightly flex to accommodate the local nuances.
So I’ll give you an example. I’ve always believed in lean hiring processes, typically no more than two rounds of panel interviews and an assessment. But I always know that for global roles or for very niche roles, that process most likely is going to get stretched because the interview panelists are based across different time zones. More heads need to be involved in that recruitment, et cetera. So I know that I have to be flexible in my process to allow that sufficient time to assess the candidate.
Again, for instance, in China, candidates prefer WeChat to communicate as opposed to emails. In India, a majority of the time, offer-related documentation is commonly collected earlier in the process rather than later.
Compensation structures also differ from countries to countries, from superannuation in Australia to Provident Fund in Singapore.
So essentially, the idea is to work with the standardized process and slightly alter it to adapt to local norms.
And it’s the same with policies as well. You know, GDPR regulations in Europe require stricter candidate data retention and deletion practices. However, the broader policies around graduate hiring, mobility, employer branding, etc., can remain the same.
So I personally, as such, have not experienced much tension in this space, as I’ve always kept room to allow for local adaptation.
Matt Alder
Earlier in the conversation, you mentioned employer branding. Now, employer branding, EVPs, they get talked about a lot, but often the process around building them is slow, it can be expensive and sometimes disconnected from what employees are actually feeling.
You’ve worked a lot in this space during your career. How do you build an EVP that captures the real sentiment inside a company rather than something that’s just an aspirational story for marketing purposes?
Jalpa Trivedi
Matt, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to build an EVP from scratch, for one of the largest healthcare groups in the Gulf and India, comprising of 20,000 staff across hospitals, clinics and pharmacies.
One thing I was really clear from the beginning is that an EVP can only be authentic if it’s built on evidence rather than assumptions.
So I knew that I had to dig really deep to understand from different stakeholders, the senior leaders, the SLT team, the employees, the candidates, external partners, across different functions, geographies, and levels of the organization to really understand what are their thoughts on this particular organization.
So to give you an example, I ran multiple focus groups to cover the voice of these 20,000 people, employees initially.
From the SLT team, I understood the company’s legacy, the purpose, their future aspirations from employees. For instance, I understood why they chose to join the organization and why do they continue being with this organization. From candidates, I essentially understood their perception of the brand. And from the partners, I understood what makes us distinct compared to the other clients that they currently service.
And only after analyzing the data and identifying the recurring themes was I able to develop an EVP that genuinely reflected the voice of the organization, and most importantly its vision as well.
I believe that most effective EVP sits at the intersection of reality and aspiration.
Matt Alder
That’s a great way of describing it.
I suppose the thing about any of the stuff that we’re talking about, and I know it’s something that TA leaders are increasingly facing, is the need to have influence at a senior level within their organizations to get things signed off, to get things done, to get the resources that they need.
You spent a lot of time close to the C-suite and the boardroom around this kind of thing. When TA wants to introduce something new, whether it’s AI or a new way of working or developing an EVP, what actually persuades leadership to back it?
Jalpa Trivedi
Matt, for me, what’s always worked is presenting data, facts and clear evidence of potential impact.
Whenever I have presented my business case, I’ve started with, where are we today? The challenges that we currently encounter, exactly what are we trying to solve? And if we do change something, realistically speaking, what benefits will we potentially achieve by that change?
Sometimes the benefits are tangible and measurable which is easy to kind of, you know, propose to the board. It could be in the form of reduced agency spend or faster time to hire or higher conversion rates etc.
At times benefits are not that easily recognizable or tangible. They could be more strategic such as strengthening the employer brand or improving the candidate experience or let’s do something which will support a particular DEI objective or initiative.
So from that perspective, I’ll give you an example. Two years ago, when AI was actually gaining momentum in the TA world, I wanted to try out bringing on AI tools for candidate screening and interview note-taking purposes. And at that time, I was slightly skeptical around privacy issues and instead chose to design these tools in-house because we had an internal AI team.
So I worked very closely with the head of AI back then and understood if we were to design these two tools internally, what would be the costs compared to, buying it externally, the implementation timelines, the scalability, the privacy considerations, the long-term value of building something internally versus purchasing an external tool.
Equally, what one needs to very carefully, realistically do is to be very candid about the risks involved because I’d never done this in the past. The organization did not know what exactly to expect out of these tools.
I openly spoke about what will happen or might happen if the tool does not behave in an intended way or what would be our backup options. So I tried to be as realistic about the timelines to achieving our ROI, particularly because this was a trial and error exercise on my part and the firm’s part.
So from my experience, ultimately what the leadership wants is a well-researched business case that clearly links the proposed changes, to business objectives and outlines the risks to manage such expectations.
Of course, many a times, Matt, my proposals haven’t been accepted. But what I’ve realised on those occasions is that it’s less to do with the presented facts and the data. And at times, it was more to do with the fact that my idea was not closely tied to the business problem in itself.
Matt Alder
There’s a lot of FOMO around AI right now, and leaders are feeling that they have to adopt it, or they’re falling behind, or everyone else is doing it better than them.
What’s the first thing that TA leaders should think about when they’re looking at AI, they’re looking to automate things? And where does it, how do you tell where it genuinely fits into the process?
Jalpa Trivedi
I definitely think, Matt, there’s a lot of pressure on TA leaders right now to adopt AI, which is either driven by fear or just being left behind. But I feel the biggest risk with AI in talent acquisition today, isn’t that we won’t adopt it fast enough. It’s that we will adopt it without the governance to use it responsibly.
And I think many TA leaders and organizations should really think hard about governance before they even think about adopting a new technology or an AI tool. Like I’ve said before, the need of the hour is to look inwards. One needs to question what problems are they trying to fix? And is AI genuinely the best solution for that particular problem?
I think they need to identify the gaps and assess whether AI can realistically add value.
Equally important, Matt, which people often forget, is that when one is adopting an AI tool for TA purposes, it’s just not about the TA team. It’s more to do with understanding the readiness of the broader ecosystem. Are our candidates comfortable with engaging AI-enabled processes? Do hiring managers still value that human discussions around candidates’ strengths or development areas or the cultural fit?
Will senior-level candidates respond positively to automated tools? And also in terms of the team, the TA team, are they ready and do they have the required skills to work with an AI tool?
So I guess the most important question needs to be, does the level of automation align with the organization’s culture and employer brand? Because if that’s misaligned, then, you know, your AI tool could be the most sophisticated, the most innovative, but it might just not work with the problem and the organization you’re currently in.
Equally important is to, again, think about contingency plan. What if for any reason your technology does not deliver as planned? Have you thought about backup options? How will you manage that side of the risk?
So the goal essentially shouldn’t be automation for the sake of automation. It should be thoughtful adoption that benefits all stakeholders, just not one, which is, of course, the recruiters, but also the hiring managers, the candidates, the employees. And ultimately the business itself.
Matt Alder
I suppose as a final question, if we sort of look ahead to the future, maybe sort of two or three years time, where do you think that dividing line is going to be between automation and what AI does in the process and what humans do in the process? And how is that going to work in TA? What do you think the future of TA is going to look like?
Jalpa Trivedi
Initially, Matt, you know, like I’ve spoken earlier as well, I was very skeptical about using AI only for privacy reasons in terms of which pairs of eyes will be looking at the confidential data. But now we have got really, really good, innovative, creative tools out there.
But if I could give one piece of advice to any TA leader at present considering an AI tool, it would be this, that before you sign anything, please ask these five questions. Where will the data be stored? Would it be encrypted in transit or at rest? How long is that data going to be retained for by the vendors? Who will have access to that data at the vendor’s end? And will our candidate data be used for training vendors’ AI models?
So prior to understanding the answers to these questions and putting a proper agreement in place, I don’t think one should adopt an AI tool, because increasingly, we’ve seen that acts such as the EU AI Act places accountability more on the organization rather than the vendor on how data is collected, stored and used. So, for instance, if an AI tool makes an error in candidate selection or screening, the accountability or the risk falls more on the organization and not on the vendor. And this is huge, Matt.
So, hence, it’s becoming even more important to carefully choose the right vendor or the right AI tool. Very recently last week if Anthropic can switch off one of the world’s most advanced AI models overnight, what makes us think that the AI tool sitting in our ATS is immune to security risks? So essentially the onus lies on the organization to demonstrate that the AI tool is secure, transparent and compliant, more importantly.
What do you think the future is going to look like? Where are we heading with all of this?
Matt Alder
What do you think the future is going to look like? Where are we heading with all of this?
Jalpa Trivedi
Going ahead, looking ahead a few years, I believe there will be a clear division or distinction between the administrative process-driven activities and the judgment-based, more relationship-driven based activities.
I see a clear value add in AI taking over the more repetitive and the data intensive aspects of recruitment, such as the interview scheduling, the screening, the reporting side of things.
Few things I believe will still be done in conjunction, hybrid between AI and humans, such as, for instance, candidate assessment discussions. Yes, AI can provide their views on the strengths and weaknesses, but I think human judgment will still very much be required to discuss from a context perspective, from a cultural perspective, whether or not that candidate is suitable for that particular role. So few things will be done in hybrid.
But I definitely believe that there will be areas which will remain predominantly human, such as building trust with candidates and stakeholders or providing meaningful feedback, managing candidate expectations, also executive and strategic hiring. These are few areas which I believe will remain predominantly human.
And in fact, I believe that as adoption, AI adoption increases, the importance of human judgment will become even more critical, Matt.
So yeah, this is my take on it. To be honest, what excites me most about the future of this profession, is that the transactional work that has weighed recruiters down for years is finally going to be lifted and the people who stay in this field will have the opportunity to do the most meaningful strategic work TA has ever seen.
So that’s my take on the future of TA professionals and the TA industry.
Matt Alder
Jalpa, thank you very much for talking to me.
Jalpa Trivedi
Matt, thank you so very much for having me. Truly appreciate it.
Matt Alder
My thanks to Jalpa. You can follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can search all the past episodes at recruitingfuture.com. On that site, you can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Recruiting Future Feast, and get the inside track on everything that’s coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time, and I hope you’ll join me.
