Raman Malhotra leads talent acquisition and HR at Leidos, one of the largest technology and defense companies in the United States, but her journey started behind a computer as a programmer.
Now, she’s bringing that same analytical mindset to one of the hardest problems in business: attracting and retaining top talent.
In this conversation, Raman opens up about how she learned to think like a business leader, why empathy and analytics are equally important in HR, and what she tells young recruiters who want to move into leadership.
You’ll learn:
Connect with Leidos: https://www.leidos.com
Connect with Raman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raman-malhotra-phr-shrm-cp
Connect with us:
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🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter
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[00:00:00] Raman Malhotra: How do we work together as partners to make sure that the candidate journey or the employee journey at company is a lot more enjoyable for them? That we're not working in silos, that we're really are a bit one, I call it a one big happy family.
[00:00:16] Dave Travers: So what does it really take for your business to attract world-class talent today?
I'm Dave Travers, President of ZipRecruiter, and on Talent All-Stars, we shine a light on the people and the day-to-day processes behind recruitment and retention at some of the world's most influential businesses. Today's Talent All-Star is Raman Malhotra, Vice President of Talent Acquisition and Human Resources at Leidos, a company tackling some of the world's toughest challenges in national security and health, from air traffic control to electronic health records.
At Leidos, Raman leads hiring at scale, finding people with security clearances and the specialized skills needed to deliver on critical missions. And in this episode, she walks us through her career journey, her decision to pivot from computer programming to recruiting, and how she goes about building a business case for a new investment.
Plus, how TA leaders can work hand in hand with HR to boost retention and create what Raman calls one big happy family. Raman Malhotra, welcome to Talent All-Stars.
[00:01:17] Raman Malhotra: Thank you. Thank you so much, Dave. Thanks for inviting me.
[00:01:19] Dave Travers: Very excited to have you here. Such an interesting background and such interesting things you're doing now.
But before we get to the now in Leidos, let's talk about the path that got you here. So you've had a super interesting journey, worked with huge brands, Home Depot, General Dynamics, et cetera, et cetera. Tell me a little bit about that journey and specifically when do you remember the thought. First crossing your mind that talent acquisition might be something that you are really passionate about, could make a career out of?
[00:01:48] Raman Malhotra: Absolutely. Well, way back then, I really started out as a programmer. So I have a degree in information systems and the only thing out of school is to become a programmer, right? And so I did, and six months down the road I realized, that is not the path for me. I cannot sit in front of a computer and code all day long, and so just looking at what are my alternatives while still making use of my degree.
I came across a technical recruiter role with an agency and really applied for it, smaller company and had to learn how to go and get your job orders and then bring back and fill them with the candidates. So it was a neat experience. But there was still something missing. I was really, uh, attractive towards the corporate world.
I wanted to become a corporate recruiter and again. 20 plus years ago saw an ad in a newspaper. Yes. You can still get hired from that. Right. And I was hired at Penske Logistics GE Company and really, really started enjoying my career as a recruiter. And as I start learning more and more about different functions and technical expertise.
You know, I was given opportunity to expand my Verizon in other areas of recruiting, and so that's where I was born was to be a recruiter. But when I got to hp, you know, you talked about. Why, where was my moment and calling, and that was really, oh, I'm sorry. It was actually at Home Depot, not at hp.
And I'll tell you why I said HP to just to see that, um, there is a connection at Home Depot. Early in my career, I had a mentor who was head of HR and she really inspired me the way she influenced leaders. And shape the culture and watching her made that impact made me realize that my work, or the work that I'm in right now is more than just processes.
It's about trust. It's about people. It's about meaningful change, and that was the moment I realized that I really wanna get into a leadership role in talent acquisition and make that my calling. I said HP because the same leader in HR came to HP and I was there at HB two. So really being inspired where her still am, and that's where I realized that leadership role is much more to influential, you know, the path that I wanna take, and hence here I am in the leadership role ever since.
[00:04:36] Dave Travers: Wow. Awesome. Okay, so, so you have this leader, mentor person that, and you inspired, you made me, you see what was possible in being a culture builder and definer, and you mentioned some of the attributes, but now translate that, like having seen that in action, how do you think about not just applying that yourself, but as you're coaching someone coming up to become a leader. How do you coach them to emulate that? What do you learn from her that you now pass on to others?
[00:05:06] Raman Malhotra: Absolutely. The answer is yes. I have seen my team growing into bigger and better roles, and I would say coaching, mentoring, it's all about pushing them to think bigger, pushing them to think strategically.
I recall when I was newly promoted as a manager, I was still thinking in that recruiter mind, that silo that, Hey, it's my team, it's my business, and it took a while. It's a practice to think about how is this good for. Is this good for the company? And so talking about that and helping the upcoming leaders think about what that looks like was part of the coaching plan.
Another is that you go and take risk. There are things that you do in talent acquisition in HR, right? That requires being innovative, being creative. So you do that and it's okay to make a mistake and really learn from it. So it's our experiences that would make us better. And you know, again, I've seen my team grow from being recruiters and now have their directors, and it's just amazing to see them grow because I'm willing to take a chance on them as they took a chance on me to help ask me to be a mentor.
[00:06:30] Dave Travers: So coach me on being a better mentor then suppose I'm the mentee. I come into your office and I say, I have this idea. We should get a new CRM new candidate relationship management. We'll manage the whole life cycle better and it'll take less work and we'll have better data. Like somebody who's like for the first time putting themselves out there showing they have initiative and an idea, but they don't really know what they're talking about yet, it's their first time.
Like, how do you shape me and mold me? How do you do it?
[00:06:54] Raman Malhotra: Have they really thought about the problem that they're trying to solve? Do we need a new CRM? Is the old one or the current one is not working right? And if the answer is yes, it doesn't have the capabilities and things we want. Got it. The way to get what you want is to, Hey, business case, we need to make a business case in front of our leaders.
Normally, that requires resources investment. And so knowing that it's a good to have that idea, that's gonna help us. But how do we make sure that when we present this in front of the leadership team, it gets approved? So, you know, the way I would mentor is. Hey, let's start writing down or think through some of the things that you wanna present to leader.
And you know, the very first would be is, as I mentioned, objective. What is the purpose of your ask, and why does that matter to the business? It's always coming back to how we're gonna drive the business forward. So why is it that getting a new CRM is gonna help to the business? The second one is, again, as I mentioned, how is it aligned to the business goals?
And so you, we need to think about those two. Then we say, all right. Having a new CRM means we're gonna need to invest more; therefore we're gonna potentially need this. Or here is the solution. And again, why is that solution the best reason? And it could be that I've looked at four or five and this is the best.
So you're doing this and of course, how is that gonna benefit if we bring that in? What is the outcome of having a new CRM in our company? And then last couple of times is the cost. Let's be upfront, yes, you don't wanna go the lower route or the stingy route, but let's put the cost out there and saying, this is what the cost is.
It's gonna cost the company, the group. And you know, with that talk about the risk or medication plan that what happens if it doesn't, and more importantly, how are we gonna measure our success? That process to a mentor. When I first heard it, I was like, I don't want a new CRM.
[00:09:09] Dave Travers: I’m just a recruiter who got promoted. What are you talking about?
[00:09:16] Raman Malhotra: Exactly, I don’t want it, right? But think about his. The point that I brought up, it's not just with CRM, it's with, uh, resources. I am requesting more resources just now in front of our leaders, and it's the same steps. And what it does is it forces you to think about is it really the right investment for the company? And again, going back to what I said is, are we thinking at a bigger picture?
Are we thinking strategically? How are we gonna do this? And so that's what I would tell you and I would tell you, go take some time to think through this. Gather your information, gather your data, and start putting them in the slides and come back to me and let me see what you have done so far as we know the process of asking something for our leaders, whether it's money, it's investment dollars, or resources, it's not a first time around.
I can guarantee you, perhaps, and I'm in a learning process too, I've never gotten a yes the first time, but what my goal is to get is that, okay, tell me more. Or go back and do more. So it's a two or three time process, and that's what we want, is that we want that interest from the leader saying, Hmm.
[00:10:24] Raman Malhotra: Let me think about this, or I need more information. So that's exactly what I would tell you if you were my mentor.
[00:10:29] Dave Travers: Oh, that was so good. There are so many parts of that we could do a whole podcast just on that. Okay. But there are two things I'd love to highlight there. One is you said, how are we gonna measure this at the end?
Which is so smart. 'cause you can say, I've looked at all of them, this is the best one. We're gonna improve the candidate experience. And we'll get better people as a leader who's coming in for 30 minutes as the CFO or the finance person who has to say yes or whatever, that doesn't say, okay, now how am I actually gonna be able to discern that?
Because those are all conceptual. But when you come in and say, I think we can take our offer to acceptance rate from 50% to 65% with this tool, now it's like not only do is that tangible, but I actually. Immediately, no. There's some system we can go look in to, like check to see if that actually happened.
[00:11:17] Raman Malhotra: For sure. Yeah. And you know, as I was giving an example, I won't go into exactly why I am asking for resources, but I can tell you that it ties directly with the business goal and that is that it's going to cut down time to fill, which means we're generating more revenue. And believe it or not, my leader asked me to go back and tell me how much I didn't think that right.
How much I said. Perfect. I can get that, and it's gonna benefit our talent. This is the resources that's gonna help us retain. So it was directly tied to that, why I am asking for it. And I had to tell them the cost. And so it's very important to use data to your advantage. It tells the story. You know, when I was a recruiter, I hated these spreadsheets, the datas and everything. As a leader, I can't get enough of it. I think it helps us tell the story. It helps us sell our business cases, helps us get everything that we need to get.
[00:12:16] Dave Travers: Yes. Okay. The other thing you talked about there that I love is talking about how. You don't get the yes right away.
And in fact, I would even coach someone so far as to say if you brief someone and for 15 minutes on something we should do, and they say, sure, fine. I would even say, hold on. Like you didn't actually get a yes. Like that was too easy. They have no buy-in. If somebody comes to 'em five minutes later and says, we shouldn't do that, they'll be like, fine.
No, but what you have to do is bring them into the process. Help them see how they improved the business case, and now they're a co-owner with you of this great business case. And now when someone comes along and says, I think this is a dumb idea. It's like, no, no, no. We, you, it used to be a dumb idea. Now it's a great idea.
Let me explain to you why now you've really got someone. And so it, so getting. No. First is often the path to the real, yes.
[00:13:04] Raman Malhotra: And I will say this to add on to my tip as a coach or a mentor, is that make sure you run your idea by your peers. Make sure you have, I'll call them friends at work that says, I'm about to present this.
What do you think? And they will give you feedback, and I have done that. I've not done it in the first couple of times, learned it very quickly, but having a bite, these are your allies. You wanna have that so that when you are going in with the business case to your leader, the top leader, you wanna have people around you saying, you know, yeah, Raman told me this.
I really like this. You already wanna start seeing yeses from them instead of seeing. No from everyone.
[00:13:51] Dave Travers: Yes, you're putting your colleagues in that meeting in a position to be able to say something smart and insightful in front of the big boss by giving them the pre-brief, the pre-read at letting them ask a few questions.
I love that. I love that. Okay, great. So now you. At Leidos and one of the interesting things there is you are a leader and in your title it says both talent acquisition and HR. And so, for you know, a lot of people think of talent acquisition as part of HR. Sometimes it's separate. How do you think about in your role, those two things being combined and being responsible for both?
Are they two separate things? Are they one part or the other? How do you think about it?
[00:14:32] Raman Malhotra: Talent acquisition is part of HR. We are under an HR umbrella. Right? Of course, in HR you've got different COEs, the Center of Excellence, right? And recruiting is, or talent acquisition is part of it. And you know, when I wanted to grow my career and explore something else, I had the opportunity to be an HR generalist at Leidos, which I'm very grateful for.
What it did to my career currently in my current role, is it made me think differently. So in talent acquisition, we bring in people to the door. HR helps us support those employees and help them grow at Leidos. And so when I combine these two roles together, now I think of it. It helps me create and strategies to attract, engage, and develop talent because I'm thinking as an HR business partner, I know what the business strategy is.
I know where we're going, meaning that I have insight on workforce planning and knowing what that looks like. How can I apply that to ensure that we're bringing the right talent in the company and that it's not just for a particular time, it's long term. So it's helping me think about, my job isn't just, I fill a wreck, I'm done off.
It's now an HR problem. It's almost like how do we work together as partner to make sure that the candidate journey or the employee journey at company is a lot more enjoyable for them. That we're not working in silos, that we're really are a bit one, I call it a one big happy family.
[00:16:26] Dave Travers: I think that it's just intuitive if you think about it from the candidate standpoint, if there's this jarring handoff where all of a sudden it feels totally different, when you go from, you know, you've sent in your acceptance letter and all of a sudden you're talking to somebody else and the the feeling is different, all the good vibes are gone. You know, that's, that's no good.
So having that one big, happy family feel, I think, is really powerful. Okay. You are trained as a technologist, which is not usually the background of a, of somebody who comes up through recruiting and does talent acquisition. In a world where today all of us are asked to at least, if not be technologists ourselves to some extent.
We're an increasingly important part of all of our jobs as deciding where we are going to use technology ourselves and which tools we're going to select and make a business case for and decide to prioritize over others. How does. Having your grounding in technology help you do that better? And what can others learn from the confidence of knowing you're a technologist yourself?
[00:17:25] Raman Malhotra: Well, first of all, thank you for calling me a technologist. I appreciate that. It's been a while.
[00:17:29] Dave Travers: It's like riding a bike once; once you're a technologist, you're always a technologist.
[00:17:33] Raman Malhotra: I appreciate that. I think it goes back to, again, it helps me understand a little bit, tiny, little bit better in the technical world in a sense that.
I'm able to, when our technologists and our technical people are talking, it makes sense and where it doesn't, obviously, you ask that, so it, you know, the technology that I had used 20, 25 years ago isn't the same, but it's the concept. It's the way the learning, as you said, yes, learning the bike and you'll remember it.
So it only makes my job maybe tiny bit easier where I don't have to Google everything to find out my answers. You know, maybe some 80% of it. But I do think that having the technical knowledge, it also gives the confidence to the hiring managers hiring or the leaders saying that, Hey, I understand what you're talking about, because the perception is out there that hey, recruiters may not know, they don't know our language.
They're not technical enough. And you're like, well, but we are very adaptable. We can learn the language. And so having that background for me is just a tad bit of vanish. Nothing more, nothing less.
[00:18:46] Dave Travers: Well, I think you said something very important there at the beginning, which is that if it doesn't make sense, you ask.
And that is the thing that I think everyone's learning technology all the time, including the technologists, and so having the confidence to say. I didn't quite get that. I'm gonna ask rather than feeling like I'm, rather than the internal monologue being, I'm sure this is a stupid question, being like, that didn't make sense.
I'm gonna go ahead and ask, there's a really good chance someone else doesn't understand this either. I'm gonna get on something, you know, improve my understanding and even other people's understanding. So I think that like a lot of it is, we're all learning, no matter how advanced you are in this, 'cause the underlying technology is changing, its capabilities are changing.
And if you're in a position where you're making decisions, you have to ask the question when something doesn't make sense.
[00:19:38] Raman Malhotra: For sure. I mean, if you look at my background, I'll just give you an example. I have been in talent acquisition my entire career, but in different industries. And one of the things that I had to make sure was that I get up to speed quite early, and that did mean for me to reach out to my network and saying, you're in healthcare.
What does that mean? You are in retail. What does that mean? But also to your point asking, I still ask a lot of question and, and you have to be able to understand as to what is business asking of you and not go back with a puzzled mind or confused and saying, Hmm, I didn't quite get that. Now what am I gonna do? Right?
So, guessing will never get you anywhere, assuming it will never get you anywhere. And look, then not everyone has the confidence or the personality to ask in a larger group. So it's okay to have a one-off conversation. Again, going back to. Who's your friend at work? Who's your advocates and at work that can say, Hey Dave, can I talk to you for a second?
Tell me what this meant. When they say that, and I still do this, I'm texting and saying, Dave, what does that mean? And so. Just know that. Always be curious, and know and don't be afraid to ask.
[00:20:54] Dave Travers: Okay? So now that we've established your baf and your ability to ask the smart question, where are we today?
This is the hot topic everybody wants to know. Am I behind in my AI embrace and implementation of the tools? Is it overhyped? Is it real? Give us your state of the world. Where are we today?
[00:21:14] Raman Malhotra: It is very real. I'm not so sure I've met anybody yet that says that I've caught up. Right. It's, uh, going at a speed of lightning.
But I will say, please, if you have not start utilizing AI tools, they are, they're out there. I use ChatGPT, I can tell you this much. I use it out of curiosity at home, asking things that I'm like, do this for me. At work. I will say this, that at Leidos we do use AI and other tools, technology tools, but I will say is it is helping us be faster and more efficient.
Some of the things that the recruiters used to do, right? Or even leaders. The things that I talked about, those four or five or seven things that I said to make a business case. You can work with the tools that we have today that will bring down the time that you would think about. You would write. And then rehearse where now the business case that I told you about, I use ChatGPT to help me what I wanna put across, and then I spent rest of my time practicing as to how I'm gonna send that message in recruiting.
It's the same way. I would love nothing more than AI tools help us identify candidates faster. We then use that data to make better decisions. And guess what? It will free up our time to have built stronger relationship with our candidates and our manager. So if you think about 25 plus years ago, we didn't have AI, but we had humans helping us, sourcers coordinators and all that stuff.
All because they did the administrative task. They help us with phone screens, where I remember spending 45 minutes to an hour and sometimes hour and a half time with the candidates finding out. What do you wanna do? These were our networks. These were our calendar, the index cards, right? I could be spending two hours with you just wanting to know, Hey, you applied for this role.
What do you wanna do? Five years? And remember the impact that going back to, that's gonna help me. Convey that message to my manager that you as a candidate, Dave, your career aspirations are here. You are coming in this reason. Are you a fit for the company or not? So these tools are, I'm more excited about this.
And my only drawback is I just can't, not learning fast enough. I can tell my kids, and they can do it probably faster than I can, but they are here to help us. They're not here to replace us. Yeah. They're, we're gonna need human touch and recruiting no matter what.
[00:24:11] Dave Travers: I completely agree with you. And I think that that is a pitch that is missing from a lot of those who espouse the virtues of ai.
You talked about relationships and freeing up the time to establish those relationships as opposed to eliminating the need for relationships, which I think is two different visions. And I agree with you strongly about the direction this is ultimately gonna go. And we're so early on in this AI-driven transformation that when you see the drawbacks in AI's ability to drive a relationship itself, you know, you think, oh, this thing is just gonna be about replacing humans.
That's not where this goes. Okay, great. I love that. We always end these episodes with what we call the lightning round. So I want you to imagine, you know, you've got 30 seconds 'cause you know you're just getting in the elevator with the CEO, and you know, says, Hey, Raman, I was just thinking you're the expert on interviewing.
I spent a ton of my time as CEO interviewing all sorts of people internally, externally, et cetera. What's your one best tip? You're a pro, you're a recruiter. What's your best tip to be a better interviewer?
[00:25:19] Raman Malhotra: Well, thank you. Hello, Mr. CEO. So I would say my biggest tip would be is listen more than talk. When we are in an interview, we wanna understand more about the candidate, their story.
So by asking open-ended questions, listen to their story, listen to how they're presenting themselves. And that will help you determine whether they're a good fit or not.
[00:25:48] Dave Travers: I think that is great advice, and I think it's especially applicable to senior people, 'cause senior people are trained to think, oh, people wanna hear from me actually.
They want to be heard by you. So that's a whole, that's a whole separate podcast right there. Um, I love that. I love that answer. Okay, one more. Same scenario. You and the CEO come up next to you as you're both making a cup of coffee in the kitchen or something and say, Hey, Raman. I was thinking like, talent is so important to our strategy. What's the way we should be measuring over the next couple of years, what the performance of the talent acquisition team is? How do we measure that?
[00:26:24] Raman Malhotra: So I would keep it simple and say, the way we would measure talent acquisition function is that are we bringing or attracting the right people and the roles that matters, right?
How quickly are they able to come and make the impact when they're on board? And so that's what I would do because it goes back to again, is that, is our talent acquisition function equipped for long-term future, for our employees, versus short-term. So are we attracting the right people and how soon are they gonna make impact in our world?
[00:27:05] Dave Travers: I love that. I love the second part of that, the reason, the second part of that is so smart is how fast are they making an impact is because. As a business leader, as the CEO, sometimes you're gonna hear like, oh, I can't fill this position. We're not getting any good candidates. And so what you are saying, basically, in other words, what you're saying to the CEO in that situation is, I am a TA leader who's gonna reach more than halfway across the table to my hiring manager, especially for a high priority role, and make sure this person's not just hired, but they're making impact.
And what that sounds like to A CEO is. Raman is awesome. Have you talked to Raman about this role? You know, like it encourages you to go and say, you know, you have a fellow business partner here who wants to go solve this problem with you and isn't just about a purely TA metric that is also important, like time to fill, or getting the right candidates, or whatever the case may be.
[00:27:56] Raman Malhotra: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:27:57] Dave Travers: Raman Malhotra. It is so clear why you're a Talent All-Star. Thank you so much.
[00:28:02] Raman Malhotra: I appreciate that. Thank you so much, Dave. Thanks for the opportunity.
[00:28:09] Dave Travers: That's Raman Malhotra, Vice President of Talent Acquisition and Human Resources at Leidos. We'll put her LinkedIn profile in the episode description, and as a reminder, we post the video versions of these conversations on YouTube on the official ZipRecruiter channel. If you've got feedback for us or ideas for future episodes, send us an email at talentallstars@ziprecruiter.com.
I'm Dave Travers. Thanks for listening to Talent All Stars. We'll be right back here next week.