global tech innovator fine-tunes ‘right talent, right location’ hiring to scale AI.
leadership discovery identifies AI talent needs for both innovation and operations, while intelligence advisory pinpoints how to find, secure and scale that talent
client
a leading global technology company developing a suite of next-generation software and hardware solutions
challenge
To help the company develop a slate of new software and hardware solutions, it is expanding AI adoption among its workforce. But its evolving AI strategy had been creating ambiguous demands and friction across business units, making it difficult for talent leadership to determine the capabilities and locations needed to support innovation and scale.
solution
The client partners with Randstad Advisory to clarify workforce requirements and translate evolving priorities into an actionable talent and location strategy. Through leadership discovery and intelligence advisory, the organization identifies distinct talent needs for innovation and operational scale, then determines where to target each most effectively.
key results
Now, the company clarifies and connects business objectives, workforce requirements and global talent and location decisions to:
Develop differentiated talent and location strategies for distinct workforce demands
Compete for both the top 1% of researchers and engineers needed to pioneer AI innovation and the engineering talent needed to drive operational scale
Strengthen collaboration between leadership groups to align organizational vision and workforce requirements
Identify new geographic markets for specialized AI and engineering talent
connecting AI ambition to workforce strategy
For a global technology leader expanding its software and hardware portfolio, growth in AI is creating significant new workforce demands.
As the company scales its AI operations, defining the capabilities it needs and determining where to find them are closely connected. Yet, with its AI strategy still taking shape, talent teams faced ambiguous, fragmented and evolving requirements. Gaining greater clarity around the required capabilities becomes an essential first step toward making more targeted talent and location decisions.
Partnering with Randstad Advisory, the company aligns AI and talent leadership around its workforce requirements, creating the foundation for a more focused workforce strategy. The organization then uses market intelligence to determine how to secure and scale different types of talent.
aligning AI and talent leadership
Using a structured discovery and scoping process, Randstad Advisory consults with talent and AI senior vice presidents (SVPs) across the organization to clarify business priorities, planned initiatives, work already underway and the capabilities required to support the organization’s AI ambitions.
Rather than starting with assumptions about where the company should hire, these conversations clarify what it is trying to build and the talent required to deliver it.
The process has also brought AI and talent leaders together around a clearer understanding of the organization’s direction, creating cross-functional collaboration as they shape AI vision and workforce requirements.
distinguishing innovation talent from operational scale
Stakeholder discovery surfaced a critical distinction that the original workforce plan did not fully reflect.
The initial mandate centered primarily on scaling general engineering capacity. Interviews with functional leaders showed that the organization also needed a highly specialized layer of groundbreaking researchers and engineers capable of pioneering new AI solutions.
That meant the client was not solving one talent problem, but two. It needed access to scarce, top-tier specialists who could advance AI innovation while also building the software and hardware engineering capacity required to operationalize and scale that work.
Defining these populations separately allows the organization to develop a more targeted approach to talent and location planning rather than applying a single strategy across the entire organization.
market intelligence identifies the right talent in the right markets
With workforce requirements more clearly defined, the organization uses intelligence advisory services to evaluate talent market dynamics.
The team aggregates, curates and funnels extensive data sources into a clear storyline, analyzing global talent availability, skill concentrations, competitive presence and regional market conditions. Rather than applying a single location strategy across the AI organization, the analysis identifies different market opportunities for innovation and scale.
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Specialized innovation talent: Intelligence uncovers concentrated talent pools where the organization can target the top 1% of researchers and engineers needed to drive AI innovation.
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Engineering at scale: Advisory identifies markets where the organization can scale software and hardware engineering capabilities more easily.
The resulting location strategy connects the organization's emerging AI priorities with external workforce realities, giving leaders a clearer view of where to compete for highly specialized talent and where to scale engineering capabilities more efficiently.
It also surfaces new geographic markets for talent acquisition, expanding the organization’s options beyond established and highly competitive talent hubs.
from talent intelligence to a practical road map
Working with the Randstad Advisory team gives talent acquisition and AI leaders a shared view of workforce requirements and the market intelligence needed to make more informed talent and location decisions. It also strengthens collaboration between the two groups as they shape the organization’s AI vision and define the talent needed to support it.
Together, these insights provide a practical road map for translating the organization’s evolving AI ambitions into workforce and location decisions — from where to compete for scarce specialized talent to where engineering capabilities can be scaled more effectively.