When scaling a global tech giant like Intel, talent isn't just important—it's mission critical.
Cindi Harper, VP of Human Resources, Talent Planning, and Acquisition at Intel, learned this firsthand when a plant manager gave her a career-defining wake-up call: Without the right people in place, he warned her… the entire operation grinds to a halt.
In this episode, Cindi shares how she went from hesitant college grad to global talent leader in one of the world’s most competitive and rapidly changing industries.
She also shares:
Connect with Cindi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cindi-harper-75aba0/
Connect with us:
💻 All Episodes: TalentAllStars.com
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ziprecruiter/
💼 Dave’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davetravers/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ziprecruiter
🎵TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ziprecruiter
Enjoyed this episode? We’d be grateful for a rating or review on your favorite podcast app.
[00:00:00] Cindi Harper: I was covering for my boss, and she said, could you just go in, talk to that plant manager, give him an update on where we are? And boy, did I get beat up. The plant manager pulled me aside and he said, I cannot ramp that factory if I don't have the talent. Do you understand how important this is? And I said.
I need a couple of days, and we'll be back.
[00:00:18] 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 Cindi Harper, the Vice President of Human Resources, Talent Planning, and Acquisition at Intel, one of the world's most influential tech companies. In this episode, you'll learn about Cindi's 20-year journey in HR, the big moment that completely shifted her career and called her into management, and the biggest challenges she's facing today.
We're thrilled to have her on the show. Cindi Harper, welcome to Talent All- Stars.
[00:00:59] Cindi Harper: Thank you. Happy to be here.
[00:01:00] Dave Travers: Okay, Intel. A legendary company, so many amazing stories about it. For those who don't know, one of the founders, Andy Grove, is a legend and a hero of mine. But I would like to go back to early in your career, before you'd risen to the level of talent all star. And where did the motivation come from?
Where did you connect with what I do is really important in bringing people to find the right next opportunity for them?
[00:01:25] Cindi Harper: Yeah, this is great. Um, so first Andy Grove was the CEO at the time I started at Intel. What an amazing leader. So he was very inspiring, very hard, but, uh, definitely, uh, a great CEO. I would say the moment that really hit me on how talent acquisition plays a huge role and is a, an amazing career.
We were ramping, uh, Fab 12 here in Arizona. It was a, You know, we were ramping Pentium. The processor was taking off like crazy. We didn't have enough people. They're like, hey, can you come in and start recruiting for technicians and engineers? We're like, okay, I don't really know what this means. I got an HR degree from ASU, but okay.
So I stepped in as a new graduate, and I was covering for my boss. And she said, could you just go in, talk to that plant manager, give them an update on where we are. And boy, did I get beat up. They're like, you're not moving fast enough. We don't have enough talent. We don't, we're not going to ramp our factories.
I'm like. Okay, I thought this was just a simple coverage, like I extended 50 offers this week, what's going on? And so the plant manager pulled me aside at the end and he said, do you understand why that was so hard? And I go, no, I really don't, but my manager will be back next week. And he goes, no, no, no, no, here's what I need you to understand.
I cannot ramp that factory if I don't have the talent. Do you understand how important this is? You are the gate for me to get my wafer starts out per week, which at the moment I had no idea what that meant. But I'm like, okay, this is serious to him. And I said, I need a couple of days, and we'll be back.
And I understand. So I think that was that moment. I was like, wow, I am the gate for him to be successful and thought, I am never going to be that gate. I'm going to find the right talent and went back to the team, and we rallied behind it. We said, all right, this is what we're going to do. We're going to be in ramp status and we worked together.
I learned a ton being a recent graduate from there. And uh, I would say it's very rewarding. The second piece is, you know, candidates, it's life-changing for them. Right. It's a life-changing experience right up there with marriage, babies, and career, right? So that's just as rewarding. But what's more rewarding is the business impact.
When they got that ramp filled, I got a divisional recognition award. And I thought, wow, this is like super cool. Uh, and so I watched their progress all the way through and I, you could see the correlation that we have.
[00:03:45] Dave Travers: Amazing. So I can, I can imagine because I'm old enough to remember the like Intel Pentium TV commercials at that time of people dancing around, uh, to great music, go back and look at it. Bunny suits. Exactly. I had one. I had one. Incredible. So, but I imagine when you're on TV, like Intel was showing that, that the pressure to, and the, the meaning of putting people to deliver those chips was a big deal and fast forward to today, Intel's an amazing company now at the forefront of the AI revolution and, and making that all possible, but as you have developed along with Intel.
When did you realize, I might not just be the person who does that on an individual contributor basis, I may be a leader of teams that do that? When did that evolve for you?
[00:04:30] Cindi Harper: Oh, this is a funny story. I don't know that it, if I directly saw it, my manager did. She called me, I was, I was pregnant at the time with my oldest, remember the Y2K and all that.
I was pregnant at that time. And I got a call from her, and she said, Cindi, I have this job, this manager role where we'd be managing sourcers and recruiters across Arizona and New Mexico. And over time, we know we're going to add Oregon. I want to know if you're interested. I'm like, I'm pregnant. I can't do that.
She goes, sure you can, unless you're not coming back. And I said, no, no, I'm coming back, but I don't think I could be a manager and a mom. And she said, I have two kids. I do it all the time. What do you mean? I go, you do? And I remember it being that moment of like, I arbitrarily put this boundary that I couldn't be a mom and a manager at the exact same time.
So I was happy that she kind of had me think about that and say, Hey, if you don't want it, you know, you, you don't have to. But I think I said, well, why did you call me? And she said, you stepped up and led and all these different areas. And she reminded me that it was naturally doing some of these things already, and she said, I think you'd be great.
You can learn the rest. So I said, well, does that mean I have to come right back after I deliver my baby? And she said, no, no, no. Take your time, and we'll come back. I'll save it if you want it. So I think that moment And it was the eye opener for me of, wow, okay, I think I could do this. And then I just had just a lot of fun with it.
And it is not as difficult as it may appear to be a mom and a manager at the exact same time.
[00:05:58] Dave Travers: Amazing story. So what I love about that is I think so many of us, even as you advance in your career, so many of us have Put preconceived notions around ourselves about where we might go or what our limitations are, you know, what, given other things going on in our life, what's possible, et cetera.
And it is such a revelatory moment when somebody picks you out and taps you on the shoulder and says, I see something in you, you may not even see in yourself yet. And so now that you're such a global leader with such massive responsibilities, how do you take that forward in how you manage and lead people today?
[00:06:34] Cindi Harper: I definitely do the same thing. I surround myself with people that. Want to grow, want to develop, uh, have the, sometimes the weaknesses that I may not have. I think you've done finance before. Yep. I did a little research on you.
[00:06:48] Dave Travers: Yep.
[00:06:48] Cindi Harper: Uh, it's not my strength. And I know it's not my strength. I know finance would be like, ah, I'm within a million dollars.
And they're like, no, you got to tell me exactly. But you surround yourself with people that may not have all the strength you have, but where are the pockets to say, if we all work together. We're more powerful. So I think selecting and deselecting, uh, leaders are very, very important, empowering them. I mean, they're experts at what they do as well.
And together, the power of the team is way more powerful than what I would come up with myself. So trying to set vision, clear expectations, and helping them grow is the most rewarding thing as a leader. And just letting them be empowered to make those decisions, removing barriers. And say, hey, your success is my success.
Like, if you're not successful, I'm not successful. What's getting in the way of helping you to be successful? So I think those are probably a couple of the things that I've carried forward. Continuing to look around, what does the business need? You know, right now, Intel's in a tough position. But at the end of the day, it's saying, okay, what are those top jobs?
What do we need to do? They said, Panther Lake, 18A. What skills do we need to make that happen? What would get in the way of us being able to deliver on those two top jobs? And so that's kind of where I take my management and leadership approach to say, we're here to serve the business. Where does the business need our help, whether that's hiring, whether that's moving internal skills around, whether it's upscaling, whatever it is, um, should tie to what the business needs and then take care of your people, take care of them.
They're there helping every day. I think that's a big shift when I became a leader. Going from that, I see you're an expert as an individual contributor; you get results, but caring about the people because you're having to rely on other people to do the work that you were used to doing, that balance and that skill is uber important.
[00:08:39] Dave Travers: I think that is so, so critical and so difficult. When you're a superstar individual contributor, that's often what causes you to get tapped for management the first time, and you're going to find yourself quickly in this role where you know how to do the job. Of the people you're managing, maybe a little bit better than they do, but you don't have the time to do the job for four different people or whatever the case may be.
So talk about that transition because that is so hard. And I find as a manager, sometimes that's harder for superstars. It's harder sometimes for A+ individual contributors to transition than it is for A- because they're so good at the job of the people they're managing. How did you do that, and how do you develop now other leaders to do that successfully?
[00:09:21] Cindi Harper: Yeah, it's definitely not easy. I think that was probably one of the hardest transitions in my career. I love it now. One of the strategies I use for visioning and helping to rally my leaders first so that we can make sure you bring the whole organization along. You got to make sure the leaders are aligned.
I will write a letter in the future, like three years out, and say, this is what we accomplished. And then I'll ask them, does that inspire you? Does it not? Where did I not go far enough? Where should we? Ooh,
[00:09:51] Dave Travers: I love that.
[00:09:52] Cindi Harper: And so that has helped tremendously to kind of set that three, five year out. And then they're like, Oh, you didn't go far enough here.
Oh, wait, you know what? AI is going to take off, and we got to figure out what this looks like. And so it becomes their vision. And once you get their vision and they rally behind it, then you can put, you know, the, the what we need to do in order to achieve it year over year, and then how you allow the organization to do it.
And, and they get rallied behind it. Um, I do have another strategy I pay attention to is balancing the scale of org health and results. That is so imperative. I read not too long ago in a LinkedIn article that said managers have more impact on a person's mental health than a doctor or a therapist. I wish I would have learned that when I first became a manager.
Because you don't understand. You're so focused on results. Yeah. And you're like, well, you know you just need to get this done. You just need to, you know, and so when you sit back and you're like, Oh, I need to inspire them. I need to keep them motivated. I need to remove barriers. It just changes your whole way of thinking to be a better leader.
[00:10:57] Dave Travers: I love the act of inviting someone who works for you to write the vision, rather than you telling them what the vision is and say, this is how I did it. This is how you should do it. I've written my own vision. Now you're playing a role in my script and flipping it on them and have them write the script and then figuring out how to support them, you know, is such a valuable unlock and how to motivate someone and get them to go to the next level.
I love that. Okay, so now you're a global leader, and what's incredible about Intel and challenging in your business is that so many of us are in companies that are going through change or reinventing themselves. But the nature of the chip business is you're having to completely reinvent the company and reinventing what your core product is every couple of years.
And so you're betting billions of dollars, many, many billions of dollars every time. And so that forced change, as you guys go through cycle upgrade and upgrade your different hardware and software to develop for the next generation of chip is incredibly challenging, I can imagine, how do you manage that as a team and how do you manage getting talent for that rate of change every single time, every couple of years?
[00:12:09] Cindi Harper: Yeah, it's a great question. I think there's a couple of things. I think it's kind of keeping up with the technology. It's interesting. I learned early in my career is trying to get that business acumen and learn and I'm not an engineer, but trying to talk to engineers and I'm like, can you dumb it down for me?
I'm in HR. But I'm to the point now where I can talk to a senior fellow and say, what are those skills that are evolving. What can I do as I talk to the, uh, science and engineering departments? I was just talking to Oregon state last week around, Hey, here's what we're hearing from the business, like, Oh, I can build that curriculum.
I can make that happen. Um, and then combined with what does the business need in order to be successful? You know, I look at 18a. And our new Panther, like, what are the types of skills, what are you looking for, what would break it, what if, you know, if you lost this one person or this skill, and then I create a heat map with the team, and then we go figure out how to solve that and say, hey, you know what, if you did more retention here, this might address this, or if we do some upscaling, or you know what, I have a slew of early careers, that already are starting to have that curriculum out of the schools academically, they could probably come in and apply it.
So that's how we keep up. We're trying to look at all the different areas. It's continuing to make sure you have an internal and external pipeline always. And as you evolve that, you can't stay stagnant.
[00:13:24] Dave Travers: You're in touch with your business priorities and you have a changing set of needs and talent that you're going to need in the future and you're proactively reaching out to Oregon State and other sources of that talent to say, I need different skills than what you guys are providing.
Change what you're doing. Yes. So that's amazing. If I'm a talent, an emerging talent leader at a company that hasn't established that as a practice, how do I. You know, start, what's the first step I take to get smart about what's the business going to need that we're not providing or can't get access to today?
And then how do I go out and coach someone to provide me that talent? How do I start that?
[00:13:59] Cindi Harper: Yeah, I think, um, it's a good question because there's a lot of talent acquisition organizations. I will say Intel was just as guilty. It was all operational. It was, you know, Dave, tell me what your need is. And then I go start in source.
And what we realized in there is some of these skills are getting harder and harder. And taking the longer to find that talent. So, if you take time further up front, as you go into the year, go into the quarter, what's evolving, what's shifting, what's changing, and you dedicate time, it actually saves you in your operation.
Because it forces you to change that mindset. It's hard to do, though. It takes effort, it takes you really shifting your mindset, for example, I came into this group, I mean, this is my third time back in talent acquisition, so I've been 29 years at Intel, but, you know, I've done different roles, came back three years ago, and it was very operational, and it was like, how do I get them to be thinking about the power that they have to control the talent, either internal or external, and it was, get your table stakes on your metrics, but one of your metrics is now proactive, proactively understanding what does the business need and create a forecast to meet that need and how you're doing it so that we're not waiting for the requisition to open.
You've already thought about it. So, by the time the REC opens, you already have that pipeline.
[00:15:19] Dave Travers: So that sounds amazing, but role play it with me as to help someone who's starting this journey. Like, if I'm the business leader you're interacting with, who's telling you all the time, okay, these are the metrics, I need more, you're not giving me enough.
I think many talent leaders are familiar with that sort of conversation. How do you turn that into, let's think ahead a quarter or two. What are the skills that you're going to need even more of in the future? Let's figure out how I'm going to go out into the world and build up the pipeline so that those people are available six months from now.
How do you even begin to switch that conversation with an internal business leader like that?
[00:15:54] Cindi Harper: You can't just come with nothing. You have to be able to have reports that kind of show here's the makeup of your organization today. And so when you say that business leader X, like what exactly do you see evolving?
Did you know you have X number of software engineers yet? You say you need to grow that. What is the actual skill within that software engineering population? Are we not optimizing? The talent you have today, and it becomes a much deeper conversation that you're adding value, bringing that to the table, or did you know, you know what, these are your hotspots, I hear you say these things, but the data actually shows these might be your hotspots, you're losing technologists in this area, you're losing technicians in this area or this location faster than you are here, you didn't call that out, is that not a problem?
And I think that starts the conversation, and it, you're, you're an equal partner at the table. Because you're not just asking. I was like, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm overwhelmed. The leaders typically overwhelmed. They got so much on their plates. So coming with nothing and just starting like, what do you need, Dave?
And so saying, hey, Dave, I've, I've analyzed your organization, and let's talk about this a little bit. I see some of these as hotspots. Uh, I want to make sure I have a good pipeline. built for you when you have that, do you see that the same way?
[00:17:10] Dave Travers: Oh, that is so good because if you talk to a chief technology officer, somebody's hiring engineers is the example you just gave.
They all want full stack, you know, that means I want somebody who's a Swiss army knife, they can do everything. And that way, you know, six months from now or a year from now, decide what they need to do. And I know already they can do it no matter what it is. What you're saying, which is so smart, is that, okay, they're full stack engineers out there, but there are only so many of them.
And if you can think a little bit about where the hotspots are, I can find somebody who's a little bit pointier and a little less well-rounded but who's going to do exactly what you're looking for. And all of a sudden that's a whole new talent pipeline that opens up because they're not full stack or they're not that well rounded Swiss army knife.
I love that. Okay. So, talk to me philosophically about how you lead an organization now where the world is changing all around you. You know, you're in this business that goes through these hyper cycles. How do you keep your team flexible enough and nimble enough and not let them get distracted by this super short term for what you need them to achieve over the next couple of years?
How do you even approach that?
[00:18:20] Cindi Harper: Yeah. Well, I think there's a couple of things. I think it's, um, trying to look around, uh, the corners of what's going on in the business. You know, what, what's, what's changing. I mentioned a couple of years ago, we were ramping like crazy. And then it was last year, 15 percent layoff, right?
And so in between those, it's very easy to get distracted. And what I try to do is try to look ahead and say, okay, we need to pivot, change our KPIs, change the SLAs. And right now, business HR need you because. They are, um, laying off their organization. I have 2,000 recs on the system, go see if we can do some matching internally.
Stop external hiring. Go look at what we can do internal. Go help compensation and benefits. We're changing some of their pay and benefits. I am a believer that 70 percent have career developments on the job. So being able to help them kind of step into where there's needs pay dividends later, like when we're ramping, I'm like, okay, now I need you guys to return the favor, BHR, comp and bet, like this, it's, uh, so I think that has helped tremendously because it keeps the teams motivated, it keeps them constantly staying ahead of the need and working on that, and I think too many people tend to stay in their silo of like, but you said this is how I'm going to be measured this year, Yes, I did say that.
Things have changed. The company has shifted. Now, this is your new set. And constantly staying on top of that, particularly in the environment we're in today, which is even harder. Because, you know, it's like, we don't have a CEO. Well, what if they change it? Okay, what if they do? But for now, this is what we got to focus on.
Top jobs haven't shifted. They haven't changed. How can we support them?
[00:19:54] Dave Travers: So, as is publicly known, Intel's going through a CEO transition right now, and so many companies go through that. So, let's do a rapid fire and, and do, you know, the new CEO is named, and then there you are, first day. Happened to be making a cup of coffee in the kitchen and there's the new CEO and comes up to you and asks, Hey, you know, so you run talent.
Tell me, like, what can I do to support executives better in getting the talent they need? What can I do as an executive to be even more effective in supporting the talent pipeline at this company?
[00:20:27] Cindi Harper: I would probably bring metrics and data to the table in a heat map. And I'd probably ask the question, what skills do you not have in order to get 18A and Panther Lake up?
You know, if we're going to continue to drive, those are the two strategies this year. Uh, these are the skills, this is your heat map, you know, and help him or her with the information so that they can help make that call as they're sitting down and learning the new executive team. And saying, Hey, this is the path we've been on.
Of course, a new leader may see something different, but having those discussions, I think, and bringing information to the table are probably the two things I'd probably do right off the top.
[00:21:03] Dave Travers: So now let's say I'm the chief people officer. We're again at the kitchen making a cup of coffee and bump into each other.
And. You know, I say, Cindy, you know, one of the things I do all the time is I'm interviewing people. Give me a tip, like, what's your number one tip about how I can become an even better interviewer?
[00:21:21] Cindi Harper: Oh, how to become a better interviewer. That is a great question. I think really getting candidates to be measuring them on troubleshooting, innovation, embracing AI, not wanting to just be told how to do something, right?
Like understand, pull that out in the interview. And we'll select the right questions if you need help doing that. But to me, it's how are they embracing the latest and greatest technology? How are they troubleshooting and being innovative? And that's all you need. So stop worrying about all these little tiny technical skills.
And if they can do that, you know, we brought talent to the table for you, assuming all that's there. I need you to do this part. I need you to just test for like culture fit and innovation, troubleshooting, whatever those couple of areas that you're lacking today and, and poke on those. And then you'll probably have a good candidate selection there.
[00:22:13] Dave Travers: Cindi Harper, Vice President of Human Resources, Talent Planning, and Acquisition at Intel. It is so clear why you're a talent all-star. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us today.
[00:22:24] Cindi Harper: Thank you, Dave.
[00:22:29] Dave Travers: That's Cindi Harper, the Vice President of Human Resources, Talent Planning, and Acquisition at Intel Corporation. We'll put her LinkedIn profile in the notes below. And just a reminder, we put the video versions of these conversations on YouTube also on the official ZipRecruiter channel. And if you have feedback for us or ideas for future episodes, send us an email at talentall stars@ziprecruiter. com. I'm Dave Travers. Thanks for listening to Talent All-Stars, and we'll see you here next time.