From Reactive Hiring to Workforce Strategy with John Heyliger of Lockheed Martin

On this episode, Ryan Dull is joined by John Heyliger, Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition at Lockheed Martin. They discuss how one of the world’s largest defense organizations is modernizing talent acquisition, shifting toward skills-based hiring, embedding AI into recruiter workflows and tying TA outcomes directly to business performance. John shares practical insights on workforce planning, operational excellence, and what it takes to evolve from recruiter to strategic talent advisor.Key Takeaways:00:00 Introduction.01:00 John's journey to talent acquisition and the roles that shaped his path.&nbsp;03:00 Lockheed Martin’s scale, footprint and annual hiring volume.04:00 The team modernizes HR and TA with a new ATS and HCM rollout, plus broader enterprise transformation and AI enablement.05:00 TA success metrics go beyond time to fill, including candidate quality signals and funnel efficiency.07:00 Tying recruiting speed to business outcomes — including faster hiring, enabling faster revenue recognition in some programs.08:00 Short-term priorities include AI readiness, recruiter productivity gains, candidate experience and skills-based assessment pilots.10:00 Candidate fraud and AI-generated résumés increase the need for stronger selection, detection and assessment practices.12:00 Skills-based transformation requires “skills, roles and mobility.”&nbsp;14:00 AI skill matching introduces adoption risks on both ends: too much skepticism or too much trust in the matching output.18:00 Workforce planning is a strategic advantage when the business owns demand and HR owns supply, reducing reactive TA.Resources Mentioned:John Heyligerhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/stem-workforce-transformation-data/Lockheed Martinhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/lockheed-martin/Josh Bersinhttps://joshbersin.com/talent-acquisition-revolution/This episode is brought to you by Sagemark HR.Sagemark HR can help you:✔ Improve your talent practices and make better, more informed people decisions.After 20+ years of experience leading Recruiting and Talent Acquisition across a wide variety of industries, I've seen enough hires (over 100,000 to date) to know that hiring decisions truly can make or break an organization.✔ Identify opportunities to not only improve your talent practices, but also delivering tangible business results.We understand every organization is different, and there’s no one-size-fits-all magic solution. So we listen first and identify the gaps and sticking points in your current process before ever recommending a solution.✔ Bridge the gap from “traditional” to modern recruiting, without the painful learning curve.<span style="ba