PepsiCo’s SVP of Global TA on Refreshing, Evolving, and Hiring Like Never Before

Trying to find resources to create the best candidate experience? 

Have a Pepsi. 

Well, sort of.

You should listen to Blair Bennett, who works at PepsiCo as the Senior Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition and speaker at HCI’s SPARK TALENT 2025, who can tell HR leaders fresh lessons about candidate experience. And you can drink a Pepsi while you do—PepsiCo’s flagship product.

In a recent webinar with HR Daily Advisor, we got a behind-the-scenes look from PepsiCo’s Bennett on what it takes to build a world-class candidate experience on a global scale. As one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world, PepsiCo is in over 200 countries, with about 300,000 employees, and its talent acquisition team interacts with about 100,000 requisitions a year, she says.

Think you can’t duplicate PepsiCo’s candidate experience strategies because of its size and established brand? Think again! 

Bennett’s strategies serve all, no matter the size of your company. 

“People think, ‘Oh, you’re a big company. You have as many resources as you need.’ Not necessarily. We are always looking at how we can do more with less, quite frankly. … Not because we’re big and we are anything super special, but it’s more how we thought of [operational processes] in the context of the things that we need to deliver. And you can do that at small scale. You can do that at big scale,” she says. 

Here are the top 4 strategies Bennett shared during the webinar about transforming, evolving, and creating the best candidate experience.

Be a supply chain for talent

Recruiters and talent acquisition professionals may not think of recruiting as a supply chain, but Bennett says that’s how PepsiCo’s TA team sees it. 

“We are supply chain for talent. … [it’s] how to think about the massive strategic, operational, logistical puzzle that we have to put together. We could be thinking about one niche skillset role in China, or we could be thinking about how we hire hundreds of people as we open a new facility or manufacturing plant in Poland.” 

Bennett advises recruiters never to underestimate the power of their position, because their job is at the center of business strategy, “bringing that strategy to life with the talent that we bring into the organization,” she says. 

“Being a leader, if you think about how to recruit new capabilities [and] … to identify things that are much more horizon two, horizon three, and where the business is going, we get to influence that through our conversations, through our recruiting efforts, through our own talent strategies … and help to build the DNA of the organization through talent,” she says. 

Bennett says talent acquisition leaders also need to think about the strategic and operational aspects of how talent and behaviors are changing, and to create processes within that context of change. 

“We are constantly thinking about the evolution of our talent, of our prospective talent, and how we bring that through into the supply chain of talent into the company,” she says.

Think locally

Global companies can transform candidate experience by having a local mindset. PepsiCo’s approach has been to standardize processes globally, but to think locally about talent. 

“There’s a global brand that we have, of course, but we operate locally in the communities in which we have facilities. Over the last few years, we’ve been doing a lot of work to standardize processes [to] create consistent experiences, but recruiters can deliver the messages or the stories at a more local level.” 

For example, PepsiCo creates messaging around local context that recruiters can use to engage with talent or when candidates are looking at PepsiCo’s career site or social media posts. Another example of localizing messaging is on college campuses, where recruiters will have a “good appreciation for the types of talent motivators that may be more relevant there than if we are recruiting for, let’s say, a fleet mechanic in one of our local communities,” says Bennett.

Use hyper-personalization at scale

Candidates have high expectations as they look for more personalized experiences in their job searches and careers. This pushes companies to think differently about the experience they offer candidates. 

Bennett says HR professionals need to think about hyper-personalization at scale and how that can be done. 

“We can no longer be thinking about one size fits all. …How might you show up to an executive talent differently than you show up to an early career talent? What type of candidate journey might you build based on the desires that those different types of personas would have?”

Be inspired by other industries

What can HR professionals learn by looking at consumer experience across industries? 

Bennett says “there is so much that’s happening across a variety of industries. If you look at retail; if you look at dining, hoteling; if you look at media, you think about all these rich experiences that we are each having on a day-to-day basis. 

“We’re pushing ourselves to … look at what’s happening more macro and holistic and across industries. And that’s been super fun for our teams to be able to get inspiration. We all order stuff these days, right? You can click a button, you can see exactly where [your order] is and when it’s going to be at your house. Those [are the] types of things that we’re all experiencing on a day-to-day basis. We can think about that in the context of a candidate experience also.”

If you’re interested in hearing even more from Blair Bennett, please join us live in San Antonio at SPARK TALENT 2025 October 7–9, 2025. You’ll also hear other speakers from ADM, The Hershey Company, Nutrien, GE Healthcare, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, The Coca-Cola Company, and more. Get practical strategies focusing on workplace planning, talent acquisition, and AI-driven processes, with plenty of opportunities for you to connect with the HR community.

This article is presented in partnership with HR Daily Advisor. HR Query is a Q&A series by HR Daily Advisor that focuses on HR professionals' insights on current HR trends and dives into their personal stories, helping HR peers connect with challenges and opportunities.