Senior Lead Talent Acquisition & University Relations

To make electronics, you need chips, wafers, transistors, reticles, and... To make these, you must see, test and manufacture them at scale—faster and better than ever before. That's where KLA comes in. Whether you're early in your career or an experienced professional, you'll solve complex challenges, work alongside brilliant minds and help shape the future of technology. Group/Division KLA's Human Resources team drives business success by mobilizing our global talent to achieve both short- and long-term objectives. Our strategic areas of focus encompass HR business partnerships, learning and development, talent acquisition, compensation and benefits, inclusion, and HR systems and operations. What You'll Do In this role, you will play a key part in advancing business priorities by delivering high-impact work across your area of expertise. Role Overview The Lead – Talent Acquisition owns two equally weighted mandates for KLA India’s Global Capability Center: the end-to-end University Relations (UR) program and the lateral hiring of niche, senior and critical engineering talent. The role builds an integrated early-career and experienced-hire talent pipeline across AI/ML, High-Performance Computing (HPC), design engineering, software, R&D and corporate functions. Working with a high degree of independence, the Lead sets the India campus and lateral hiring strategy, builds long-term partnerships with top engineering institutions, drives campus employer branding, and leads data-led campus offer and compensation analysis. The Lead acts as a trusted talent advisor to engineering leaders, HR Business Partners and Global TA, and uses analytics and AI-enabled tools to improve speed, quality and cost of hiring. Key Responsibilities University Relations (50%) 1. Campus Hiring Strategy & University Partnerships: - Lead annual India campus hiring strategy for interns, graduate engineers and postgraduate hires, aligned to business workforce plans. - Prioritise target institutions using data on talent quality, intern-to-PPO conversion, offer acceptance and return on investment for the position like AI/ML, High performance engineering, and Engineering. - Build and sustain strategic partnerships with Tier-1 and Tier-2 institutions (IITs, NITs, IIITs, BITS and other leading universities), including industry–academia projects, research collaborations and guest lectures. - Run the full campus cycle independently – pre-placement talks, assessments, interviews, offers and engagement through to joining. - Lead internships program, hackathons and university workshop to build the early-career pipeline and drive intern-to-full-time conversion. 2. UR Branding & Campus Employer Branding: - Define and execute the KLA India UR branding plan with Communications and Marketing to position KLA as an employer of choice for semiconductor, AI/ML, HPC and design engineering talent. - Run campus campaigns, technical talks, social media content, employee and intern stories, and student ambassador programs. - Represent KLA at career fairs, tech fests, coding competitions and industry–academia events. - Measure branding reach and engagement (career site traffic, campaign response, application conversion by campus) and refine the plan based on results and competitor benchmarks. 3. Campus Offer Analysis & Compensation Benchmarking: - Lead annual campus pay benchmarking using salary surveys, peer company data and institutional placement reports. - Recommend offer structures by institution tier, degree, specialisation and role family (including premium skills such as AI/ML, HPC and VLSI/design), and secure approval with Total Rewards. - Analyse offer outcomes – acceptance, declines, reneges, competing offers and day-slot positioning – and recommend timely pay and process changes as the market moves. - Prepare and present the annual campus compensation and offer strategy proposal to HR leadership. B. Lateral Hiring (50%) 4. End-to-End Lateral & Critical Skills Hiring - Own full-cycle recruitment for lateral, senior, niche and critical-skill roles across engineering, R&D, software, digital, IT and corporate functions. - Advise hiring managers on role definition, talent availability, sourcing channels, location strategy and assessment approach. - Implement structured assessment frameworks (competency mapping, interview calibration, selection matrices) to reduce bias and improve quality of hire. - Ensure strong governance on time to fill, quality of hire, offer-to-join ratio and candidate experience. 5. AI/ML, HPC & Strategic Engineering Talent - AI/ML: Build talent maps and targeted sourcing strategies for machine learning, computer vision, data science and MLOps talent, combining campus pipelines from top AI programs with lateral hiring from product and deep-tech companies. - HPC: Develop a sourcing strategy for HPC, GPU/parallel computing, performance optimisation and distributed systems engineers, including partnerships with institutions and research labs strong in high-performance computing. - Use external talent intelligence and market insights to advise leaders on demand–supply gaps, compensation trends and competitor hiring for these critical skill families. C. Shared Responsibilities (Across UR & Lateral) 6. Workforce Planning & Stakeholder Partnership - Translate global and India GCC workforce plans into actionable campus and lateral hiring plans aligned to semiconductor business priorities. - Act as a talent advisor to engineering heads, business leaders and HR Business Partners, and influence decisions without formal authority. - Present hiring strategy, market insights and results in quarterly business reviews and annual workforce planning. - Partner with Global TA, Global University Relations and CoEs to align India practices with global hiring standards. 7. Data Analytics, AI Tools & Process Excellence - Build and own hiring dashboards covering pipeline conversion, time to fill, offer-to-join ratio, quality of hire, sourcing mix, cost per hire, diversity mix and ROI by institution. - Drive adoption and optimisation of Workday, HiredScore, recruitment automation and AI-enabled sourcing, screening, assessment and candidate engagement tools. - Use generative AI for job postings, outreach and campus content, and pilot new HR technology with clear recommendations for scale-up. - Standardise TA and campus processes to ensure scalability, consistency and audit readiness. - Qualifications & Experience Must-have - MBA or postgraduate degree in HR / Management or equivalent from reputed University / Insititute. - 10+ years of Talent Acquisition experience in an MNC, with at least 4 years in University Relations at a semiconductor, hi-tech, engineering, product or deep-tech organisation / GCC. - Proven experience hiring niche lateral engineering talent, ideally across AI/ML, HPC and/or design engineering. - Hands-on experience with campus compensation benchmarking, offer structuring and offer outcome analysis. - Track record of leading employer and campus branding initiatives with measurable results. - Strong data skills: advanced Excel and Power BI or Tableau; practical experience using AI tools in recruitment. - Excellent communication, presentation and storytelling skills, with confidence engaging senior leaders, global executives and external partners. Good to have - Established relationships with leading engineering institutions in India. - Experience with Workday, HiredScore or similar ATS and candidate relationship platforms. - Knowledge of the semiconductor and deep-tech talent market. - Experience running diversity-focused campus and early-career programs. - Experience in GCC scale-up environments. Minimum Qualifications - MBA or postgraduate degree in HR / Management or equivalent from reputed University / Insititute. - 10+ years of Talent Acquisition experience in an MNC, with at least 4 years in University Relations at a semiconductor, hi-tech, engineering, product or deep-tech organisation / GCC. About KLA We provide advanced inspection tools, metrology systems, process solutions, and computational analytics that make electronics possible, tackling complex challenges. From electron and photon optics to machine learning and data analytics, we seek perfection at the most fundamental level of matter in the universe. If you want to make electronics that push industries forward and make the world a better place, join us. Use of AI Statement At KLA, our interviews seek to understand your individual skills, problem-solving approach and authentic thinking. To ensure a fair and consistent evaluation, the use of AI, recording tools or other technologies to generate, suggest or provide responses during interviews—whether virtual or in person—is not permitted unless explicitly approved in advance as part of a reasonable accommodation or invited by the interviewer. Use of these tools may interfere with our ability to evaluate your individual qualifications and affect your candidacy. KLA is committed to advancing innovation through responsible AI, and we value candidates who share this mindset. We offer a competitive, family friendly total rewards package. We design our programs to reflect our commitment to an inclusive environment, while ensuring we provide benefits that meet the diverse needs of our employees. KLA is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.