By Deborah Kops
I’m not a country and western music fan. A Wisconsin girl who grew up on polka, I freely admit to the bias that twangy guitars, yodels, and plaintive songs about “he done her wrong” are best appreciated south of the Mason-Dixon line. But one C&W classic—Johnny Lee’s Lookin’ for Love—has stuck with me for years. To me, it’s a parable for the search for stellar GBS and shared services talent.
For those of you who don’t know—or have forgotten—the lyrics many stars have covered, recall the refrain:
“I was lookin’ for love in all the wrong places,
Lookin’ for love in too many faces,
Searchin’ their eyes and lookin’ for traces
Of what I’m dreamin’ of…”
Now, lest you think I’ve gone completely off the rails, let me translate.
In a model that increasingly depends on its people to transform and deliver, influence without authority, wrangle outsourcing partners, and now navigate the convergence of AI and human expertise, finding the Holy Grail of great GBS talent is more elusive than ever.
And I’m not just talking about top jobs. I mean the “make it happen” layer that matters most: process owners who know how to train an LLM, transition managers who can rewire delivery models on the fly, vendor managers fluent in governing autonomous agents, and transformation leads who know when to deploy a bot—and when to lead with context.
Where today’s GBS search for talent goes off the rails
- Religious devotion to LinkedIn
How did we ever survive before LinkedIn? Today, we know who’s opening a new delivery center in Krakow, who’s on the hunt (based on sudden over-commenting), and who’s using the #GBS hashtag a little too often. But here’s the catch: LinkedIn is a visibility tool, not a talent magnet. It’s an echo chamber, great for surfacing known players and people in transition—but terrible at attracting the real stars. And if the old maxim is true—that the best talent isn’t looking—then your hiring campaign might just be shouting into the void.
“If AI is supposed to help us find needles in haystacks, maybe it’s time we throw out the haystack.”
- Generalist or Internal search consultants who don’t get the model
GBS isn’t a function—it’s a construct. It’s contextual. One company’s GBS could be all about global scale while another’s might be hyperlocal. Some run on transformation fuel; others creep forward incrementally. So when a generalist recruiter tries to match resumes like trading cards—“Here’s a pharma GBS leader, let’s slot them into this other pharma company”—you get misalignment. Understanding GBS in the age of AI at its core requires decoding operating models, power structures, service experience expectations, and talent constructs—not just buzzwords.
“You can’t match resumes when the job didn’t exist 6 months ago.”
- Temptation to bring the band back together
I’ve lived the circle-of-trust model—especially in sponsor-backed companies. Former colleagues bring each other along from gig to gig. And yes, there’s value in a team that instantaneously knows how to work together. But GBS isn’t a startup in a garage. It’s a complex system that requires diversity of thinking, contextual knowledge, digital skills,
- Copy-paste job descriptions
As my friend Eric Simonson of research firm Everest Group puts it, we write job descriptions to justify hiring the same person we hired last time. How very un-agile. We say we want “out-of-the-box” thinkers and “future-ready” leaders—but then we post a JD that reads like a carbon copy of 2017. GBS has changed. So should the specs. If your job description still lists “six sigma” and “SAP knowledge” as differentiators while you’re building a control tower or implementing GenAI—something’s off. The spec needs to match the stakes.
“We say we want future-ready talent, then hand them a job description stuck in 2018.”
- Industry tunnel vision
It’s tempting to think a GBS leader from CPG will crush it in another CPG. But what you really need are people fluent in systems thinking, orchestration, and change—not necessarily someone who knows how to invoice a supermarket. When you fish in the same pond, you catch the same fish. But today’s GBS leader might be sitting in a startup or working in CX, not buried in a traditional function. AI collapses the boundaries—we need people who integrate, not conform.
So, what’s the fix—especially since AI’s in the mix?
- Redefine talent for an agentic GBS future
AI isn’t just a tool—it’s a catalyst for redefining GBS. What used to be about functional mastery is now about orchestration, interpretation, and value framing. We need integrators, not operators.
“The best GBS talent today understands how to partner with AI—without losing the plot.”
2. Mount a purposeful, multi-channel talent campaign
Don’t assume the right candidate is scrolling job posts. Use LinkedIn as a signal tool, not a search strategy. If your inbox is empty after a week, shift gears. Tap your network. Solicit referrals. And yes, bite the bullet and engage real search—even at the director level. The ROI from hiring a needle-mover will more than offset the fee.
3. Treat every vacancy as a redesign moment
When a role opens, don’t reflexively refill. Pause. Rethink. Could this be the moment to bring in someone who’s built something digital from scratch? Or led a failed AI pilot and knows how to avoid the scars? Ask where’s the model headed? What new muscle do you need to build for the next phase? Take time to realign, not just replace. Redesign the work before you replace the worker.
4. Look outside the bubble
Don’t just poach from your competitor across the river. Look to industries or regions where GBS has scaled differently—or where talent has had to hustle in under-resourced environments. Some of the best talent comes from places that had to invent solutions rather than inherit them.
5. Stop thinking in silos
Talent today doesn’t fit neatly in a function. Your best transformation lead might have started in marketing. Your best process thinker might have built their chops in a product team. Resume bias is the enemy of capability.
6. Search within your own four walls
Talent might already be under your roof. The person running an underappreciated regional COE might be your next transformation leader. But if you never look beyond headquarters or ignore talent without the “right” title, you’ll miss them. Make internal talent visibility a real priority—not just a slide on a dashboard.
7. Rewire the spec to match the work
Ditch the bullet points that sound like they were written in a vacuum. Instead, write JDs that reflect the reality of the role. Does it require stakeholder management in 15 time zones? Say that. Does it need someone who can navigate a landlord governance model with no formal authority? Say that. Write for the work, not the legacy.
“Start with the work. Then find the person—not the other way around.”
8. Modernize the pitch
Top talent wants meaning and impact—not a maintenance gig. If you’re embedding AI, piloting digital squads, or reinventing process delivery, say so. Don’t hide the transformation behind legacy language.
Act before the GBS model reshapes itself…autonomously
If GBS is about solving for scale, speed, and experience, then talent is your front door. And if AI is reshaping the core of what we do—from the operating model to the customer journey—then the hiring model must follow.
The old ways of finding talent won’t cut it. We need search strategies that match the work. Not just better job descriptions, but better imagination. Greater curiosity. And more courage to take a chance on an unconventional candidate.
Now here’s a scary thought. If you keep lookin’ for love in all the wrong places, soon you’ll be explaining to an autonomous agent why your human bench is still stuck in 2018.