Jay Mansavage

Jay Mansavage

Director Talent Acquisition, Insulet Corporation

For Jay Mansavage, recruiting has always been about people, relationships, and helping individuals find opportunities that can genuinely change the direction of their careers.

Like many talent leaders, Jay didn’t originally plan on entering recruiting.

In fact, his first dream was professional baseball.

After college, Jay pursued a career in professional sports, spending four years playing in the minor league baseball system before eventually realizing it was time to transition into a new chapter of life.

“I struggled adjusting to the wood bat and it was time to grow up and go get a real job,” Jay joked.

After returning to school to complete his degree, Jay moved to New York City with his now wife and connected with a former college friend who worked at a staffing company.

At the time, Jay knew very little about recruiting.

“I came from a sports background,” he explained. “I was like, ‘I got recruited to play baseball — is it like that?’”

As it turned out, the fundamentals were surprisingly similar.

Jay quickly discovered that recruiting combined many of the things he naturally enjoyed most — building relationships, learning about people, understanding motivations, and helping connect talent with opportunities where they could thrive.

He began his career on the agency side of recruiting during a time when the industry operated very differently than it does today.

“This was old school,” Jay said. “We were writing everything down on resumes and smiling and dialing.”

Even without a technical background, Jay found success by focusing on curiosity, communication, and relationship-building.

“I didn’t know anything about technology,” he explained. “I just got to know people and asked them a bunch of questions.”

Over time, Jay continued growing his career, eventually relocating from New York to San Diego in search of a different pace of life and new professional opportunities.

As his experience expanded across recruiting and talent leadership, Jay developed a deeper understanding of the broader impact talent acquisition can have inside organizations.

For him, recruiting has never simply been about filling roles.

It has always been about understanding people, creating strong partnerships, and helping businesses and individuals succeed together.

“I love the interaction with people,” Jay shared. “I love the energy behind it.”

What Shaped His Leadership Philosophy

Throughout his career, Jay has been heavily influenced by the wide range of leadership styles he experienced early on in agency recruiting.

Some leaders showed him exactly what strong leadership looked like.

Others showed him what leadership should never become.

“I learned a lot about leadership and you see different leadership styles,” Jay explained.

According to Jay, some of the best leaders he worked with were empathetic, motivating, inspiring, and deeply supportive of their teams.

At the same time, agency recruiting environments could also become highly competitive and, at times, cutthroat.

Those experiences left a lasting impression on how Jay approaches leadership today.

“If I was ever going to be in a leadership role, there are certain things I’m not going to do,” he said.

Rather than modeling leadership around pressure or fear, Jay believes leadership should focus on support, trust, growth, and creating environments where people can succeed.

One leader who had a particularly strong influence on him was Louis Song, whom Jay worked with after relocating to San Diego.

Jay described Louis as a highly motivational and inspirational mentor who consistently led by example.

“He had a very high say-do ratio,” Jay explained.

For Jay, one of the things that stood out most was Louis’ willingness to personally step in, roll up his sleeves, and help his team whenever needed.

“Anything he was asking you to do, he was willing to do himself,” Jay said.

That leadership style reinforced Jay’s belief that great leaders earn trust by being hands-on, authentic, and deeply invested in the success of their teams.

Beyond formal managers and mentors, Jay also believes leadership lessons can come from virtually anyone.

“Throughout my career, I’ve learned a lot from everybody,” he shared.

He specifically highlighted the value of learning from people he hired onto his own teams, explaining that some of the most valuable leadership insights come from staying open to different perspectives and experiences.

How AI Is Reshaping Recruiting

As AI rapidly transforms the recruiting industry, Jay believes the past year has represented a major shift in how talent professionals think about technology.

According to Jay, the recruiting industry initially reacted to AI in very different ways.

Some professionals immediately embraced it as an opportunity, while others approached it cautiously out of fear that AI could eventually replace recruiting jobs altogether.

“You had one side that were early adopters and fully embracing it,” Jay explained. “And then you had another group that was skeptical and fearful.”

Jay admits that early on, even he sometimes felt hesitant about using AI tools extensively.

At first, using AI almost felt like “cheating” because the industry had not yet fully normalized or encouraged its use.

That perspective changed after attending a conference where a speaker reframed the conversation entirely.

“If you’re not using it or interacting with it every day, you’re falling behind,” Jay recalled the speaker saying.

That moment became a major turning point in how Jay approached AI.

Rather than viewing AI as a shortcut, he began seeing it as an enhancement tool capable of improving efficiency, creativity, learning, and overall effectiveness.

Since then, Jay has actively embraced AI tools across different organizations and workflows, including platforms like Google Gemini, NotebookLM, and Microsoft Copilot.

For Jay, one of the biggest mindset shifts involved understanding that AI works best as an interactive partner rather than a simple search engine.

“Most people first use AI like a Google search,” he explained. “But really you should talk to it, engage with it, learn from it, and keep going deeper.”

At the same time, Jay strongly believes AI will enhance recruiting rather than replace recruiters entirely.

In his view, the recruiters who succeed in the future will be the ones who learn how to effectively integrate AI into their daily workflows while continuing to strengthen the human side of recruiting.

“It’s creating these AI assistants versus something to be fearful of,” he said.

Jay believes AI can help talent professionals become more efficient across a wide range of tasks, including sourcing, writing, research, presentations, communication, and operational work.

But despite the growing role of technology, he believes human connection, relationship-building, and trust will remain central to successful recruiting.

Jay’s Advice for Talent Leaders in 2026

As recruiting continues evolving alongside AI, Jay encourages talent leaders to stay curious, open-minded, and proactive about learning new technologies.

For him, one of the biggest mistakes recruiters can make is avoiding AI out of fear.

Instead, he believes recruiting professionals should actively experiment with AI tools, explore new use cases, and learn how these technologies can support and enhance their work.

“Embrace it, learn it, explore with it, and play around with it,” Jay advised.

At the same time, Jay believes talent leaders should avoid viewing AI as a replacement for human expertise.

Rather, the most effective recruiters will be the ones who combine AI-driven efficiency with strong communication skills, emotional intelligence, relationship-building, and strategic thinking.

According to Jay, the future of recruiting will belong to professionals who can adapt quickly while remaining deeply human-centered in their approach.

He also believes organizations that invest in both foundational recruiting processes and modern technology will be best positioned for long-term success.

For Jay, AI represents an opportunity to elevate recruiting — not eliminate it.

That thoughtful, relationship-driven perspective, combined with his years of leadership experience and passion for helping people grow, is exactly what makes Jay Mansavage a deserving member of the Talent 100.