Lexy Johnson

Lexy Johnson

Senior Director, Global Talent Acquisition - Perforce Software

For Lexy Johnson, recruiting began with a fast-paced introduction to the agency world.

After studying communications and journalism in college, Lexy was recruited into Insight Global, one of the fastest-growing technology recruiting organizations at the time. It was an intense crash course in the foundations of recruiting: high volume, fast pace, client delivery, and team execution.

From there, she moved into sales and leadership, managing teams of recruiters and helping deliver talent solutions for clients.

“It gave me a great foundation,” Lexy says. “I started on the agency side, and there was a lot of learning there.”

After eight years, Lexy was pulled into an opportunity to build an executive search practice. The move allowed her to work with more senior, tenured executives and develop a high-touch approach to search.

She spent six years building that practice, growing a team, earning trust across industries, and working cross-functionally with a wide range of organizations.

Eventually, she transitioned into a corporate talent acquisition leadership role at Perforce.

While she describes herself as “not your traditional Head of TA on paper,” Lexy brought deep consulting, agency, and executive search experience into the corporate recruiting world.

“I followed a CHRO I highly respect,” she explains. “I knew those skills were transferable.”

Today, Lexy serves as Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at Perforce, where she has spent the last two years driving growth, transformation, and a stronger recruiting experience across the organization.

A White Glove Approach to Recruiting

Throughout her career, Lexy has remained passionate about the experience recruiting creates for everyone involved.

Whether working with candidates, hiring managers, executives, or recruiters, she believes talent acquisition should feel thoughtful, consultative, and human.

For Lexy, recruiting is not just about filling roles. It is about creating meaningful career moments.

“How awesome is it to be able to change someone’s life and offer them what is ideally their dream job?” she says.

That belief has shaped her leadership style and her focus on delivering what she describes as a white glove experience.

Her commitment to service started long before she entered recruiting.

When reflecting on the people who shaped her career, Lexy points first to her very first boss, from when she was 15 years old and working in food service.

That experience taught her the importance of work ethic, customer experience, and high standards.

“That exposure really bleeds into a lot of the standards I expect today in recruiting,” she says.

Another major influence has been her current leader, the CHRO she followed to Perforce.

Before becoming her boss, she was a client, mentor, and sounding board who helped Lexy understand the corporate talent world and recognize the transferable value of her own experience.

“She saw capability in me that I maybe hadn’t recognized independently,” Lexy says.

That trust helped Lexy make the leap from consulting into corporate recruiting, a move she now describes as one of the best decisions of her career.

She also credits her husband as a critical source of support outside of work.

“We need a strong foundation in our family structure to allow us to do this great work,” she says.

Leading Through Transformation

Lexy believes talent acquisition is in a pivotal and unpredictable moment.

In previous years, much of the recruiting conversation centered on employer brand, remote work, and candidate experience. While those priorities still matter, Lexy now sees a new challenge emerging quickly: candidate authenticity.

“My biggest fear in the last six months is the influx of non-human or synthetic candidates in our pipeline,” she explains. “How do we validate humanity?”

For Lexy, this is no longer a future concern. It is already affecting recruiting teams today.

As AI tools make it easier for candidates to generate resumes, applications, and interview responses, recruiters must work harder to confirm that the people entering the hiring process are real, qualified, and accurately represented.

She believes this makes the human side of recruiting even more important.

From the first interaction with a candidate to the offer and onboarding experience, Lexy believes there are still critical moments that require human judgment, connection, and care.

A Balanced Approach to AI

Lexy is clear that AI has a place in recruiting, especially when it comes to improving efficiency, reducing manual work, validating skills, and helping teams move faster.

But she also believes leaders need to approach AI with balance.

“I don’t want to be the first guinea pig,” she says. “But I also cannot and will not be a late adopter.”

For Lexy, the best path forward is neither fear nor blind adoption. Instead, talent leaders should take a thoughtful, middle-of-the-road approach: use AI where it creates value, but do not lose sight of the human moments that define great recruiting.

“There are continued moments in the employee life cycle that require humans,” she says.

She also sees a distinction between automation and AI.

Some improvements, such as interview scheduling, can save recruiters significant time without changing the core nature of recruiting work. At Perforce, Lexy’s team is implementing GoodTime to reduce time spent on scheduling and rescheduling interviews.

That investment, she says, is expected to save recruiters as much as 40% of their time.

For Lexy, that is exactly where technology should help: removing administrative burdens so recruiters can spend more time building relationships, advising the business, and creating a better candidate experience.

Doing More With Less

Over the past year, Lexy’s team has delivered significant results during a period when many TA teams are being asked to do more with fewer resources.

With a team of six full-time recruiters, Perforce hired 450 people in a year, up from a historical average of around 250.

Lexy credits that success to three things: people, process, and technology.

First, she empowered her team with autonomy and trust.

“They rallied,” she says. “They rose to the occasion.”

Second, the team mapped the entire candidate lifecycle, examining every touchpoint to identify what to start, stop, and continue doing.

Finally, they looked carefully at technology and automation to determine where recruiters were spending the most time and where support would have the greatest impact.

The goal was not to replace recruiters. It was to help them focus on the work that matters most.

Advice for Talent Leaders Heading into 2026

As talent acquisition moves further into the AI era, Lexy’s advice is simple: take a balanced approach.

AI is here to stay, and talent leaders need to get on board. But they should do so thoughtfully, without losing the human connection that makes recruiting meaningful.

“It’s here, and it’s here to stay,” she says. “So we have to get on the bus, but we can’t lose sight of the human piece.”

For Lexy, the future of recruiting will belong to leaders who can combine smart technology adoption with strong human judgment.

That means using tools to improve speed, accuracy, and efficiency while preserving the moments where recruiters have the greatest impact: building trust, telling the company story, guiding candidates, and helping people make life-changing career decisions.

By combining agency discipline, executive search rigor, corporate leadership, and a deeply human approach to recruiting, Lexy Johnson represents the kind of talent leader helping organizations navigate what comes next.