Fueling Fintech One Hire at a Time with Aditi Jaiswal of Techtrust

Our Guest: Aditi Jaiswal- Leading the Charge of Merging Human Touch with AI in Hiring Trends

Aditi Jaiswal, the esteemed CEO of Techtrust, stands at the forefront of innovation in the recruitment industry, particularly within the fintech sector. With a rich background spanning approximately a decade in tech recruitment, Aditi has demonstrated a profound understanding of the intricate dynamics between technology, finance, and talent acquisition. Her journey to founding Techtrust in January 2023 was fueled by firsthand observations of the evolving challenges and opportunities in hiring, driven by technological advancements and changing market demands. Aditi’s vision for Techtrust emerged from a desire to alleviate the recruitment burdens faced by hiring managers and technical leaders, enabling them to focus more on their core organizational goals and less on the intricacies of the hiring process.

Under Aditi’s guidance, Techtrust has carved out a niche in the competitive world of fintech staffing by emphasizing quality, trust, and the integration of human touch with advanced technologies like AI. She recognized early on the unique requirements of the fintech industry, including compliance, regulation, and the need for specialized technical skills. This insight led her to tailor Techtrust’s offerings to not just meet but exceed the expectations of both clients and candidates. Aditi’s leadership is characterized by a commitment to innovation, as seen in the introduction of Techtrust’s Talent Hub and the adoption of technical assessments to ensure the placement of highly qualified candidates. Her approach reflects a deep understanding of the technological and human factors that drive successful staffing in the fintech space.

Aditi’s influence extends beyond the operational success of Techtrust; she is a thought leader in the recruitment industry, particularly in the discussion of AI’s role in hiring. Her insights into how AI can complement but not fully replace the human elements of recruitment have sparked valuable discussions among professionals. She advocates for a balanced approach where technology enhances efficiency and decision-making without compromising the personal connections and understanding crucial to the hiring process. Through her work, Aditi is not just reshaping how companies approach fintech recruitment but is also setting new standards for the integration of AI in hiring practices, ensuring that the human aspect remains at the heart of recruitment.

Episode Transcript

Aditi Jaiswal: AI have helped in so many different ways and in even hiring. I would not say that it’s a tool that 100% is not for hiring. Yes, there are certain aspects to it where we can utilize AI. For example, if you talk about resume screening or maybe scheduling or job matching, but if you 100% rely on AI for the hiring process, that is something I would stand against. Because staffing requires a human touch, it requires interactions. You could have sent me a few questions. I could have responded back using AI, and then that would not bring up a human touch to it. And AI, being a data-driven tool, might have biased answers. It might have biased decisions as well, which you’ll be able to have a better answer on once you directly talk to the candidate by yourself.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Welcome to PayPod, the payments industry podcast. Each week, we’ll bring you in-depth conversations with leaders who are shaping the payments and fintech world, from payment processing to risk management, and from new technology to entirely new payment types. If you want to know what’s happening in the world of fintech and payments, you’re in the right place.

Hello everyone, and welcome to PayPod. I’m your host, Jacob Hollabaugh. And today on the show, we are diving into the world of hiring for fintechs. We spend so much time on this show discussing the latest and greatest tech and fintech products, and how they are reshaping the financial industry. But what goes unmentioned a lot is it does take people to build those companies and to operate those products and services. So today we’re going to talk about what fintech should be looking for when hiring, what skills those wanting to work in this industry should be focused on, and how we can better match people with positions within the financial world. Joining me to tackle these topics is Aditi Jaiswal, CEO at Techtrust, the staffing firm that helps you hire the best tech talent for your fintech company. Aditi, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Aditi Jaiswal: Thank you so much, Jacob. Hi everyone. I’m Aditi, I am the CEO of Techtrust and I have been in the industry for approximately a decade now. Great to be on the show with Jacob, discussing a few insights on the fintech industry and banking the show ahead.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Yeah, it’s wonderful to have you. And like I said, it’s going to be really fun to get to talk about a kind of portion of this world that we don’t often get to, and that is actually the people working in it and how those people end up getting into those roles, and how folks like yourself are helping to make those connections much quicker, much easier and ultimately better for the companies and the workers themselves. Let’s start with a little bit of background on you and the company. It’s a little over a year if I have my dates correct, that the company launched a little over a year ago. So when and why did Techtrust come to be in the first place? Where did the idea come from and what led to it getting launched a little over a year ago?

Aditi Jaiswal: Sure. So as I mentioned, I have been in the industry for approximately a decade now. Tech just started last year in 2023, January. The idea behind Techtrust came and we saw the changes in hiring and the challenges in hiring that people faced throughout this decade. I personally worked with so many clients, so many customers, and I saw their struggles, the challenges that they faced, which I felt that is something that they should not actually go through. A hiring manager’s job or a technical leader’s job is actually to look into the technicality of their organizations, to work on their products, to make sure that they’re evolving as the organization, rather than getting into the hassle of hiring. That’s where the idea of Techtrust came in. We wanted to ensure that the kind of candidates that we’re providing to these companies and these hiring managers are quality candidates, those that they can trust, they can rely on. And I think hiring should be the least of their concerns. So that’s the agenda behind Techtrust.

Jacob Hollabaugh: I love it. And was there a specific reason in my own mind to have one just looking at the company, but is there a specific reason why, like these types of roles within the financial world are what you focus on? Was it just simply like there’s a big market, there’s a lot of these roles being hired, so there’s a market size there that we could capture? Or is there something specific to the idea of tech being a little harder to hire for or tech in the financial world being, you know, hard to hire for? What was it about this industry and these job types that made you be like, this is going to be our focus? Sure.

Aditi Jaiswal: So when we talk about the fintech industry, Jacob, this industry is very crucial. You might already know that it has compliance. It has regulations, it has security data, a lot of aspects and parameters associated to it. When we talk about technical people in this industry, they understand the crux of this industry. They understand the cyber security aspect, they understand the data breach aspect, they understand the risk management aspect of this industry. And that’s why we chose fintech and the technical world together. We knew that fintech is an industry that’s never going to fade away in so many decades. I’ll say we have seen a lot of recession layoffs in the last two years. We have seen such a change in the overall IT world, fintech or still was something that remained intact. Of course, they were also affected, but they still would come back again. There are GDP changes. There are regulation changes that happen that brings the fintech back into the world easily. So we wanted to make sure that fintech is an industry, that that remains very crucial. And therefore we would provide services to such an industry, which is impactful, just not to themselves, but to every individual out there.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Absolutely makes a lot of sense. And then as far as the model that the company works on, it looks, at least to me, like you’re in between the two most traditional models people would think of in the kind of hiring world you are obviously much larger than your single person headhunter that a company might hire to come in and help them out, but you’re also more refined and specific than your traditional, you know, job board or big marketplace, a ZipRecruiter type place. That’s any job, any company, anyone. Just a huge marketplace. In between those two more traditional or what’s been around for a long time, types of models, how did you come to the model that you work on, and how did that approach come about for you?

Aditi Jaiswal: Sure. With us, we wanted to make sure that we do not just become another shop for the clients in the staffing industry. We wanted to make sure that we not only provide services, but we provide value to our customers. Talking about the hiring trends, if I say we just did not want it to be another shop for our clients, there are so many staffing companies out there, and we cannot be just another staffing company for a client, and they would just come to us and ask for a candidate, and we would provide that. We would want to give out value with the services that we are providing to the clients. With that being said, we just recently launched our Talent Hub. Our clients can come to our website. They can see the candidates by themselves that who they are hiring, who they are interviewing. We have recently launched a process as well, which is very different from the typical staffing world. We ensure that the candidate we are providing our Techtrust-certified, and when I say that they have been assessed through through a platform called Code Signal, where they would be giving the technical assessment. So they also so this agenda, the agenda behind this is to make sure that both the clients as well as the candidates are at ease. They are given the opportunity to learn more things. The candidates are given the opportunity to learn more things and make sure that they are technically assessed. And at the same time, the clients would make sure that their hiring process can reduce or minimize by not taking a number of interviews and can hire a Techtrust-certified candidate.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Yeah, it makes total sense. Let’s move to just the hiring side of things only here for a second. If a company wants to work with you, wants to come, have you guys help fill some positions? What’s that onboarding or kind of initial process look like for them? You just touched on a portion of it. But then what’s the most important info you need from them to be able to get the best results for them and find the best person for the job? What are the inputs and the information that you’re looking for that are going to be most important that they provide or that you get from them?

Aditi Jaiswal: Sure. So we have made sure that we keep the incoming process very easy for the clients. We are approachable. We are very much approachable, whether it be LinkedIn, or whether it be any other platform. We are open only to inviting our clients to work with us. But when it comes to the touch points, what data do we need from these clients, especially the organizational data, the projects that they are looking at, the project funds that they might be needing, the the culture that they might be expecting, and especially the professional services spend that they would want to do it. Because of these small aspects, a lot of people do not discuss this. A lot of staff in companies do not discuss these points, but we want to make sure that we have such data for our clients so that we hire the right kind of person that they want in their company.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Absolutely. And I’m curious, you have an interesting vantage point as you get this up and running, and that you get to see what types of companies and what types of roles are most needed right now. So I’m curious to ask, are there any types of fintech companies that stand out as like, the most in need of people right now? Or maybe the types of roles or jobs that you’re seeing come across the most as being needed to be filled right.

Aditi Jaiswal: When I mention or when I say about the type of fintech companies, we have not bifurcated a lot on that. We have made sure that we provide our services to everybody. That’s a need to start with, as you already know, that we are a new company to start with. We have made sure that we’ll focus on fintech companies, which has employees less than 1000. But as I said, we are absolutely open to provide our services to others as well. But yes, definitely, in terms of roles, we have thought of cyber security, security analysts, AI and ML, which is very much trending, and DevOps. These are four major trending roles that we are thinking of to provide our to our clients. And of course, this includes software engineering as our basic one.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Yeah for sure. Let’s move then to the candidate side of things here, side of the equation. How do you mention the new portal that was launched recently? How are you bringing new people into your funnel, into being a candidate within your program? Are you going out and finding them and bringing them in? Are they finding you somehow? How are you making that initial touch point and bringing talent into your ecosystem and your platform?

Aditi Jaiswal: Sure, I would not deny the fact that being a staff firm, there is definitely a natural inbound audience that you get. So yes, we and then outbound strategy as well that we do. Yes, we would be reaching out to the candidates. We would be going to maybe campus hirings and we are doing different LinkedIn posts. And we have a lot of outreach strategies when it comes to reaching out to these candidates. But at Techtrust, we have also made sure that we build a community of trust for our candidates as well as for our clients. So when I say a community of trust, we have an experience of the decade in the industry, we have understood the crux. We have understood that what kind of talent needs, what kind of job, and we have access to the talent. We have so many people around us who talks about what job they are looking up to, what growth trajectory they have, what is the field that they want to go into. And on the other hand, we have clients as well who have certain requirements that, “Okay, this is the kind of candidate that I’m looking at.” So from a candidate perspective, we are building up a community as well at the same time where we can simply have the right people looking for the right jobs, and we are there to help them.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Yeah, I love that. And when you talk to some of these candidates or have them coming in, what do you find in 2024 is the thing that they care the most about that these candidates are looking for the most in the roles that they might be applying for, or being attempting to get. Is it just actually the scope of work and what they’re going to be doing? Is it how much you’re getting paid and benefits? Is it remote work options? I know all of those things matter to someone when looking for a job, but is there anything that stands out that you’re seeing, like this kind of matters the most to these people in these tech roles right now?

Aditi Jaiswal: You rightly said that. All the perks that are given to any candidate, they always like it, whether it be a contract or whether it be a full-time employee. Today we are also working. So we also like certain perks, whether it be benefits, whether it be a remote job, everything is fine. But I strongly believe that in such an unstable world, which we have seen in the last 2 to 3 years as well, first, the Coronavirus came in and then now the recession came in. So there has been a lot of ups and downs that the industry has seen. I strongly believe that job security is something that candidates definitely look into no matter what because everybody will provide some or the other perks. But job security and long-term opportunity are something that people still are looking for, especially after what has recently happened. So many layoffs. People had to switch jobs within days. They had to. Today they are working just fine and tomorrow they do not have access to their laptops because of certain layoffs. So they want to have that job security. And I think that’s one of the aspects that is very important to candidates these days.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Yeah, that would make sense that after we’ve been through so much of quick layoffs or turnarounds and you’re in one job, you’re in the other, that I would really want to know does this company seem like they’re going to be around for a while, or is their arrow pointing up where I’m not going to get laid back off six months from now because they hired too many of us? Anything like that. So that makes a lot of sense. Are you doing any of the screening, match the kind of candidate to the job? Are you doing any of the interviewing and like that portion at all, or is there a point where you pass off the candidate back to the company, the client that you’re working with?

Aditi Jaiswal: That’s the most interesting part of, say, my personal favorite as well. The screening that we have brought in Techtrust is definitely very different from the traditional staffing world. We have ensured that the candidates, when they come to Techtrust, they do not just get screened or just asked basic questions by a recruiter that, okay, what background do you have? What project did you work on? Where did you work on? What experience do you have? And then passed along to the client to have the whole hassle of interviews? We have avoided this process. Yes. The first step is definitely where the recruiter talks to the candidates and then once there is a green signal from the recruiter. These are passed along to our partner platform, Code Signal, for technical assessment. They’re technically assessed. We have live coders who will be assessing them on their live coding skills as well. So we have a whole screening process set for the candidates. And then these candidates, these screened candidates are the ones that are passed along to the clients for them to have a better quality candidate in front of them. This not only helps build brand value for Techtrust, but this also definitely helps the client. And as I mentioned earlier as well that we want to minimize the interview process as well. That would ease up the hiring managers’ work. So once we have done all those screening processes, that would definitely help the hiring manager to maybe go from for round of interviews to maybe two rounds of interviews. So that’s the agenda behind the screening process that Techtrust.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Absolutely.

Jacob Hollabaugh: A couple of final questions for you then related to some overall market trends you’ve referenced a few times or we’ve both referenced a few times, in the last couple of years, there have been a lot of layoffs. There’s been some kind of ups and downs as far as the overall job market and what jobs within this world are available. What’s the kind of job market outlook for 2024? Where are we at right now? Is there a lot that’s going on right now? Do you see the market kind of heating back up and a lot of jobs needing filled? Or where do you see the job market being for this next year or so?

Aditi Jaiswal: Of course, I agree. The job market has been very unpredictable for past few years, I definitely see. A growth plan for especially the fintech industry because that’s our focus industry. If I say I definitely see that, because I see an increase in the GDP that might end, there is an increase in the investors as well in the upcoming fintech startups. So we see a growth trajectory for the financial industry overall. And as I mentioned at the very start of our conversation, right, that financial industry is something that is never going to fade away. You are so much associated to it. Every individual out here has so much association to this particular industry. So this industry is definitely not going to fade away. Now talking about how the roles can impact and how many roles are we expecting? Should there be layoffs and should there be an increase in the placements or not? So yes, as I said, I definitely believe that there is a growth plan for this. But now how we will be targeting those? What will be our plans regarding it? What are certain situations that we might come across or something that we are prepared for? But we cannot 100% predict that as well at the same time.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Yeah. And fingers crossed that we can learn some lessons, maybe from the last few kind of tumultuous years, and maybe scale a little more slowly or a little more consciously and not have some of the situations we’ve had of companies hiring X amount of people only to have to lay off half of them a year and a half later, when the economic outlook has changed dramatically, that maybe we can learn some lessons from that and smoothly grow ourselves instead of going big, expanding and collapsing and expanding and collapsing and everything else. Final question I have for you, then. I’m a big AI enthusiast, so I always have to ask everyone about AI and tech. Techtrust had a LinkedIn post a few months back that had me curious, anyway, and it said how AI has made everything easier except for hiring. And that kind of caught my interest with being an enthusiast that I am in this world. So I did want to ask, do you think that statement is still true, that it hasn’t necessarily made hiring easier? And do you see AI and other new technologies making what you do eventually making it easier? Or is it something that is actually weirdly making your job a little bit harder?

Aditi Jaiswal: AI for me has been, of course, it has been one of the greatest technologies that our generation is seeing these days. I’ll say it helps in so many different ways, and even hiring. I would not say that it’s a tool that 100% is not for hiring. Yes, there are certain aspects to it where we can utilize AI. For example, if you talk about resume screening or maybe scheduling or job matching. So there could be certain aspects or parameters where you can use AI, but if you 100% rely on AI for the hiring process, that is something, yes, I would stand against because this again staffing world, is a very very human world. It requires human touch. It requires interactions. It requires the way we are doing it right now. Correct. It could have been an AI. You could have sent me a few questions. I could have responded back using AI, and then that would not bring up a human touch to it.

So similarly is the hiring industry. It requires people to have that interaction with each other, communication with each other, which I cannot bring. And you’re hiring for your team. You’re hiring for your company. You cannot 100% rely on AI for that, because you would want this company to grow with you. You would want this organization to have the right people. And AI being a data specific or I’ll say data-driven tool, it would not bring you that human touch to it. It might have biased answers, it might have biased decisions as well, which you’ll be able to have a better answer on once you directly talk to the candidate by yourself. So those are my thoughts when it comes to AI bringing it to the hiring world. As I said, of course, it’s all about technology. Everything is moving towards technology, and AI is definitely a very helpful tool in hiring as well. But if we depend 100% on it, that could be something that can adversely affect the hiring processes.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Yeah, that makes total sense. And I do think you did reference earlier. Well, it might not be a great tool to use 100% for what you do. It does sound like I would assume it’s one of the types of roles that you are hiring for the most, or having candidates and companies posting about the most in today’s world, there is a lot and a lot of new things popping up off we need people that understand this stuff and how we can use it for our company. So fantastic. Well, Aditi, this has been a real pleasure. For those listening who we have a lot of fintech folks listening to the show, if they may be interested and need a role filled and want to reach out to you or Techtrust, or just learn more about you in the company, where would be the best place for them to go to do so?

Aditi Jaiswal: You can reach out to me. I’m very much active on LinkedIn personally, so yes, you can reach out to me and my team actually on LinkedIn and we have our website live. We have our talent hub live. I would, yes, want everybody to go through our website once, see what we are trying to provide, what kind of services we are giving. And that would give everybody a better idea of what Techtrust is all about. We have great things coming up. We are sure that we will be shaping the staffing board into a very innovative place.

Jacob Hollabaugh: Love it! We will link to those and more in the show notes below. Aditi, thank you so much for your time and knowledge today. I’ve greatly enjoyed it and hope to speak again sometime soon.

Aditi Jaiswal: Thank you so much, Jacob, for inviting me once again. It was great.

Jacob Hollabaugh: If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, head on over to soarpay.com/podcast to subscribe on your podcast listening platform of choice. That’s soarpay.com/podcast.