WHAT DOES A HEAD OF RECRUITMENT DO?

Published: May 12, 2025 - The Head of Recruitment leads strategic hiring aligned with business goals and oversees recruitment across multiple markets. This role manages a high-performing team and ensures a strong candidate experience. The head also drives employer branding and manages key recruitment metrics and budgets.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Head of Recruitment

1. Head of Recruitment Duties

  • Talent Strategy: Create and develop the recruiting discipline to drive the talent acquisition strategy for all business areas to attract top talent
  • Framework Design: Lead the design and implementation of the talent acquisition framework to ensure it is based on Darkstore’s culture and core values
  • Leadership Hiring: Develop a specific leadership recruitment strategy focusing on attracting top diverse leaders to meet hiring needs
  • Organizational Design: Partner with the CEO to continuously evolve organizational effectiveness and design
  • Interview Playbook: Create a values-driven interview playbook to enable managers to objectively hire all talent
  • Team Building: Build out the talent team across the business to operate as a support and empowerment function to the rest of the organization
  • Process Improvement: Drive a culture of constant improvement, identifying and implementing strategies and processes to increase business-wide recruiting effectiveness and efficiency
  • Team Supervision: Supervise the work of the team in charge, ensuring the correct operation and work methodology
  • Process Compliance: Ensure the correct compliance with the coverage and attention times of the recruitment processes
  • Job Monitoring: Monitor requirements, job descriptions, and job rotation
  • Goal Reporting: Carry out reports or analyses about monthly goals
  • KPI Management: Design and monitor the team's indicators and results
  • Internal Meetings: Hold constant meetings with the various internal clients and with the team in charge
  • Action Planning: Propose action plans or improvement proposals focused on the results of the talent acquisition processes

2. Head of Recruitment Details

  • Process Design: Design, implement and maintain scalable processes, tools, systems and training to support the recruiting function across the company
  • Recruiting Prioritization: Partner with stakeholders to determine recruiting priorities and capacity
  • Recruiting Training: Provide leadership, training, and guidance related to job creation, interviewing best practices, offer negotiations, and recruiting functions
  • Candidate Experience: Ensure an outstanding candidate experience and an exceptional talent acquisition process
  • Recruiting Metrics: Identify and develop relevant recruitment metrics, utilizing dashboards to track team performance, create recruiting reports, and inform business decisions
  • Tool Optimization: Optimize recruiting tools and practices to ensure compliance, consistency, and integrity
  • Sourcing Strategy: Lead innovative sourcing strategies to attract top talent for executive searches and high-priority technical requisitions
  • Contingent Hiring: Partner on the implementation of the managed service providers and streamlining of the use of their temporary or contingent hiring services
  • Business Partnership: Provide key business partnership and thought leadership on recruiting
  • Team Leadership: Lead, develop, and manage recruiting team hiring across tech, product, business and volume roles
  • Strategy Execution: Lead the development and execution of comprehensive recruiting strategies that will guarantee Hippo attracts and hires the top talent
  • Talent Attraction: Develop strategies and processes that utilize both traditional and innovative sources to attract talent
  • Workforce Planning: Collaborate with executives and senior leadership in determining the current and future talent requirements of the business and those needs unique to each department and function
  • Process Improvement: Drive a culture of constant improvement, identifying, and implementing projects to increase business-wide recruiting effectiveness and efficiency
  • Executive Hiring: Leads business and leadership recruiting efforts

3. Head of Recruitment Responsibilities

  • Client Relations: Building and developing positive relationships with their clients
  • Social Marketing: Use social media to market themselves/ the team and the company, attract candidates and build relationships with all levels of stakeholders
  • Target Achievement: Work towards and exceed targets that relate to the number of candidates placed, the value billed or clients/business leads generated every month
  • Business Development: Using sales, business development and networking to attract business from client companies
  • Career Advising: Offer advice to both clients and candidates on pay rates, legislation, training and career progression
  • Vision Planning: Collaborate with the executive team to establish and execute on the short-term and long-term vision for hiring and growth
  • Global Strategy: Develop a global recruitment strategy that is aligned with key business objectives, contributing to strategic planning, organization design and team-wide initiatives
  • Team Coaching: Manage and lead a high-performing global recruitment team with a focus on coaching and development of the team
  • Process Improvement: Identify, define and implement process improvements to drive operational efficiency and achieve target performance metrics
  • Recruitment Strategy: Build and execute the recruitment strategy for GYG for franchisees, restaurant management team positions and head office roles
  • Profile Definition: Understand the right profile for franchisees and internal roles by liaising with all stakeholders
  • Marketing Strategy: Building the marketing strategy to sell what GYG has to offer to the right people through traditional and non-traditional means
  • Active Sourcing: Lead sourcing for franchising and internal roles with a focus on active sourcing through headhunting and networking
  • Candidate Selection: Lead the selection process for franchisees and internal roles to ensure we get the PERFECT candidate every time
  • Onboarding Experience: Ensure the journey of every successful candidate is smooth and lives the GYG values from first contact to onboarding

4. Head of Recruitment Job Summary

  • Employer Branding: Develop Employer Brand strategy and implement Employee Value Proposition (EVP) messaging
  • Social Media Branding: Lead on recruitment social media channels, working closely with the Communications team to improve brand awareness and showcase the unique Decathlon culture
  • Recruitment Partnership: Partner with Regional Leaders and Store Managers to understand business requirements and local recruitment needs
  • Project Leadership: Recruitment Project Lead for HR Digital Transformation programme involving newly implemented Applicant Tracking System, SAP Success Factors
  • ATS Optimization: Continuous improvement and optimisation of the ATS and careers site
  • Recruitment Training: Lead on recruitment training nationally for hiring managers by designing, developing and sharing recruitment training and best practices
  • Diversity Strategy: Drive Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy to attract and promote diversity and authenticity amongst teammates
  • Process Analytics: Develop analytics and reporting to regularly review the efficiency and relevancy of existing processes and tools to improve the efficiency of the recruitment process
  • Candidate Experience: Design, develop, implement and evaluate the best possible candidate experience
  • External Partnerships: Build and maintain external partnerships with relevant organisations including universities, job boards and SAP consultants
  • People Projects: Involvement in wider People Transformation Projects
  • Brand Awareness: Increase awareness of employee branding for different brands to establish an image among different target groups
  • Sourcing Strategy: Create and implement unique and effective sourcing strategies and techniques
  • Talent Pipeline: Find and engage passive talent and build strong talent pipelines

5. Head of Recruitment Accountabilities

  • Hiring Strategy: Work with the Leadership Team to define & deliver the hiring plan against the business strategy
  • Team Management: Manage, motivate and grow a high-performing team and build out recruitment teams in new markets as they start to scale
  • Stakeholder Partnership: Operate as a business partner for Hiring Managers to help set best practices and drive process improvements
  • Goal Setting: Define team mission, metrics, objectives and goals which support business strategy
  • Workforce Planning: Responsible for ensuring the company has the people it needs when it needs them
  • Data Reporting: Present data and recruiting information to senior stakeholders around the company
  • Talent Strategy: Build and implement an efficient talent acquisition strategy to improve recruitment and business performance, and introduce new sourcing and talent attraction methods
  • Candidate Experience: Act as an advocate for a great candidate experience, coach the hiring managers and other parties involved in a well-established recruitment process
  • Recruitment Cycle: Oversee all stages of the recruitment cycle (including application, interviews and communication) to a successful offer, assuring a good standard across the group
  • Team Development: Build and develop a highly skilled recruitment team for great performance
  • KPI Tracking: Keeping track of recruiting metrics, providing transparency and reports on the progress, and relentlessly looking for ways to improve the set KPIs
  • Employer Branding: Support the improvement of the employer brand, lead participation in job fairs and branding-related events to drive awareness of the company
  • Network Building: Build the company’s professional network through relationships with HR professionals and other partners
  • Market Awareness: Communicate with external parties to acknowledge any trends in recruitment and talent attraction
  • Vendor Management: Manage external partnerships with universities, job portals and HR software vendors
  • Budget Planning: Prepare and manage the annual recruitment budget