WHAT DOES A HEAD OF TALENT ACQUISITION DO?

Published: May 7, 2025 - The Head of Talent Acquisition designs and executes recruitment strategies to meet business demands and ensure timely, high-quality hires across multiple locations. This role oversees the full candidate lifecycle, builds talent pipelines, implements employer branding initiatives, and tracks key hiring metrics for continuous improvement. The head also manages and develops a recruiting team while forecasting future hiring needs aligned with company growth plans.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Head of Talent Acquisition

1. Head of Talent Acquisition Duties

  • Full-Cycle Recruiting: Driving the full spectrum of recruiting and selection activities, including KPI ownership
  • Talent Pipeline Building: Build talent pipelines for current and future job openings and lead all sourcing activities
  • Vendor Management: Manage external partnerships with vendors such as headhunters and recruiting software providers
  • Budget Planning: Prepare and review the annual recruitment budget
  • Candidate Experience: Oversee all stages of candidate experience (including application, interviews and communication)
  • Talent Strategy: Creating and implementing talent acquisition strategies for leadership, mid-career and graduate hiring
  • Hiring Process Design: Designing and driving the adoption of consistent recruiting, interviewing and hiring practices that support a strong candidate experience
  • Team Leadership: Lead the talent acquisition team and develop them
  • Recruitment Operations: Ensuring a smooth recruitment process, candidate pipeline and an excellent candidate experience
  • Workforce Planning: Close co-operation with business heads, planning recruitment needs and ways
  • Partnership Relations: Maintaining and creating relationships with collaboration partners
  • Future Talent Program: Responsibility of the Future Talent program and school co-operation
  • Employer Branding: Ownership of Employer Branding activities
  • Recruitment Marketing: Planning and executing recruitment marketing activities

2. Head of Talent Acquisition Details

  • Team Leadership: Leading a high-performing team of four Talent Acquisition Partners and owning the talent acquisition strategy
  • Inclusive Hiring: Ensuring that hiring practices and processes are inclusive and designed to build diverse, passionate teams
  • Stakeholder Partnership: Partnering with Leadership and Finance teams regarding growth and hiring strategy
  • Cross-Team Collaboration: Working closely with the People Partners to ensure departmental support
  • Leadership Hiring: Hiring specialised and leadership roles to support the team
  • Employer Branding: Building, promoting and maintaining employer brand strategy through various channels
  • Tool Management: Ensuring tools like Greenhouse, Workday, and LinkedIn have up-to-date content
  • Project Management: Running Talent Acquisition projects and prioritizing based on workload and hiring needs
  • Team Development: Nurturing the team through coaching and career development support
  • Data Analysis: Using metrics to identify improvements and provide insights to stakeholders
  • Vendor Management: Managing the Preferred Supplier List to enhance culture and diversity
  • Pre-boarding Experience: Ensuring a positive pre-boarding process for candidates and hiring managers
  • Budget Ownership: Owning and managing the annual recruitment budget
  • People Projects Support: Supporting broader people team projects and workstreams
  • Agile Practices: Working with agile methodologies and leading quarterly retrospectives for iteration

3. Head of Talent Acquisition Responsibilities

  • Recruiting Process Management: Manage and refine the recruiting process
  • Strategic Partnership: Be a consultative partner to leadership and hiring managers to define hiring objectives
  • Market Advisory: Advise HR and leadership on industry, geographic, and hiring trends
  • External Partner Strategy: Determine and refine external recruiting partner needs
  • Vendor Coaching: Identify, onboard, coach, and manage external partners
  • Employer Value Proposition: Help develop and communicate reasons to work at the company
  • Talent Pipeline Building: Build a pipeline of active and passive candidates for future opportunities
  • Full-Cycle Recruiting: Manage recruitment for marketing, engineering, and product teams
  • Attraction Strategy: Create strategies to attract and engage top talent through branding and sourcing
  • Offer Management: Identify offer closing strategies and support candidate decision-making
  • Candidate Experience: Create and own a positive experience throughout the recruitment journey
  • Data Tracking: Drive applicant pipeline assessment, data integrity, and reporting
  • Recruitment Metrics: Track and report recruitment metrics to senior management
  • Global Hiring Adaptation: Navigate hybrid-remote hiring across global locations
  • Team Mentoring: Coach and mentor junior talent acquisition managers

4. Head of Talent Acquisition Job Summary

  • Workforce Planning: Work closely with the HR Director and management team to identify current and future hiring needs
  • Hiring Partnership: Build strong partnerships with hiring managers to implement hiring plans and fill vacancies
  • Candidate Pipeline Development: Develop multiple recruitment channels and an active candidate pipeline
  • Recruitment Cycle Management: Manage end-to-end recruitment across business units including planning, budgeting, and reporting
  • Team Coaching: Build a strong talent acquisition team through coaching and best practices
  • Team Development: Hire, develop, and motivate an innovative TA team with strong team spirit
  • TA Strategy: Set and communicate a high-level strategy and roadmap for the TA team
  • Operational Planning: Define tactical priorities and implement operational frameworks
  • Process Optimization: Create scalable TA processes with a user-focused approach
  • Domain Expertise: Stay updated on developments and be hands-on in the TA domain
  • External Engagement: Collaborate with external experts and present ideas to broader audiences
  • Team Leadership: Lead and right-size the TA team to meet future needs
  • TA Function Building: Build a world-class Talent Acquisition function
  • Candidate Experience: Provide a brilliant experience and manage the interview process end-to-end
  • Trusted Partnership: Be a reliable partner to hiring managers and the People Team
  • Process Excellence: Focus on delivering a best-in-class and efficient recruitment process
  • Pipeline Building: Build strong candidate pipelines through relationship development
  • Headcount Planning: Work with stakeholders on planning, budgeting, and forecasting

5. Head of Talent Acquisition Accountabilities

  • Recruitment Strategy: Design and deliver recruitment strategies to meet business demand
  • SLA Management: Ensure hiring targets are met within specified SLAs by maintaining turnaround time and source mix
  • Process Optimization: Review and streamline systems that focus on delivery
  • Multi-location Delivery: Ensure timely and quality delivery of recruitment and onboarding across locations
  • Pipeline Development: Build talent pipelines for current and future job openings
  • Talent Network Building: Develop a network of potential future hires including past applicants and referrals
  • Sourcing Strategy: Develop sourcing strategies and coach recruiters for all open positions
  • Candidate Experience: Oversee all stages of the candidate journey including applications, interviews, and communication
  • Recruitment Metrics: Measure key recruitment metrics such as time-to-hire, quality of hire, and retention
  • Hiring Forecasting: Forecast hiring needs based on business growth plans
  • Recruiter Management: Manage, train, and evaluate a team of recruiters
  • Employer Branding: Implement branding activities both offline and on social media platforms
  • Talent Acquisition Ownership: Own the full spectrum of talent attraction, branding, pipelining, assessing, and onboarding
  • High-Volume Hiring: Develop and execute high-volume recruiting strategies with hiring managers
Relevant Information
What Does A Director of Talent Acquisition Do?