Position Overview: The Director of Talent Acquisition is responsible for developing and leading the company’s overall talent acquisition strategy, recruiting function, and workforce planning initiatives. This position provides strategic leadership for the company’s recruiting organization, oversees the development and execution of scalable recruiting processes, and partners with executive leadership and business leaders to ensure the organization has the talent needed to support current operations and future growth.

The Director will lead the Talent Acquisition team, establish recruiting strategies and priorities, develop proactive talent pipelines, oversee recruiting performance and analytics, and ensure a consistent and effective candidate experience across the organization. The position will also maintain executive-level oversight of the company’s Applicant Tracking System, Affirmative Action Plan, OFCCP compliance, recruiting processes, and employment-related talent data.

This is a strategic and hands-on leadership role. The Director is responsible for leading the company’s overall Talent Acquisition strategy while personally participating in full-cycle recruiting across all levels of the organization. The Director will directly recruit for positions ranging from entry-level, hourly, field, and operational roles through professional, technical, management, and executive positions.

The ideal candidate is an experienced talent acquisition leader who can operate strategically while remaining close to the business and recruiting process. This individual must be comfortable working in a fast-paced, continually evolving environment and possess the ability to build structure, processes, and recruiting capabilities as the organization grows.

Key Responsibilities

Talent Acquisition Strategy & Leadership

Develop and execute the company’s overall talent acquisition strategy while remaining actively engaged in the day-to-day execution of recruiting.
Balance strategic leadership responsibilities with an active personal recruiting workload across the organization.
Establish the organizational structure, staffing model, recruiting resources, and priorities necessary to support the company’s hiring needs while personally contributing to recruiting capacity.
Lead, manage, coach, and develop the recruiting team while maintaining credibility as an active recruiter and subject matter expert.
Establish recruiting goals, departmental KPIs, service-level expectations, and performance standards for the Talent Acquisition team.
Partner with executive leadership and business leaders to identify workforce needs while also working directly with hiring managers and candidates throughout the recruiting process.
Develop scalable recruiting processes and best practices that support both the recruiting team and the Director’s direct recruiting activities.
Evaluate recruiting workload and organizational needs and determine when the Director should personally assume recruiting responsibilities versus assigning them to members of the recruiting team.

Workforce Planning & Talent Strategy

Partner with executive leadership and business leaders to identify current and future workforce requirements.
Develop recruiting and talent acquisition strategies based on anticipated hiring volume, business growth, turnover, geographic expansion, skill requirements, and organizational priorities.
Develop workforce forecasts and recruiting capacity plans to identify future talent needs and potential hiring constraints.
Establish proactive talent strategies for critical positions and skill sets before vacancies occur.
Identify talent-market trends, skill shortages, geographic considerations, compensation pressures, and other factors that may affect the company's ability to attract talent.
Provide leadership with insight into talent availability, recruiting market conditions, hiring risks, and emerging workforce trends.
Develop strategies to support organizational growth while maintaining appropriate recruiting resources, processes, and infrastructure.

Recruiting Leadership & Hands-on Recruiting

Lead and oversee the company’s full-cycle recruiting function while maintaining direct, hands-on involvement in recruiting activities across all levels and functions of the organization, from entry-level and hourly positions through professional, technical, management, and executive roles.
Personally manage and execute full-cycle recruiting for assigned positions across the organization, including workforce intake, job development, sourcing, screening, interviewing, candidate evaluation, reference checks, offer negotiation, and coordination of onboarding.
Maintain an active recruiting workload and directly recruit candidates rather than functioning solely as a strategic or supervisory leader.
Partner directly with hiring managers at all levels to understand position requirements, business needs, technical qualifications, experience requirements, compensation expectations, and hiring priorities.
Develop and execute recruiting strategies appropriate to the position, labor market, geographic location, level of the role, and availability of qualified candidates.
Source candidates through direct outreach, LinkedIn, job boards, professional associations, industry networks, employee referrals, recruiting databases, social media, schools, trade programs, and other appropriate channels.
Conduct candidate screening and interviews and independently assess candidate qualifications, experience, skills, and alignment with position requirements.
Maintain direct engagement with candidates throughout the recruiting process and ensure timely, professional communication from initial contact through offer and onboarding.
Personally recruit for high-volume, urgent, specialized, difficult-to-fill, and strategically important positions as business needs require.
Serve as a recruiting subject matter expert and resource for hiring managers and recruiters across all departments and levels of the organization.
Provide hands-on support to recruiters in sourcing, candidate assessment, interviewing, offer negotiation, and other recruiting activities.
Step directly into recruiting assignments when additional capacity is needed, including during periods of high hiring volume, organizational growth, recruiter workload increases, or specialized hiring needs.
Ensure that the Director’s personal recruiting activities remain aligned with overall Talent Acquisition priorities, workforce plans, recruiting metrics, and business objectives.

Candidate Sourcing & Talent Pipeline Development

Maintain an active, hands-on role in candidate sourcing and pipeline development across hourly, field, operational, administrative, professional, technical, management, and executive positions.
Personally identify, contact, screen, and engage candidates across multiple talent markets and recruiting channels.
Develop proactive sourcing strategies to identify qualified candidates before positions become available.
Build and maintain talent pipelines for both immediate openings and anticipated workforce needs across all organizational levels.
Develop and maintain talent pools by job function, geographic market, skill set, experience level, and position type.
Establish relationships with passive candidates and maintain ongoing communication with qualified talent.
Develop relationships with colleges, universities, trade schools, professional organizations, industry groups, and other talent sources appropriate to the company's workforce needs.
Evaluate sourcing channels based on candidate quality, cost, conversion rates, hiring outcomes, and the specific requirements of different position types.

Recruiting Analytics, Reporting & Performance Management

Establish the company's Talent Acquisition reporting framework and ensure leadership has meaningful visibility into recruiting performance.
Develop and maintain recruiting dashboards, reports, forecasts, and executive-level metrics.
Establish departmental KPIs and monitor performance against established goals.
Track and analyze key recruiting metrics, including:

o Time-to-fill

o Time-to-hire

o Applicants per opening

o Qualified candidates per opening

o Interview-to-offer ratio

o Offer acceptance rate

o Source of hire

o Cost per hire

o Recruiter activity and productivity

o Candidate pipeline volume

o Aging requisitions

o Hiring-manager satisfaction

o New-hire retention

o Quality-of-hire indicators

Analyze recruiting trends, bottlenecks, capacity constraints, and areas of opportunity.
Use recruiting data to make recommendations regarding recruiting resources, staffing levels, sourcing strategies, processes, technology, and organizational priorities.
Provide regular recruiting performance reports, workforce analytics, and strategic insights to executive leadership.
Develop forecasting and pipeline reporting to help leadership understand upcoming hiring capacity and talent availability.
Establish accountability throughout the Talent Acquisition organization for measurable recruiting outcomes.

OFCCP, Affirmative Action & EEO Compliance

Own and oversee the company's Affirmative Action and OFCCP compliance program, serving as the senior internal resource for affirmative action, applicant tracking, and federal contractor employment compliance.
Lead the development, preparation, implementation, maintenance, and administration of the company's written Affirmative Action Plan (AAP) and all supporting analyses, documentation, and compliance initiatives.
Ensure recruiting and selection practices are structured and administered in accordance with OFCCP, EEO, affirmative action, Internet Applicant, recordkeeping, and applicable federal, state, and local requirements.
Provide executive-level oversight and governance of the Applicant Tracking System (ATS), ensuring applicant data, candidate activity, disposition codes, job postings, referral sources, interview activity, and selection information are accurately captured and maintained.
Establish and enforce standardized applicant tracking, disposition, selection, and recordkeeping procedures to ensure the integrity and auditability of recruiting data.
Monitor applicant flow and recruiting activity to identify potential adverse impact, selection disparities, or other compliance risks and establish appropriate corrective actions.
Oversee the collection, maintenance, and analysis of data required for AAP development, utilization analysis, availability analysis, applicant flow, hiring, promotion, termination, compensation, and other required compliance reporting.
Ensure compliance with required EEO/AA self-identification processes, notices, postings, outreach, and affirmative action obligations.
Serve as the primary internal point of contact for OFCCP audits, compliance evaluations, investigations, and requests for information.
Coordinate compliance responses and documentation with executive leadership, Human Resources, legal counsel, and external advisors.
Establish internal controls and audit processes to evaluate AAP compliance, recruiting practices, ATS data integrity, record retention, and adherence to established procedures.
Maintain current knowledge of OFCCP regulations, federal contractor requirements, affirmative action obligations, and related employment regulations.
Proactively evaluate regulatory changes and lead implementation of necessary updates to policies, systems, processes, and recruiting practices.
Provide executive leadership with regular compliance reporting, workforce analytics, risk assessments, and recommendations to strengthen the company's overall compliance program.

Hiring Manager & Executive Partnership

Establish strong strategic relationships with executives, senior leaders, hiring managers, and Human Resources business partners throughout the organization.
Serve as a strategic advisor to leaders on workforce requirements, talent availability, recruiting strategy, compensation competitiveness, and hiring timelines.
Partner with leaders to define realistic qualifications, candidate profiles, hiring priorities, and selection criteria.
Advise leadership on labor-market conditions, candidate availability, competitive recruiting practices, and talent acquisition risks.
Establish expectations for hiring-manager participation, communication, interviewing, decision-making, and candidate feedback.
Develop service-level expectations for recruiting and hiring-manager communication.
Resolve escalated recruiting and hiring challenges and establish appropriate solutions.
Ensure hiring decisions are made efficiently while maintaining appropriate selection standards and compliance requirements.

Employer Branding & Talent Market Strategy

Develop and execute the company's employer brand and employee value proposition in partnership with Human Resources and Marketing.
Establish strategies to strengthen the company's visibility and reputation within targeted talent markets.
Partner with HR and Marketing to enhance job postings, career-site content, recruiting communications, employment marketing, and candidate-facing materials.
Develop strategies to increase employee referrals and other high-quality, cost-effective recruiting channels.
Monitor competitor recruiting activity, labor-market trends, and emerging talent acquisition practices.
Identify opportunities to strengthen the company's position within targeted talent markets.
Ensure employer branding and recruiting messaging appropriately reflect the company's culture, opportunities, career growth, and employee experience.

Talent Acquisition Technology & Process Optimization

Provide strategic oversight of the company's recruiting technology and applicant tracking infrastructure.
Evaluate recruiting technology, systems, tools, and vendors to improve efficiency, data quality, candidate experience, and reporting capabilities.
Establish standards for ATS data integrity, reporting, workflow management, and system utilization.
Partner with HR, IT, and other stakeholders on recruiting technology implementations, integrations, and process improvements.
Identify opportunities to automate or streamline recruiting processes while maintaining appropriate controls and candidate engagement.
Continuously evaluate and improve recruiting workflows, processes, documentation, and operating procedures.

Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, or a related field preferred.
10+ years of progressive recruiting or talent acquisition experience, including significant experience leading a Talent Acquisition function.
5+ years of experience managing and developing recruiting teams, preferably with responsibility for multiple recruiters or recruiting functions.
5+ years of direct experience managing OFCCP and affirmative action compliance, including responsibility for the development, implementation, maintenance, and administration of a written Affirmative Action Plan (AAP).
Demonstrated experience developing and executing enterprise-level talent acquisition strategies.
Demonstrated experience with workforce planning, recruiting analytics, talent pipelines, and recruiting performance management.
Proven experience managing full-cycle recruiting across multiple functions and levels of an organization.
Proven experience recruiting technical, professional, operational, field-based, and/or leadership positions.
Demonstrated ability to personally recruit difficult-to-fill and high-priority positions.
Demonstrated experience developing passive candidate pipelines and proactive sourcing strategies.
Demonstrated ownership of an organization's Affirmative Action Plan, including responsibility for the written plan, required analyses, implementation, compliance monitoring, recordkeeping, and preparation for OFCCP audits or compliance evaluations.
Experience overseeing Applicant Tracking Systems and establishing processes to ensure accurate applicant data, disposition codes, candidate status, selection activity, referral sources, and other required recruiting information.
Strong analytical skills with the ability to evaluate recruiting data, applicant flow, selection rates, workforce demographics, hiring trends, and other employment data.
Experience developing recruiting dashboards, executive-level reporting, KPIs, forecasts, and workforce analytics.
Demonstrated ability to translate complex regulatory requirements into practical policies, procedures, training, and operational controls.
Strong understanding of employment practices, recruiting compliance, affirmative action, OFCCP requirements, and fair hiring practices.
Demonstrated ability to partner effectively with executive leadership and senior business leaders.
Excellent communication, interviewing, negotiation, organizational, strategic-thinking, and relationship-management skills.
Demonstrated ability to lead through change, establish structure in evolving environments, and develop scalable processes as the organization grows.

Preferred Experience

Experience leading Talent Acquisition within construction, engineering, utilities, energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, or other technical industries.
Experience recruiting highly specialized technical, engineering, field-based, or operational positions.
Experience leading recruiting across multiple geographic markets.
Experience building or scaling a Talent Acquisition function in a growing organization.
Experience supporting significant organizational growth, expansion, acquisitions, or workforce transformation.
Experience partnering directly with executive leadership on workforce planning and strategic hiring.
Experience with UKG Ready, LinkedIn Recruiter, Indeed, or similar recruiting and HR technology platforms.
Experience using recruiting analytics and workforce data to improve hiring outcomes, recruiting capacity, and recruiter productivity.

Core Competencies

Talent Acquisition Strategy
Executive Leadership & Influence
Talent Acquisition Team Leadership
Workforce Planning
Full-Cycle Recruiting
Strategic Sourcing
Pipeline Development
Recruiting Analytics & Forecasting
OFCCP & Affirmative Action Compliance
ATS Governance
Hiring Manager & Executive Partnership
Employer Branding
Talent Market Intelligence
Process & Organizational Development
Change Leadership
Strategic Problem Solving
Communication & Influence
Organization & Prioritization
Candidate Relationship Management

Performance Measures

Success in this position will be measured through a combination of strategic talent acquisition performance, organizational growth support, recruiting outcomes, compliance, and operational effectiveness, including:
Achievement of company-wide recruiting and workforce objectives.
Ability to develop and execute talent acquisition strategies aligned with business growth.
Strength and depth of proactive candidate pipelines for critical positions.
Successful recruitment and retention of high-quality talent.
Reduction in time-to-fill for priority and difficult-to-fill positions.
Recruiter productivity, performance, development, and retention.
Hiring-manager and executive leadership satisfaction.
Effectiveness and diversification of sourcing channels.
Quality and usefulness of recruiting analytics and workforce forecasting.
Offer acceptance rates and candidate experience.
Successful implementation of recruiting process and technology improvements.
Accuracy and integrity of ATS and recruiting data.
Successful maintenance of the company's Affirmative Action Plan and OFCCP compliance program.
Successful preparation for and response to OFCCP audits, evaluations, or information requests.
Ability to scale the Talent Acquisition function to support company growth.
Development of a high-performing, accountable, and scalable Talent Acquisition organization.

Physical Requirements

Ability to sit and work at a computer for extended periods of time.
Ability to regularly use a computer, keyboard, mouse, telephone, and other standard office equipment.
Ability to communicate effectively in person, by telephone, and through video conferencing.
Ability to read and review information displayed on computer screens and in printed materials.
Ability to frequently perform repetitive hand and wrist movements associated with keyboarding and computer use.
Ability to occasionally stand, walk, bend, reach, and move throughout an office or work environment.
Ability to attend meetings, interviews, recruiting events, career fairs, and other company or industry events as required.
Ability to occasionally travel to company locations, recruiting events, educational institutions, conferences, or other talent-related activities.
Ability to lift and carry office materials or equipment weighing up to approximately 20 pounds on an occasional basis.
Ability to perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation.

Mental & Cognitive Requirements

Ability to manage multiple open positions, candidates, recruiters, and competing priorities simultaneously.
Strong organizational skills and ability to effectively prioritize work based on business needs and recruiting urgency.
Ability to analyze recruiting metrics, identify trends, and translate data into actionable recommendations.
Strong attention to detail and accuracy when reviewing candidate information, recruiting records, reports, and employment documentation.
Ability to exercise sound judgment and make decisions regarding candidate qualifications, recruiting strategies, sourcing methods, and hiring priorities.
Ability to evaluate candidates objectively based on job-related qualifications and established selection criteria.
Ability to maintain confidentiality when handling sensitive candidate, employee, compensation, and company information.
Ability to communicate effectively with candidates, recruiters, hiring managers, executives, and external recruiting partners.
Ability to influence and advise hiring managers while maintaining appropriate recruiting and selection standards.
Ability to remain professional and composed when managing difficult candidates, hiring challenges, competing priorities, or high-volume recruiting demands.
Ability to identify problems, develop solutions, and implement process improvements.
Ability to adapt to changing business needs, hiring priorities, labor-market conditions, and organizational requirements.
Ability to work independently while also providing effective leadership, coaching, and direction to the recruiting team.
Ability to sustain concentration and productivity while performing detailed computer-based work for extended periods.
Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment with frequent interruptions and shifting priorities.
Ability to meet deadlines and maintain consistent follow-through on recruiting commitments and department objectives.

Work Environment

Primarily office-based professional work environment.
Regular use of computers, telephones, video conferencing, and other business technology.
Frequent interaction with employees, candidates, hiring managers, executives, and external recruiting partners.
Occasional travel may be required for recruiting events, career fairs, company locations, conferences, or other business activities.
Able to work outside normal business hours to accommodate candidate interviews, recruiting events, or urgent hiring needs.
Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the position.

FLSA Status: Exempt

Pay Range: $150-190,000 Annually

Reports To: Vice President, Human Resources

Note: This job description is intended to provide a general overview of the responsibilities and qualifications for the Director of Talent Management. The specific duties and requirements may vary depending on the organizations needs.

Exo is committed to equal employment opportunity. We recruit, employ, train, compensate, and promote without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, age, sex, disability, protected veteran status, or any other basis protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

Director, Talent Acquisition