Sr Manager, Talent Acquisition

Summary

The Senior Talent Acquisition Manager is responsible for leading the organization’s talent acquisition function and developing and executing recruiting strategies that attract, assess, select, and hire high-quality talent to meet current and future business needs.

This position leads and develops a team of recruiting professionals while serving as a strategic talent advisor to hiring managers, senior leaders, Human Resources, and other business partners. The Senior Talent Acquisition Manager translates workforce and business plans into actionable recruiting strategies, provides talent-market insights, establishes consistent and effective hiring practices, and uses data to continually improve recruiting outcomes.

The Senior Talent Acquisition Manager is accountable for the effectiveness of the full recruitment lifecycle, including workforce and hiring planning, sourcing strategy, candidate attraction, selection practices, offer development, recruiting technology, compliance, candidate experience, hiring manager experience, recruiting metrics, and transition to onboarding.

This role requires demonstrated success recruiting for technical and difficult-to-fill positions, particularly engineering and other specialized professional talent. Experience within aerospace, aviation, defense, advanced manufacturing, or another highly technical environment is strongly preferred.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Talent Acquisition Strategy & Workforce Planning

Develop and execute comprehensive talent acquisition strategies aligned with organizational goals, workforce plans, business growth, and anticipated talent needs.

Partner with senior leaders, hiring managers, Finance, HR, and other stakeholders to understand workforce requirements and translate headcount plans into actionable recruiting strategies.

Develop hiring forecasts and recruiting plans based on anticipated workforce needs, turnover, growth, program requirements, and critical skill gaps.

Identify positions and skill sets that may present recruiting challenges and proactively develop sourcing and pipeline strategies.

Provide leaders with talent-market intelligence, including candidate availability, market competitiveness, compensation trends, geographic considerations, and recruiting challenges.

Recommend alternative talent strategies when traditional recruiting approaches are unlikely to meet business needs.

Develop short- and long-term talent pipelines for critical, difficult-to-fill, and recurring positions.

Maintain awareness of business priorities and adjust recruiting resources and strategies as organizational needs change.

Team Leadership & Development

Lead, coach, develop, and support a team of recruiters and/or talent acquisition professionals.

Establish clear expectations, priorities, service standards, and performance goals for the Talent Acquisition team.

Assign requisitions and balance recruiter workloads based on volume, complexity, specialization, business priority, and recruiter capacity.

Monitor individual and team performance and provide regular coaching, feedback, and development.

Build recruiter capabilities in sourcing, interviewing, candidate assessment, hiring-manager consultation, negotiation, closing candidates, use of technology, and data management.

Create a collaborative, accountable, responsive, and service-oriented Talent Acquisition team.

Provide hands-on recruiting support for critical, executive, highly specialized, or difficult-to-fill positions as business needs require.

Hiring Manager & Leadership Partnership

Serve as a trusted talent advisor to hiring managers and senior leaders.

Conduct effective recruiting intake and strategy discussions to understand position requirements, business needs, candidate profiles, competencies, timelines, and market considerations.

Partner with hiring managers to develop realistic and effective recruiting strategies for each search.

Establish expectations regarding hiring manager responsibilities, recruiting timelines, candidate communication, interview practices, and decision-making.

Provide hiring managers with regular, meaningful updates regarding candidate pipelines, market conditions, recruiting challenges, and recommended adjustments.

Appropriately challenge assumptions and advise leaders when market data or recruiting results indicate a need to modify requirements, compensation, sourcing strategies, selection practices, or timelines.

Train and coach hiring managers on effective interviewing, candidate evaluation, selection practices, bias awareness, candidate experience, recruiting compliance, and use of recruiting systems and processes.

Build strong relationships with leaders and hiring managers while maintaining accountability for timely decisions and an effective hiring process.

Technical & Engineering Recruiting

Lead and support recruiting strategies for engineering, technical, manufacturing, operations, program management, quality, supply chain, and other specialized positions.

Understand technical roles sufficiently to develop appropriate candidate profiles, identify transferable skills, evaluate talent markets, and guide sourcing strategies.

Develop targeted sourcing strategies for specialized and difficult-to-find engineering and technical talent.

Build relationships with engineering organizations, universities, technical programs, professional associations, industry groups, military transition programs, and other relevant talent communities.

Develop proactive pipelines of passive candidates for recurring and mission-critical technical positions.

Stay informed regarding talent trends within engineering, aerospace, aviation, defense, manufacturing, and other relevant industries.

Full-Cycle Recruiting & Selection

Oversee the full recruitment lifecycle from requisition initiation and recruiting strategy through accepted offer and transition to onboarding.

Ensure job requirements, job descriptions, candidate profiles, interview processes, and selection criteria are clearly defined before recruiting begins.

Establish consistent sourcing, screening, interviewing, selection, reference-checking, offer, and pre-employment practices.

Promote structured, job-related, consistent, and effective interview and selection practices.

Ensure recruiting activities are completed efficiently while maintaining appropriate standards for candidate quality.

Monitor aging requisitions and intervene when searches are not producing appropriate candidate flow or timely results.

Lead or participate directly in searches for critical, high-level, highly specialized, or difficult-to-fill positions.

Compensation & Offer Management

Partner with HR, Compensation, hiring managers, and leaders to develop competitive and equitable employment offers.

Review relevant factors including internal equity, salary ranges, candidate qualifications, experience, skills, market conditions, and organizational compensation practices when recommending offers.

Help ensure consistency and equity in starting-pay decisions.

Provide hiring managers with guidance regarding offer strategy and candidate negotiations.

Identify recurring compensation-related recruiting challenges and provide data and recommendations to HR leadership.

Monitor offer acceptance and decline trends and recommend actions to improve hiring outcomes.

Candidate & Hiring Manager Experience

Establish standards for an exceptional and consistent candidate experience throughout the recruiting process.

Ensure candidates receive timely communication and professional treatment regardless of hiring outcome.

Develop processes that balance speed, quality, compliance, and candidate experience.

Monitor candidate feedback, offer declines, candidate withdrawals, and other indicators of recruiting effectiveness.

Establish service exp