Talent Acquisition Manager - Power & Utilities

Talent Acquisition Manager - Power & Utilities

• Location: Somerset, NJ
• Job Type: Full-time
• Schedule: Monday through Friday; hybrid, with three days per week on-site in Somerset
• Experience Level: 8+ years
• Travel: Occasional travel for recruiting events, company events, industry events, and other business needs

About Us

CARIAN is a purpose-driven, woman-owned consulting and advisory firm dedicated exclusively to the power sector. We partner with leading electric and gas utilities to provide strategic advisory and disciplined execution across program management, business intelligence, and field execution oversight. Guided by integrity, trust, excellence, and accountability, our team helps deliver complex capital programs and build the resilient energy infrastructure that communities depend on.

Position Overview

CARIAN is seeking a highly hands-on Talent Acquisition Manager to lead and strengthen the company's recruiting team while personally recruiting for priority and hard-to-fill positions.

This is a player-coach role. Approximately 75% of the role will remain directly focused on recruiting and sourcing, including personally owning CARIAN's most difficult technical, professional, and leadership searches.

The remaining focus will be on directly managing and developing the Talent Acquisition team, reviewing pipelines, improving sourcing and candidate quality, strengthening hiring-manager partnership, maintaining recruiting discipline and accountability, and ensuring recruiting activity translates into hires.

This is not a role for someone looking to move away from recruiting. The successful candidate will be equally comfortable sourcing a difficult candidate personally, reviewing a recruiter's pipeline, challenging an unrealistic requirement, advising leadership on compensation and market conditions, and closing a high-value candidate.

Key Responsibilities

Hands-On Recruiting

Personally own priority, difficult, technical, leadership, and confidential searches from intake through accepted offer

Proactively source passive candidates through LinkedIn Recruiter, industry networks, referrals, databases, direct outreach, and other channels

Develop targeted sourcing strategies for specialized power, utility, engineering, construction, project management, project controls, field services, consulting, digital, and business-development positions

Conduct recruiter screens and independently assess candidate qualifications, relevance, motivation, compensation expectations, and fit

Present qualified candidates to hiring leaders with clear recommendations and relevant market context

Build and maintain pipelines for recurring and strategically important positions

Manage candidate engagement, interviews, compensation discussions, offers, counteroffer risk, and closing

Personally intervene when difficult or stalled searches require additional sourcing or recruiting support

Team Leadership & Performance

Directly manage, coach, and develop Talent Acquisition team members

Conduct regular pipeline and requisition reviews

Establish clear expectations for candidate quality, sourcing activity, responsiveness, ownership, and follow-through

Review candidate submissions and help calibrate recruiter judgment when needed

Improve recruiter sourcing strategies, screening quality, hiring-manager communication, and candidate closing

Identify searches that are not progressing and require corrective action

Hold the recruiting team accountable for maintaining active pipelines and moving searches forward

Maintain ATS discipline and recruiting data quality across the team

Own and regularly review recruiting metrics, including pipeline health, requisition aging, time to fill, and offer acceptance, and report results to leadership

Hiring Manager Partnership

Lead effective intake discussions with hiring leaders

Clarify required qualifications, candidate profiles, compensation parameters, geography, and sourcing strategy before searches begin

Challenge unclear, unrealistic, or unnecessarily restrictive requirements when market evidence supports a different approach

Advise leadership regarding candidate availability, compensation, competitive market conditions, and sourcing strategy

Establish clear expectations and accountability between Talent Acquisition and hiring managers

Escalate stalled decisions, compensation issues, and other hiring risks when appropriate

Qualifications

8+ years of progressive experience in talent acquisition, corporate recruiting, technical recruiting, executive search, staffing, or a related field

Demonstrated success personally sourcing and closing difficult professional and technical positions

Experience recruiting professional and technical talent within AEC, engineering, utilities, energy, infrastructure, construction, management consulting, technical professional services, or a specialized staffing/search firm serving these markets required

Demonstrated experience directly managing or formally leading recruiters, including responsibility for pipeline review, coaching, performance, and accountability

Strong passive-candidate sourcing capability and demonstrated proficiency with LinkedIn Recruiter or similar platforms

Demonstrated success recruiting engineering, project/program management, project controls, construction and field services, technical consulting, business development, or comparable specialized talent

Strong candidate-assessment and interviewing judgment

Demonstrated ability to advise and constructively challenge hiring managers

Strong understanding of compensation discussions, candidate motivation, offer management, counteroffers, and closing

Experience using applicant tracking and recruiting systems

Strong analytical, organizational, communication, judgment, and follow-through skills

Ability and willingness to remain personally involved in day-to-day sourcing and recruiting

Bachelor's degree preferred; equivalent relevant experience will be considered

Ability to work on-site at CARIAN's Somerset, NJ office three days per week

Preferred Experience

Direct recruiting experience within electric or gas utilities, power delivery, transmission and distribution, energy, or infrastructure

Experience recruiting within an engineering, AEC, technical consulting, management consulting, or specialized search environment

Experience recruiting both specialized individual contributors and senior leadership positions

Experience with Ashby or another modern applicant tracking system

Experience using AI-enabled sourcing, research, recruiting, and productivity tools effectively

Experience improving recruiter performance through direct coaching, pipeline review, sourcing calibration, and accountability

Why CARIAN

Purpose-driven work – Help deliver infrastructure that powers communities

Industry reputation – Trusted by leading utilities for our reliability and results

Career growth – Lead and strengthen a critical function with significant opportunity to grow as CARIAN continues to expand

Collaborative culture – Join a team that values delivery excellence and long-term relationships

Competitive total rewards – Strong compensation, full benefits, 401(k) match, and meaningful work

Equal Employment Opportunity

CARIAN is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We hire and develop talent based on qualifications, performance, and business needs. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic. As a woman-owned firm dedicated to the power sector, we are committed to building a team that reflects professionalism, expertise, and integrity at every level.

Compensation

The base salary range for this role is $85,000 - $115,000 annually. This range represents a good-faith