Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Manager – Talent Acquisition

🎯 Role Definition

The Manager – Talent Acquisition leads full‑cycle recruitment strategy and delivery for assigned functions or geographies. This role designs and executes sourcing and employer-branding programs, manages hiring manager partnerships, optimizes applicant tracking and recruitment metrics, and builds scalable talent pipelines for critical and hard-to-fill roles. The Manager drives diversity and inclusion hiring practices, workforce planning alignment, candidate experience, and continuous improvement of recruitment processes while coaching and developing a small team of recruiters.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Senior Talent Acquisition Partner / Senior Recruiter with demonstrated ownership of high-volume or niche hiring programs
HR Business Partner with hands‑on recruitment experience and stakeholder management responsibilities
Campus Recruiting Lead or Early Careers Manager with broader exposure to employer branding and sourcing

Advancement To:

Director of Talent Acquisition
Head of Global Recruitment / Senior Manager, Recruiting Operations
VP of Talent & Employer Brand

Lateral Moves:

Talent Acquisition Partner for a new business unit or geography
Talent Operations / Recruitment Analytics Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Lead full‑cycle recruitment for assigned functions (e.g., Engineering, Sales, Finance, Operations) by designing and executing sourcing strategies, interview flows, and offer processes that reduce time‑to‑hire while improving quality of hire and candidate experience.
Partner with hiring managers and HR business partners to conduct workforce planning and translate business roadmaps into talent plans, prioritized hiring queues, and role families/pipelines aligned to business goals.
Own the candidate experience and employer brand across touchpoints: job descriptions, careers site, outreach messaging, interviews, offers and onboarding handoffs; continuously measure and improve NPS and conversion metrics.
Build and manage a proactive talent pipeline using diverse sourcing channels (internal mobility, referral programs, LinkedIn, Boolean search, niche boards, events, universities) for evergreen and hard‑to‑fill roles to shorten time‑to-fill.
Recruit, coach, and develop a high‑performing recruiting team: set performance goals, provide ongoing coaching, run calibration sessions, and manage capacity to meet hiring targets.
Design and implement structured interview processes, scorecards, and competency‑based evaluation criteria to reduce bias and increase hiring consistency across business units.
Own recruiting KPIs and reporting (time‑to-fill, time‑to-offer, source-of-hire, quality-of-hire, diversity metrics) and present data-driven insights and hiring forecasts to senior leadership and talent committees.
Execute targeted diversity, equity and inclusion recruitment programs (e.g., diverse slates, inclusive job descriptions, partnerships with affinity groups) to meet organizational D&I hiring goals and improve representation.
Manage offer strategy including market benchmarking, compensation proposals, negotiation, and closing strategies in collaboration with Total Rewards to ensure competitive and compliant offers.
Partner with Learning & Development and People Ops to ensure smooth onboarding transitions, new hire success metrics, and early engagement programs that reduce early attrition.
Optimize and administer Applicant Tracking System (ATS) configuration, candidate pipelines, workflows, and automation to improve recruiter efficiency and data quality.
Lead recruitment marketing and employer branding initiatives (career site content, employee stories, social campaigns, events) to strengthen employer value proposition and attract passive talent.
Manage external recruitment vendors and staffing agencies: set SLAs, negotiate terms, monitor performance, and ensure cost-efficient use of contingent hiring channels.
Execute campus and early careers strategies, including internship programs, university relationships, and early talent pipelines, to secure future talent and long‑term hiring goals.
Drive cross-functional recruiting programs (RPO initiatives, hiring blitzes, product launches) and serve as project lead for recruitment system implementations and process transformation projects.
Ensure recruitment compliance with local, regional, and national employment laws, background checks, immigration processes, and audit readiness in collaboration with Legal and HR Operations.
Facilitate and lead hiring manager training on best practices for interviewing, diversity hiring, calibration, and offer management to raise hiring quality and reduce bias.
Conduct root‑cause analyses for pipeline blockages, high‑volume role failures, or quality issues and implement corrective action plans and process improvements to address gaps.
Maintain and present market intelligence on talent supply/demand, competitor hiring activity, pay benchmarks, and role-level scarcity to influence strategic workforce decisions.
Implement candidate feedback loops (surveys, follow-up interviews) and continuous improvement cycles to reduce candidate drop-off and elevate employer experience.
Manage recruiting budgets, forecasting for agency spend, advertising, events, and employer branding investments, ensuring measurable ROI and cost per hire optimization.
Act as an escalation point for complex candidate situations (counter‑offers, relocation negotiations, sensitive terminations of offers) and make timely decisions that balance candidate experience and business needs.
Align talent acquisition activities with performance management, succession planning and long‑term workforce strategies to ensure readiness for growth and critical role continuity.

Secondary Functions

Support internal initiatives such as talent segmentation, workforce analytics projects, and cross-functional hiring campaigns to enable strategic resourcing decisions.
Partner with HR Operations to ensure accurate headcount tracking, requisition approvals, and seamless handoffs into onboarding and payroll systems.
Contribute to employer brand content and thought leadership by amplifying employee stories, diversity initiatives, and recruiting outcomes to external channels.
Participate in HR technology vendor evaluations and pilot programs to recommend tools that increase recruiting throughput and candidate quality.
Mentor junior recruiters on sourcing techniques, stakeholder management, and offer negotiation to build internal capability.
Represent Talent Acquisition at recruitment events, meetups, and university engagements to source passive talent and strengthen talent communities.
Monitor and improve recruiting SLAs and internal service levels to ensure hiring managers experience consistent, high-quality support.
Maintain confidentiality of sensitive candidate and compensation data and ensure secure handling and documentation.
Collaborate with Finance and People Analytics to refine cost models and provide retrospective analysis of hiring investments.
Facilitate post‑hire review sessions to gather stakeholder feedback and apply lessons learned to future hiring cycles.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) administration and optimization — experience with platforms such as Greenhouse, Workday Recruiting, Taleo, iCIMS, Lever, or SmartRecruiters.
Advanced sourcing and Boolean search techniques across LinkedIn Recruiter, X (Twitter), GitHub, Stack Overflow, job boards, and niche communities to identify passive candidates.
Recruitment analytics and reporting — ability to build dashboards and interpret metrics (time‑to-fill, time‑to-offer, source attribution, pipeline velocity, quality-of-hire).
Offer strategy and compensation benchmarking — proficiency with market comp tools and total rewards fundamentals to construct competitive packages.
Structured interviewing frameworks and competency-based assessment design to reduce bias and improve predictive validity.
Employment law and compliance knowledge relevant to hiring, background checks, visas/immigration, and data privacy (GDPR, CCPA where applicable).
Talent pipelining and CRM experience — building nurture sequences, candidate engagement campaigns, and talent communities.
Vendor management and agency governance — RFP processes, SLAs, and performance metrics for contingent labor partners.
HRIS integration awareness and requisition-to-onboard process design that ensures data integrity across recruiting and HR systems.
Project management skills for recruitment programs, ATS implementations, campus programs, and employer branding campaigns.
Proficiency with Excel, Google Sheets, and data visualization tools (Tableau, Power BI) for trend analysis and forecasting.
Compensation and negotiation skills to close offers in competitive markets while maintaining internal equity.

Soft Skills

Strategic partnership and stakeholder management — credible advisor to hiring managers, senior leaders, and cross-functional peers.
Strong verbal and written communication — create compelling job descriptions, outreach messages, and executive presentations.
Coaching and people development — mentor recruiters and hiring managers to elevate hiring practices and interviewer effectiveness.
Influencing and negotiation — secure approvals, manage counter-offers, and align stakeholders on hiring trade-offs.
Data-driven decision-making — use metrics to prioritize workload, flag risks, and recommend solutions grounded in evidence.
Problem-solving and process orientation — comfortable diagnosing recruitment bottlenecks and implementing scalable improvements.
High emotional intelligence and candidate empathy — manage sensitive conversations and maintain employer brand in difficult scenarios.
Time management and prioritization under competing deadlines in a fast-paced hiring environment.
Adaptability and resilience — respond effectively to changing headcount plans, market shifts, and business pivots.
Confidentiality and ethical judgment when handling sensitive hiring and compensation information.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Psychology, Communications, or related field.

Preferred Education:

Master's degree in HR, Organizational Psychology, Business Administration (MBA), or advanced HR certifications (SPHR, SHRM‑SCP, AIRS, LinkedIn Certified Professional–Recruiter).

Relevant Fields of Study:

Human Resources Management
Organizational Psychology
Business Administration / Management
Communications
Industrial/Organizational Psychology

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

5–10+ years of progressive recruitment experience, including at least 2–3 years in a people‑manager role leading recruiters or campus programs.

Preferred:

7–12 years of talent acquisition experience with demonstrated success in high-growth or matrixed environments, cross-functional stakeholder management, employer branding, and measurable improvements to hiring KPIs.
Experience hiring for technical roles (software engineering, data, product), sales/GT M, or other specialized functions is a plus.
Prior experience implementing or optimizing ATS/CRM systems and running diversity hiring initiatives is highly desirable.