The head of talent acquisition will work closely with HR business partners to understand the company objectives and construct plans and strategies to improve recruitment performance.
Fundamentally, the main responsibility is to attract top talent and diverse candidates across all levels of an organisation.
What does a head of talent acquisition do?
Gaining an understanding of an organisation’s plans and priorities to create and implement talent strategies is crucial. Building and managing a diverse and skilled talent team and overseeing aspects of the resourcing and recruitment teams will form part of your day-to-day job. You’ll be expected to work in partnership with other HR members to grow talent pipelines across the business.
Sample head of talent acquisition responsibilities
Your responsibilities as the head of resourcing will include:
- Identifying your organisation’s needs and working to create and implement an efficient talent acquisition strategy to improve recruitment and business performance
- Developing, managing and maintaining a highly-skilled team to assist with talent development
- Understanding workforce planning and resource forecasting by working with the resourcing team to feed into recruitment timelines
- Communicating with external sources, i.e. peer organisations to acknowledge any trends in recruitment and markets which could impact upon the business
- Anticipating the organisations future and working with senior executives to advise on recruiting tactics that will help to sustain the company’s success
- Developing and retaining a diverse talent acquisition team
- Applying strategies to attract diverse candidates to all areas of the business
- Partnering with the broader talent acquisition team for shared use of tools and resources
- Managing and delivering reports and data when required
Head of talent acquisition skills and competencies
Experience in managing and overseeing a talent acquisition team and evidence of transforming the recruitment function within an organisation is key. A degree qualification is not essential but is often beneficial.
Having commercial and analytical know-how is required, as is having strong communication and leadership skills. You must be strategic, influential and confident in building relationships with employees at all levels.
Heads of talent acquisition will be expected to be proficient in the following:
- Pushing talent acquisition change programmes from both a strategic and operative level
- Experience in managing a recruitment team with a strong understanding of talent acquisition
- Ability to be strategic and tactical when making decisions
- Interpersonal and motivational skills; you should be capable of building relationships across the organisation.
- Increasing talent sourcing within an organisation by improving direct hiring
- Analytical and capable of reading data and reports to assess complex information
- Influencing employees at all levels to support your decisions and proposed plans
Head of talent acquisition salary expectations
The average salary for a head of talent acquisition in the UK is £69,107, making it one of the 22 highest paying HR jobs in the UK. Entry-level positions can start at £48,000 with the more experienced workers earning up to £97,000.
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