Talent Acquisition Manager

Talent Acquisition Manager - Exclusive to SF Partners

Nottingham - Hybrid / Flexible Working

Up to £55,000 + Benefits

Permanent & Full Time

This is a brilliant opportunity for an experienced Talent Acquisition / Recruitment professional who is ready to take ownership of an internal recruitment function and genuinely make their mark. We are partnering on a retained and exclusive basis with an established, values-led organisation to appoint this pivotal role within their People function. This is a newly created role and comes at an important time for the business. Recruitment is busy, the team needs stronger direction, and there is a genuine opportunity for this person to help move the function beyond simply "filling jobs" towards a more proactive, insight-led Talent Acquisition model.

This isn't about inheriting a finished function and simply maintaining it. There is work to do - processes to improve, data to interrogate, spend to challenge, hiring managers to influence and the candidate experience to continue developing. For the right person, that's exactly what makes this opportunity interesting.

We're looking for somebody who is direct, confident and professionally curious. Someone who sees a report showing five vacancies and doesn't simply report that number upwards - they want to understand why there are five, whether all five are genuinely needed, what's driving the demand and what recruitment could do differently. You'll be comfortable telling people what they need to hear while still building strong relationships. You'll naturally look for solutions rather than waiting for somebody else to provide the answer, and you'll be comfortable operating in an environment where things move quickly and priorities can change.

You’ll also need to be pragmatic and balanced in your approach to risk - understanding the importance of compliance without allowing process to unnecessarily prevent progress. Most importantly, this is a hands‑on role within a lean environment. If you enjoy getting under the skin of a recruitment function, understanding what’s working, what isn’t and then actually doing something about it, there is a lot of opportunity here.

The role - your remit will include:

• Leading and providing clear direction to an internal recruitment team.
• Reviewing the end-to-end recruitment operation and identifying where processes and ways of working can be improved.
• Helping move the function towards a more proactive and commercially focused Talent Acquisition approach.
• Interrogating recruitment data - understanding what the numbers are actually telling you and translating that insight into action.
• Reviewing recruitment channels and job board spend, challenging where money is being spent and whether it is delivering the right return.
• Improving and maintaining a strong and consistent candidate experience.
• Building credibility with operational leaders and giving them confidence in what recruitment is delivering.
• Challenging hiring managers appropriately around vacancies, workforce requirements and recruitment decisions.
• Supporting the business to think more proactively about future hiring requirements and workforce planning.
• Remaining hands‑on with recruitment when required, particularly across central functions and more senior/specialist appointments.
• Ensuring recruitment activity operates effectively and compliantly within a regulated environment.
• Identifying problems, finding solutions and taking ownership of implementing improvements.

Who we're looking for:

You will need strong in‑house recruitment experience, ideally including exposure to high‑volume recruitment environments. You'll also need the credibility to lead and provide direction to a relatively junior recruitment team. However, we’re much more interested in your capability, curiosity and approach than the size of the team you’ve previously managed. This could therefore suit an existing Talent Acquisition Manager, but equally a strong Senior Talent Acquisition Partner / Recruitment Partner who is ready to take that next step.

We'd particularly like to speak to people who can demonstrate:

• Strong end‑to‑end in‑house recruitment experience.
• Experience working within a high‑volume recruitment environment.
• An ability to look beyond simply filling vacancies and understand why recruitment challenges are occurring.
• Experience using recruitment data and MI to drive decisions and improvements.
• Strong stakeholder management skills and the confidence to challenge hiring managers constructively.
• A genuine understanding of candidate experience and what good recruitment should feel like.
• A commercial approach to recruitment channels, job boards and agency usage.
• The ability to identify a problem, find the answer and take ownership of the solution.
• Experience improving recruitment processes and ways of working.
• Some exposure to leading, mentoring or supporting other recruiters
• A willingness to remain hands‑on and close to recruitment delivery.
• Workforce planning experience would be useful but isn’t essential.

We are shortlisting now, with first-stage interviews due to commence w/c 12th October. If this sounds like the kind of opportunity where you could make a genuine impact.

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