Talent Acquisition Manager

Position Summary

The Talent Acquisition Manager is a key driver of organizational success in our fast-paced, high-growth environment. This role is best suited for someone with strong recruiting experience and a passion for building top-performing teams, along with an interest in strategic talent planning.  As a trusted advisor, the TA Manager will work closely with leaders to attract, hire, and retain exceptional talent across all levels of the organization. This is a highly visible, hands-on role that combines full-cycle recruiting execution with ownership of the company's talent acquisition strategy, systems, processes, analytics, and employer brand. The TA Manager will initially operate as a lean, hands-on function while establishing the scalable practices and infrastructure necessary to support future growth.

The ideal candidate is more than an experienced recruiter. They are a trusted business advisor who understands how talent decisions impact organizational performance, challenges conventional thinking, uses market intelligence and data to influence decisions, and continuously improves how the company attracts and selects talent. This role will recruit across all functions and levels of the organization, including individual contributors, specialized professionals, managers, and executives, while ensuring an exceptional experience for candidates and hiring teams.

The Work

Talent Acquisition Strategy & Leadership

• Lead the company's Talent Acquisition function, establishing priorities, performance expectations, and consistent recruiting practices.
• Develop and execute talent acquisition strategies aligned with company growth objectives, workforce plans, and organizational priorities.
• Partner with HR and business leaders to anticipate hiring needs, understand critical talent requirements, and develop proactive recruitment plans.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to executives and hiring managers, providing talent market intelligence, compensation insights, and recommendations that inform hiring decisions.
• Evaluate recruitment capacity, resource allocation, and external recruiting partnerships to optimize effectiveness and cost.
• Establish scalable recruiting practices and continuously evolve the function to meet changing business needs.
• Provide leadership, coaching, and development to Talent Acquisition team members as the function grows.

Full-Cycle Recruiting & Talent Assessment

• Personally manage full-cycle recruiting across all business functions and organizational levels, from requisition intake and sourcing through selection, offer negotiation, and onboarding transition.
• Partner with hiring managers to define position requirements, success profiles, competencies, and selection criteria.
• Develop targeted recruitment strategies for specialized, high-priority, and difficult-to-fill positions.
• Conduct comprehensive candidate assessments, including structured, competency-based and behavioral interviews.
• Evaluate candidates beyond technical qualifications, considering business impact, motivation, transferable skills, leadership potential, and alignment with company values.
• Provide objective, evidence-based candidate recommendations that improve selection quality and long-term hiring outcomes.
• Facilitate hiring team discussions, challenge assumptions constructively, and drive timely, informed hiring decisions.
• Manage offer development, negotiation, and candidate closing in partnership with HR and business leaders.
• Ensure effective transitions from recruitment through preboarding and onboarding.

Proactive Sourcing & Talent Pipeline Development

• Build and execute proactive sourcing strategies that identify and engage high-quality talent before hiring needs become urgent.
• Develop and maintain talent pipelines for critical, specialized, and recurring roles across the organization.
• Leverage LinkedIn Recruiter, professional networks, industry associations, referrals, and emerging sourcing technologies to identify both active and passive candidates.
• Build long-term relationships with prospective candidates and develop talent communities that support future hiring needs.
• Monitor competitor talent trends, labor market conditions, and compensation practices to identify opportunities and inform recruitment strategies.
• Develop creative approaches to attracting talent in competitive or specialized markets.
• Establish sourcing effectiveness measures and continuously optimize channels based on candidate quality, conversion, and return on investment.

Recruiting Operations, Process Optimization, ATS & Vendor Management

• Own the administration, optimization, and integrity of the company's Applicant Tracking System (ATS), including workflows, data accuracy, reporting, user adoption, and system improvements.
• Establish and maintain consistent, efficient, and compliant recruitment processes across all departments.
• Develop and implement recruiting standards, service-level agreements (SLAs), interview processes, assessment tools, and documentation requirements.
• Create and maintain standardized recruiting playbooks, interview guides, competency-based scorecards, and hiring manager resources.
• Identify opportunities to automate administrative activities and improve recruiting efficiency through technology, AI, and workflow enhancements.
• Ensure recruitment activities comply with applicable employment laws, company policies, and fair hiring practices.
• Train and support hiring managers and interviewers on recruiting processes, ATS utilization, interviewing techniques, and effective candidate evaluation.
• Continuously assess and improve recruitment workflows to enhance speed, quality, consistency, and scalability.

Talent Acquisition Analytics, Reporting & KPIs

• Establish, manage, and continuously improve Talent Acquisition reporting, dashboards, and key performance indicators.
• Provide accurate, actionable recruiting updates to HR, executives, and hiring managers, including hiring progress, pipeline health, risks, and anticipated hiring timelines.
• Monitor and analyze key recruiting metrics, including:
• Time to fill and time to hire
• Requisition aging and performance against SLAs
• Open requisitions and hiring forecast
• Pipeline health and candidate conversion rates
• Source effectiveness and quality of candidates
• Offer acceptance and decline rates
• Cost per hire and recruiting spend
• Candidate and hiring manager satisfaction
• Quality of hire and new-hire retention, in partnership with HR
• Identify trends, bottlenecks, and opportunities for improvement, translating recruiting data into clear recommendations and measurable action plans.
• Partner with HR and Finance to support headcount planning, hiring forecasts, and recruiting resource decisions.
• Establish accountability and visibility into recruiting performance across the organization.

Employer Branding & Talent Attraction

• Develop and execute employer branding initiatives that strengthen Ascent's reputation as an employer of choice.
• Partner with Marketing and internal stakeholders to enhance the company's careers page, job postings, recruitment messaging, and external talent presence.
• Create compelling, authentic messaging that communicates Ascent's business, culture, values, growth opportunities, and employee experience.
• Identify opportunities to increase employer visibility through social media, professional communities, employee advocacy, and industry networks.
• Strengthen employee referral programs and other talent attraction channels.
• Ensure employer brand messaging is consistently reflected throughout the candidate journey.
• Measure the effectiveness of employer branding and recruitment marketing initiatives.

Candidate & Hiring Manager Experience

• Deliver a consistently exceptional candidate experience characterized by transparency, responsiveness, professionalism, and respect throughout the recruitment lifecycle.
• Establish clear communication standards and ensure candidates receive timely updates and thoughtful engagement, regardless of hiring outcome.
• Build strong, consultative partnerships with hiring managers, setting expectations, communicating proactively, and maintaining accountability for hiring decisions and timelines.
• Serve as the subject matter expert on recruiting best practices, helping hiring teams make informed and effective talent decisions.
• Implement mechanisms to gather candidate and hiring manager feedback and translate insights into improvements.
• Anticipate and resolve recruitment challenges before they impact candidate experience or business outcomes.
• Champion structured, equitable, and objective hiring practices that minimize bias and support consistent selection decisions.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
• 7+ years of progressive talent acquisition experience, including experience independently managing complex, full-cycle recruitment.
• Experience leading a talent acquisition function, recruiting operations, or significant recruiting process improvement initiatives.
• Demonstrated success recruiting across multiple functions and organizational levels, including senior leadership and specialized professional roles.
• Strong proficiency with applicant tracking systems, recruiting technologies, sourcing platforms, and recruitment analytics.
• Proven experience developing proactive sourcing strategies and engaging passive candidates.
• Strong competency-based interviewing, talent assessment, and candidate selection capabilities.
• Demonstrated success achieving recruitment metrics, dashboards, reporting, and process improvements.
• Demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships with executives and hiring managers and influence decisions through data, expertise, and sound judgment.
• Excellent communication, organization, negotiation, analytical, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced, growing organization while maintaining quality and stakeholder experience.
• Strong understanding of recruiting compliance, employment practices, and fair hiring principles.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth environment while managing multiple priorities.
• Collaborative and team-oriented spirit.
• Tech savvy and progressive

Preferred Qualifications/Experience:

• Recruiting within financial services, private lending, real estate finance, commercial lending, or related industries.
• Worked in a high-growth organization with evolving business needs and organizational structures.
• Building or scaling a talent acquisition function within a lean HR organization.
• Expert Greenhouse or comparable applicant tracking systems.
• Have implemented recruiting automation, AI-enabled sourcing tools, or workflow improvements.
• Partnered with Marketing on employer branding and recruitment marketing initiatives.