Director of Talent Acquisition

Westcliff University•Irvine, CA

6d•$120,000 - $175,000

About The Position

Westcliff University is seeking a Director of Talent Acquisition to provide strategic and hands-on leadership for its talent acquisition function. This role involves leading and developing a team of Talent Acquisition Partners, directly managing searches for leadership and high-impact positions, and supporting other roles as needed. The Director will focus on building scalable, innovative, and data-informed recruiting practices to enhance candidate quality, improve efficiency, and support University growth. A key aspect of this role is advancing recruitment automation, modern sourcing strategies, reporting and analytics, and the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) throughout the talent acquisition lifecycle.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Leadership, or a related field, or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
Minimum 7 years of progressive talent acquisition/recruiting experience, including demonstrated success recruiting leadership and difficult-to-fill professional roles.
Minimum 2 years of direct people-leadership or recruiting-team leadership experience.
Demonstrated experience building or improving recruiting processes, sourcing strategies, and recruiting metrics/reporting.
Hands-on experience with applicant tracking systems, recruiting technologies, sourcing platforms, and data/reporting tools.
Demonstrated ability to use or implement AI-enabled and automation tools in a professional recruiting environment with sound judgment, appropriate human oversight, and attention to compliance and candidate experience.
Strong executive presence and consultative skills, with the ability to influence senior leaders and advise hiring managers on talent strategy and selection decisions.
Excellent written and verbal communication, organization, project management, and stakeholder-management skills.
Ability to manage multiple searches and priorities in a fast-paced, growth-oriented environment while maintaining attention to quality, confidentiality, and candidate experience.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Leadership, or a related field.
Talent acquisition experience within higher education, healthcare, professional services, technology, or another complex multi-site organization.
Experience supporting executive searches, organizational expansion, acquisitions/integrations, or rapid-growth environments.
Experience designing dashboards or using analytics/BI tools to translate recruiting data into executive-level insights.
Professional certification such as SHRM-CP/SCP, PHR/SPHR, or related credential.

Responsibilities

Lead the University’s talent acquisition strategy and day-to-day recruiting operations in alignment with institutional growth, workforce planning, and talent priorities.
Manage, coach, and develop two Talent Acquisition Partners; establish clear performance expectations, workload allocation, service standards, and accountability for recruiting outcomes.
Personally lead full-cycle recruitment for executive, leadership, and other critical or difficult-to-fill positions, including intake, market mapping, sourcing, assessment, candidate management, offer development, and closing.
Partner with the Vice President of Human Resources, senior leaders, deans, hiring managers, and HR colleagues to define talent needs, role requirements, selection strategies, and competitive recruiting approaches.
Design and implement innovative sourcing strategies that expand qualified talent pipelines through direct sourcing, passive-candidate outreach, professional networks, referrals, events, social platforms, and targeted market research.
Advance automation across recruiting workflows to reduce administrative burden, improve response times, strengthen candidate communication, and create a more consistent hiring-manager and candidate experience.
Identify, evaluate, and implement responsible uses of AI in recruiting, including sourcing support, market intelligence, job-content optimization, workflow automation, candidate engagement, and recruiting analytics, with appropriate human oversight and compliance controls.
Develop recruiting dashboards and metrics that provide actionable insight into time-to-fill, time-to-hire, source effectiveness, pipeline conversion, candidate quality, offer acceptance, hiring-manager experience, and other key performance indicators.
Use recruiting data and market intelligence to identify trends, diagnose bottlenecks, recommend process improvements, and advise leadership on talent availability and hiring strategy.
Continuously improve recruiting processes, interview practices, selection tools, candidate communications, and technology to increase quality, consistency, speed, and scalability.
Build external talent networks and employment-brand visibility to position Westcliff University as an employer of choice across higher education and other relevant industries.
Manage relationships with external search firms, staffing partners, job boards, technology vendors, and other recruiting resources; monitor quality, cost, and return on investment.
Promote structured, equitable, and job-related selection practices and partner with Human Resources to support compliance with applicable employment laws, University policies, and recordkeeping requirements.
Support recruiting-related projects associated with organizational growth, new campuses, acquisitions, integrations, and other strategic initiatives.
Handles other projects and tasks as needed.