Senior Director, Talent Acquisition

CoLab Software

About The Position

CoLab is hiring a Senior Director, Talent Acquisition to build and lead its talent acquisition function as the company scales. The role will set hiring strategy and multi-year plans aligned with company growth and workforce planning, and serve as a strategic advisor to executives and hiring managers on talent markets, compensation positioning, prioritization, and hiring trade-offs. The position combines team leadership and strategic planning with hands-on recruiting for critical searches. The Senior Director will build a consistent, structured assessment system aligned to CoLab’s “Hell Yes” hiring criteria, including scorecards, structured interviews, and work samples. They will own the recruiting technology stack and reporting, develop repeatable hiring playbooks for technical, go-to-market, high-volume, and executive roles, and report on pipeline health, time-to-fill, pass-through rates, offer acceptance, quality of hire, cost per hire, and diversity metrics. The role will also shape the employer brand and candidate experience, build pipelines for anticipated roles, and develop an approach to hiring across Canada and the United States as well as internationally. The Senior Director will manage the balance among in-house recruiting, agencies, and executive search partners, including vendor relationships and budgets, while coaching and growing the Talent Acquisition team. This role is part of the People Team and Leadership Team and is expected to prioritize company-wide outcomes.

Requirements

10–12 or more years of recruiting experience.
5 or more years leading Talent Acquisition teams.
3 or more years at Director level or above.
Experience scaling hiring at a high-growth B2B technology company; Series D–F experience is described as ideal.
Proven results hiring across technical, go-to-market, and executive roles.
Strong operational capability building processes, data practices, and tooling, with demonstrable before-and-after outcomes.
Experience managing recruiting budgets, agency partners, and offer and compensation strategy.
Data fluency and experience using metrics to make decisions, not just report results.
Executive presence and business acumen, including the ability to advise C-suite, SVP, and VP leaders on talent markets.
Experience managing complex offers, including equity and multi-stakeholder negotiations.
Recruiting experience in industrial software, PLM, CAD/CAE, manufacturing technology, or deep-tech hardware.
Experience recruiting globally, including cross-border hiring considerations.
Ability to lead and coach a Talent Acquisition team while remaining hands-on with difficult searches.
Ability to work effectively in an ambiguous, still-developing function and act as a strategic partner to company leaders.

Nice To Haves

Experience building or rebuilding Talent Acquisition from an early-stage function.
International hiring experience.
Hiring experience at industrial, engineering software, or hardware-adjacent companies.
Hands-on experience with Greenhouse, LinkedIn Recruiter, and AI sourcing tools.
Experience leading a remote or distributed team.

Responsibilities

Set the Talent Acquisition strategy and multi-year hiring plan, tied to company growth targets and workforce planning.
Lead, coach, and grow the Talent Acquisition team.
Determine how recruiting work is divided among in-house recruiters, agencies, and executive search partners, and manage vendors and budgets.
Advise executives and hiring managers on talent markets, compensation positioning, and hiring trade-offs, using data to reset expectations when needed.
Run hiring prioritization, including tiering roles to focus sourcing and agency support where it matters most.
Participate in the People Team and Leadership Team as a first-team member, putting company outcomes ahead of functional outcomes.
Own a consistent, structured assessment process aligned to CoLab’s “Hell Yes” criteria, including scorecards, structured interviews, and work samples.
Own the Talent Acquisition technology stack, including ATS, sourcing tools, and AI-assisted workflows, and drive adoption.
Build scalable playbooks for high-volume, go-to-market, technical, and executive hiring.
Report on search health, including pipeline, time-to-fill, pass-through rates, offer acceptance, quality of hire, cost per hire, and diversity metrics.
Shape the employer brand and candidate experience, including CoLab’s story for senior and passive candidates.
Build talent pipelines for anticipated engineering, go-to-market, and leadership roles.
Develop an approach to hiring internationally and across Canada and the United States, accounting for local talent markets.
Personally support critical searches and close key candidates, especially in the early phase of the function.