Talen Acquisition Center of Excellence Director

Love Where You Work•Provo, UT

About The Position

The Talent Acquisition Center of Excellence Director will build and lead UCCU’s enterprise talent acquisition strategy, operating model, processes, tools, technology, data governance, and continuous-improvement roadmap. The Director will establish clear recruiting responsibilities, service expectations, decision rights, and handoffs across hiring managers, HR, Compensation, HR Operations, Learning and Onboarding, and other partners. The role will create and maintain a staffing guidebook and selection toolkit, improve process adoption and quality, and strengthen the candidate and hiring-manager experience. Alongside COE leadership, the Director will personally lead full-cycle recruiting for critical, senior, pivotal, specialized, and difficult-to-fill positions. This includes advising hiring managers, sourcing and engaging passive candidates, building talent pipelines, assessing candidates, coordinating interviews, supporting selection decisions, managing communications, and helping close candidates. The Director will also develop hiring-manager capability in structured, fair, and timely selection practices. The position will develop proactive recruiting and university-relations strategies, define UCCU’s Employee Value Proposition, and own the careers page, application experience, recruiting communications, and candidate-facing technology and content. The Director will oversee recruiting technology and data, establish useful dashboards and operating reviews, and use market insights and process results to improve outcomes. The Director will lead and develop the Senior Recruiter and Recruiting Coordinator, set team portfolios and priorities, and balance hands-on recruiting with COE responsibilities. The role partners across HR and the business on workforce needs, compensation and offers, recruiting operations, and onboarding handoffs. UCCU describes this as an opportunity to build its first future-state Talent Acquisition Center of Excellence while personally recruiting the people who will help shape the organization’s growth.

Requirements

Seven or more years of progressive talent acquisition or recruiting experience, including substantial full-cycle recruiting for senior, specialized, pivotal, or difficult-to-fill roles.
Demonstrated experience building or materially improving talent acquisition strategy, processes, tools, technology, governance, data, and metrics.
Strong direct-sourcing and passive-candidate outreach skills, including building relationships and pipelines before openings exist.
Strong intake, interviewing, assessment, executive communication, consulting, candidate-selling, offer-closing, and project-management skills.
Experience leading and developing recruiters or recruiting coordinators while balancing team leadership with a personal recruiting portfolio.
Experience with applicant tracking systems, LinkedIn Recruiter or comparable sourcing platforms, analytics, employer brand, university relations, and external recruiting partners.
Working knowledge of applicable employment laws and structured, fair, legally compliant selection practices.
Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business, or a related field; equivalent relevant experience is considered.

Responsibilities

Own and deliver UCCU’s enterprise talent acquisition strategy, operating model, standards, processes, tools, service expectations, and continuous-improvement roadmap.
Define and document recruiting roles, responsibilities, decision rights, service levels, and handoffs across hiring managers and relevant HR and business partners.
Define which positions receive dedicated recruiter support and how recruiting capacity and priorities are allocated.
Build and maintain the staffing guidebook and selection toolkit, including intake, job descriptions, sourcing strategies, interview guides, assessments, selection documentation, offer templates, candidate communications, and onboarding handoffs.
Drive accountability for process adoption, quality, speed, fairness, consistency, and candidate and client experience.
Personally lead full-cycle recruiting for critical, senior, pivotal, specialized, and difficult-to-fill roles and other assigned positions.
Lead intake meetings with hiring managers and appropriate HR partners to clarify outcomes, scope, selection criteria, sourcing strategy, stakeholders, and timelines.
Proactively identify and contact passive prospects, build relationships with high-potential talent, and maintain pipelines before vacancies occur.
Source, screen, assess, shortlist, coordinate interviews, support selection decisions, manage candidate communication, help close candidates, and keep recruiting processes moving.
Develop understanding of the business and key roles to advise hiring leaders, clarify requirements, and represent opportunities credibly to candidates.
Own selection processes and practical tools, and train and coach hiring managers in intake, structured interviewing, fair assessment, candidate selling, and timely decision-making.
Ensure hiring managers use job-related evidence and consistent criteria while retaining ownership of final selection decisions.
Monitor selection-process quality and remove bottlenecks without adding unnecessary bureaucracy.
Create proactive sourcing and pipeline strategies for pivotal, recurring, growth-critical, and difficult-to-fill roles.
Own and deliver UCCU’s university-relations strategy, including priority schools, relationship ownership, events, applicable internship or early-career pipelines, and measurable outcomes.
Use LinkedIn Recruiter and other sourcing technology, professional networks, referrals, community relationships, associations, and direct outreach to expand access to talent.
Partner with the Senior Recruiter on university, school, community, branch, Service Center, Hire Ahead, and new-site recruiting strategies.
Define and drive UCCU’s Employee Value Proposition with HR and business leaders.
Own the careers page, application experience, recruiting communications, and candidate-facing technology and content.
Improve candidate experience from first contact through disposition, offer acceptance, and handoff to Learning and Onboarding.
Own recruiting technology strategy and workflows, including the applicant tracking system, sourcing tools, career-site integrations, automation, and reporting.
Own the quality, definitions, governance, and use of talent acquisition data.
Establish dashboards and operating reviews covering pipeline health, source effectiveness, conversions, aging, time to fill, offer acceptance, starts, quality of hire, early retention, candidate and hiring-manager experience, and recruiter capacity.
Use labor-market insights, process data, business outcomes, and stakeholder feedback to improve decisions, investments, and results.
Lead, coach, and develop the Senior Recruiter, Hire Ahead, Service Center & Branches and the Recruiting Coordinator.
Establish recruiting portfolios, priorities, operating rhythms, service expectations, escalation paths, and accountability.
Balance the Director’s personal recruiting portfolio with COE leadership and reallocate work as priorities and capacity change.
Build a coordinated Talent Acquisition team that shares standards, tools, information, and accountability.
Partner with HR Business Partners and leaders on workforce needs, pivotal positions, organization plans, and future capabilities.
Partner with Compensation on job architecture, levels, market pricing, ranges, internal equity, pay guidance, and offer approvals.
Partner with HR Operations on requisitions, systems, records, reporting, pre-employment requirements, written offers, and controls.
Manage candidate communications and coordinate verbal offers as agreed; after verbal acceptance, provide HR Operations with what is needed for written offers and system actions.
Hand accepted candidates to Learning and Onboarding for Day 1 readiness and the 90-Day Fast Start while keeping hiring managers and HR partners informed.