Talent Acquisition Lead

McChrystal Group • Alexandria, VA

2d • Onsite

About The Position

The Talent Acquisition Specialist will work directly with executive leadership, hiring managers, Finance, O perations, and Team People to design, build, operate, and adapt a recruiting and talent integration strategy for all practice areas that drives critical business results in support of the next phase of growth for McChrystal Group. This role requires expertise in designing and delivering highly attractive, scalable, and equitabl e talent acquisition processes; attention to performance metrics and market trends; and deep partnership with internal stakeholders in order to maximize outcomes for all human capital. As the talent facing representative of the McChrystal Group brand, this role must exercise an exceptional level of organizational, market, and interpersonal expertise to attract, assess, and influence skilled to executive level talent. This is a full-time, in person position and it is our commitment that as you bring your best, we will bring ours to make the most of the time you invest here. Our mission is to grow a team that reflects the diversity of our clients and embodies the characteristics that are foundational to our Team of Teams philosophy. If that sounds aligned with your goals, we want to hear from you.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• PHR, SPHR, SHRM-CP, or SHRM-SCP preferred.
• 6 or more years of in-house full-cycle recruiting experience. Agency experience combined with in-house experience is acceptable; agency-only experience is not a substitute.
• Experience recruiting mid-career and senior professional roles.
• Demonstrated experience negotiating and closing offers with candidates at all levels.
• Working knowledge of compensation practices, including market data sources, benchmarking methodology, and internal equity.
• Experience building candidate pipelines through direct outreach.
• Experience drafting job descriptions in partnership with hiring managers.
• Professional services or consulting recruiting strongly preferred.
• Advanced LinkedIn Recruiter experience, including complex search construction and pipeline projects for hard-to-fill roles.
• Applicant tracking system administration experience. Rippling preferred.
• Federal contractor recruiting compliance experience, including OFCCP, VEVRAA, and Section 503, preferred.
• Campus, early-career, or intern program experience preferred.
• Agency and vendor management experience preferred.
• Military or veteran pipeline familiarity preferred.
• Experience using AI tools in recruiting workflows preferred.
• Strong negotiation skills, including the ability to manage compensation conversations with senior candidates, hold an approved range under pressure, and close offers while preserving the candidate relationship.
• Strong working knowledge of compensation, including how to read market data, apply it to a specific role, and build a defensible recommendation.
• Advanced sourcing skills, particularly LinkedIn Recruiter, for roles with a small qualified candidate population.
• Ability to design structured interviews and scorecards and train hiring managers to use them.
• Professional presence appropriate for representing the firm to senior candidates and partnering with practice leads.
• Clear written and verbal communication, including candidate outreach and job postings.
• Comfort with recruiting data and the ability to translate metrics into recommendations.
• High attention to detail, particularly in compliance documentation.
• Ability to manage a high volume of concurrent searches while maintaining candidate experience and data accuracy.
• Ability to work independently, anticipate hiring needs, and follow through without close supervision.
• Ability to set expectations with hiring managers and communicate constraints directly.
• Ability to handle confidential candidate and compensation information with discretion at all times.
• Ability to build and maintain external relationships that produce candidates over time.
• Ability to establish and improve recruiting processes where limited process exists.
• Ability to adapt to changing priorities and remain organized in a fast-paced environment.

Responsibilities

• Manage full-cycle recruiting for open roles across all practice areas and levels, from intake through start date.
• Conduct intake meetings with hiring managers to define role requirements, evaluation criteria, interview panels, and decision timelines.
• Screen, assess, and advance candidates against agreed criteria.
• Manage the interview process, including scheduling, panel coordination, and debriefs.
• Carry a steady-state load of 8 to 12 concurrent searches, scaling during peak hiring periods.
• Extend offers and manage candidate negotiations within compensation ranges approved by the HR Director.
• Manage the pre-employment process, including background checks, references, and offer contingencies.
• Coordinate handoff to Team People for onboarding.
• Identify and escalate stalled searches, including the underlying cause, whether related to role profile, compensation, process, or market conditions.
• Draft and maintain job descriptions for all open roles in partnership with hiring managers.
• Maintain the firm's job description library and ensure consistency across practice areas and levels.
• Provide market data and compensation recommendations to the HR Director to inform range setting.
• Advise hiring managers on market conditions affecting a specific search, including salary expectations, candidate availability, and competitor hiring activity.
• Flag to the HR Director when the firm's compensation ranges appear out of step with the market or when an offer presents internal equity risk.
• Maintain current knowledge of talent trends in consulting and professional services.
• Source candidates directly using LinkedIn Recruiter, including complex Boolean and filtered search, in-platform projects, and outbound messaging.
• Build and maintain pipelines for recurring and hard-to-fill roles in advance of requisition approval.
• Document sourcing approaches by level and practice area.
• Maintain a candidate CRM and an alumni database, and re-engage former employees and prior finalists.
• Administer the employee referral program, including tracking, payout processing, and internal promotion.
• Manage agency and search firm relationships, including fee terms, guarantee periods, candidate ownership terms, and vendor performance.
• Report search status to hiring managers on a daily to weekly cadence.
• Provide the HR Director and the management team with regular reporting on open requisitions, pipeline health, and risks to the hiring plan.
• Report time-to-fill and pipeline conversion, and recommend additional recruiting metrics appropriate to the firm's size.
• Support the HR Director in building and maintaining the firm's hiring plan, using inputs from Operations and Finance including utilization, bench, and sold work.
• Support proposal and pursuit teams with named-personnel identification and contingent commitments as engagements require.
• Train hiring managers on structured interviewing, scorecards, evidence-based evaluation, and legal boundaries.
• Develop and maintain process documentation and self-service resources for hiring managers.
• Recommend recruiting process improvements and supporting business cases for tools, sourcing channels, and programs.
• Coach contract or junior recruiting support as the firm adds capacity.
• Maintain relationships at target schools, including career center contacts, faculty sponsors, and student veteran organization leads.
• Run the firm's summer intern program, including cohort selection, program structure, evaluation, and full-time conversion.
• Maintain the veteran and military transition pipeline and related organizational partnerships.
• Track conversion rates by channel across university, intern, and veteran programs.
• Own how the firm presents itself to candidates, including job postings, careers content, and interview experience.
• Ensure every candidate has a consistent, professional experience regardless of outcome.
• Represent the firm credibly to senior candidates and articulate the value of the McChrystal Group method.
• Gather and act on candidate feedback to improve the process.
• Administer the applicant tracking system, including configuration, workflow design, and data hygiene.
• Maintain accurate requisition, pipeline, and offer data.
• Use AI tools to support sourcing, job posting quality, candidate communications, and interview documentation.
• Maintain recruiting practices in compliance with employment law and internal policy, including consistent evaluation criteria and appropriate documentation.
• Execute federal contractor recruiting requirements under VEVRAA and Section 503, including outreach and recordkeeping, state workforce agency job listings, self-identification invitations, and applicant flow data.
• Support EEO-1 and VETS-4212 reporting.
• Maintain records required for audits and reporting.
• Support clearance-eligible hiring where engagements require it.
• Handle confidential candidate and compensation information with discretion at all times.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level