Director of Talent Acquisition

The Director of Talent Acquisition will lead strategic talent acquisition planning, drive implementation and execution of the plan to ensure that we achieve the firm’s hiring goals and objectives. This role will have broad oversight of talent acquisition activities and will provide leadership and strategic direction to ensure that we drive the attraction, selection, and winning of top talent (including lateral Equity Principles), create the appropriate frameworks to define and measure our operational processes and collaborate across the broader talent teams to realize these goals. This role will be critical to the firm in identifying strategic hires in support of the firm’s business objectives. This individual will be the resident expert on recruiting trends and best practices, called upon to map the market and to effectuate the firm’s strategic recruitment plan. This role will have oversight of the talent acquisition team and budget. The Director of Talent Acquisition will be part of the talent senior leadership team.

The Director of Talent Acquisition will work closely with the Firm Chair and other Executive Committee members, Practice Group Leaders, Regional Coordinators and Regional Office Managing Partners to achieve the firm’s strategic talent acquisition objectives. This role will interact regularly with executive level internal and external stakeholders. This role will also work in close partnership with our On/Off Boarding Manager to ensure we are effectively integrating for all lateral partner hires.

This position can be located in our New York City or Orange County offices and reports to the Chief Talent Officer.

Essential Functions

• Develop a talent acquisition strategy that ensures that we provide comprehensive talking points that explains our value proposition to various candidate types and positions, is supportive of our branding goals, delivers a robust candidate experience that moves talent through the process in a thoughtful and meaningful way, that ensures the team is communicating effectively with all constituents including partnering with attorneys and hiring leaders; develops workflows and metrics for measurement efforts and effectiveness.
• Lead the Talent Acquisition team by designing and implementing recruitment strategies, develop and streamline processes.
• Cultivate strong relationships with executive level management, practice group leaders, partners and hiring managers across offices to establish bespoke recruitment plans and provide them with best practices to support them in their part of the recruitment processes, including providing support for the Board on lateral partner hiring decisions.
• Create processes to incorporate market landscape intelligence into recruitment strategies by creating and reviewing competitive market data, market mapping reports, hiring trends, and internal research; educate stakeholders on trends and influence hiring plans.
• Partner with the Director of Human Resources to cultivate and provide reliable core talent acquisition data to facilitate effective analysis and insight for leadership that enable strategic hiring decisions and evaluates the success of our candidate pipeline. Partner with relevant business services teams to ensure we properly integrate new hires.
• Partner with internal communications and Talent team leadership to create collateral for candidates that demonstrate the firm’s EVP.
• Build relationships with strategic search firms to achieve the firm’s hiring needs while managing and negotiating terms and reviewing them regularly to ensure they are in line with market norms.
• Establishes and maintains a presence in the legal industry to stay abreast of trends, recruiting best practices, target industries, competitors, and roles.
• Experience with talent acquisition and systems, including overseeing the Agency Portal, RPO and Secondment programs.
• Ensures compliance with federal, state, and local recruitment and employment laws and regulations, and company policies.
• Leads a team of 7 recruiters; effectively communicates, manages and standardizes team processes.

Qualifications/Skills Required

• Extensive experience leading all aspects of a talent acquisition function including proven experience driving change management, innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Experience in managing partner recruiting at a law firm or similar environment and an in-depth understanding of market and industry trends for lateral partner recruitment.
• Experience creating and implementing scalable recruitment programs (i.e., internship programs, on-campus hiring etc.)
• Strong business acumen and analytical skills; the ability to develop comprehensive short- and long-term strategic plans from broadly stated objectives.
• Demonstrates poise, gravitas, and the ability to lead through influence rather than direct control – creating consensus-based support for business strategies and decisions results-orientation.
• Ability to build highly effective working relationships with senior firm leadership, partners, firm committees, and other key stakeholders.
• Client-service oriented approach and highly collaborative. Ability to build rapport with internal and external stakeholders.
• Proven success leading teams including giving constructive feedback, mentoring, managing, developing, building, and leading high-performance teams.
• Leadership experience in highly sophisticated legal, professional services, or financial services environment.
• Strong relationship building skills; proactive, responsive, and tailoring effectively for different groups and audiences and key stakeholders.
• Demonstrates sound judgement to recognize confidential information and maintains strict discretion.
• Dynamic energy level and impeccable work ethic; willingness to “roll up your sleeves” and work closely with colleagues and team members.
• Outstanding presentation, writing, verbal skills.

Educational Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in related discipline required; Master’s or JD preferred.
• Minimum 10-15 years of relevant talent acquisition

If you are interested in this opportunity, please email your resume to Jill Tomarken, jtomarken@friedmanwilliams.com .  Thank you!