Your new company
Our client is an established and highly regarded law firm with an ambitious approach to its continued growth and people strategy. Operating within a competitive legal market, the firm recognises that attracting, engaging and retaining exceptional talent is fundamental to its future success. As the organisation continues to evolve, it is looking to strengthen its approach to Talent Acquisition, creating a more strategic, proactive and insight-led recruitment function.With a collaborative and relationship-led culture, this is an environment where Talent Acquisition has the opportunity to operate as a genuine strategic partner to the business. Your new role
As Head of Talent Acquisition, you will:

• Develop and deliver the firm's overarching Talent Acquisition and resourcing strategy, aligned to its wider business and people priorities.
• Partner with senior leaders and Partners to understand workforce requirements and translate these into proactive attraction and recruitment plans.
• Lead recruitment across legal fee-earner, Partner and business services populations, ensuring an excellent experience for candidates and hiring managers.
• Develop a more proactive approach to direct sourcing, talent pipelining and market mapping, reducing reliance on external recruitment agencies where appropriate.
• Lead, develop and inspire the Talent Acquisition team, creating a high-performing and commercially focused function.
• Build effective talent pipelines for strategically important and hard-to-recruit areas of the firm.
• Review and enhance the firm's employer brand and employee value proposition, working collaboratively with Marketing and Communications.
• Oversee relationships with recruitment agencies and other external partners, including effective management of the firm's PSL and commercial terms.
• Ensure recruitment processes provide an inclusive, consistent and high-quality candidate experience.
• Use recruitment data and market intelligence to provide senior stakeholders with meaningful insight around talent availability, remuneration, hiring trends and recruitment performance.
• Review and optimise recruitment technology, ATS capability and sourcing tools to create an efficient, data-led recruitment function.
• Contribute to the firm's future talent strategy, ensuring effective pipelines into the organisation at graduate, trainee, apprenticeship and early-career level.
• Maintain robust recruitment governance, ensuring processes are compliant, consistent and aligned with relevant employment and data-protection requirements.

What you'll need to succeed

• Significant in-house Talent Acquisition or recruitment experience gained within the legal sector.
• Experience operating at Head of, Senior Manager or senior Talent Acquisition leadership level.
• A strong understanding of the UK legal talent market and the challenges associated with recruiting specialist lawyers and business services professionals.
• Experience partnering with Partners and senior leadership stakeholders.
• A track record of developing and implementing talent acquisition strategies rather than purely delivering vacancies.
• Strong direct sourcing, talent mapping and pipelining capability.
• Experience of improving recruitment processes, systems and candidate experience.
• Strong knowledge of ATS and recruitment technology.
• Experience managing agencies, PSLs and supplier relationships.
• An understanding of employer branding, EVP and talent attraction.
• Experience of leading, coaching and developing recruitment or Talent Acquisition teams.
• Strong commercial judgement, influencing skills and the credibility to challenge senior stakeholders constructively.
  What you'll get in return
  This is an excellent opportunity for an established legal-sector Talent Acquisition professional to step into a highly visible leadership position with the scope to shape how the firm attracts talent nationally.

With significant autonomy, senior stakeholder exposure and a flexible working model, the successful individual will have the opportunity to build a sophisticated, proactive Talent Acquisition function that supports the firm's longer-term growth strategy.Hybrid working: 1 day per week in Exeter
Travel: Occasional national travel
What you need to do now
If you're interested in this role, click 'apply now' to forward an up-to-date copy of your CV, or call us now.
If this job isn't quite right for you but you are looking for a new position, please contact us for a confidential discussion on your career.

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