Talent Acquisition Specialist in Blackburn

This new role plays a central role in delivering an efficient, proactive, and high-quality recruitment service across our Head Office, Inns and Hotels. The role focuses on attracting talent and providing proactive insights and resourcing solutions that reduce external agency reliance and build sustainable pipelines aligned to our future workforce. This role will work closely with People Partners and the Talent & Development Partner to deliver a smooth, engaging and cost-effective hiring process. This role will report into the Talent and Development Partner. On property, hiring managers are responsible for placing adverts and managing their vacancies; this role will provide additional support focused on specialist, business-critical and hard-to-fill roles. This position is currently for a 12-month fixed-term contract.

Key Responsibilities

• Job Board & Candidate Attraction Management: Oversee the day-to-day management of all job boards, ensuring adverts placed on property are accurate, engaging, and optimised for maximum visibility, with a focus on employer branding. Monitor job board performance, track ROI, and drive continuous improvement across all attraction activity. Work with the Talent and Development partner to build and maintain strong relationships with job board account managers to maximise value and negotiate competitive rates. Review and manage advert sponsorship to maximise effectiveness. Monitor live vacancies to maintain accurate and up-to-date time-to-hire reporting. Support the Talent and Development Partner with embedding proactive sourcing strategies to reduce reliance on external recruitment agencies, particularly for higher-level or hard-to-fill roles. Provide Partners with market insights, salary benchmarking, and sourcing recommendations. Focus on utilising the internal talent bank to support future workforce needs and succession planning.
• CV Searching & Talent Sourcing: Conduct targeted CV searches across job boards, LinkedIn, and other sourcing platforms to identify suitable candidates for vacancy types highlighted above. Engage passive candidates through tailored outreach and relationship building. Screen candidates to ensure alignment with role requirements and business values. Maintain accurate and up-to-date candidate records within the ATS (Recruit Genie). Work closely with People Partners to understand role requirements, advise on recruitment best practice, and support decision making. Manage e-shots and recruitment campaigns to maximise reach and impact. Provide regular updates on campaign progress, challenges, and market conditions.
• Early Careers Attraction: Work with the Talent and Development Partner to deliver attraction strategies for apprentices and graduates. Support the design and delivery of early-career recruitment campaigns and assessment processes.
• Process & Compliance: Ensure all recruitment activity complies with employment legislation, GDPR, and internal policies. Contribute to continuous improvement of recruitment processes, tools, and documentation. Support reporting on recruitment metrics, including time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, agency spend and make recommendations. Build managers’ skills in recruitment practices that support effective talent attraction.

Professional Experience

• Ability to demonstrate success in an in-house recruitment or talent acquisition role, ideally within a fast-paced or multi-disciplined environment. Hospitality experience preferred but not essential.
• Proven track record of managing job boards, including advert optimisation, analytics, and ROI tracking.
• Hands-on experience with CV databases, LinkedIn recruiter, and other sourcing tools.
• Experience delivering or supporting early careers recruitment (apprentices, graduates).
• Demonstrated ability to reduce agency reliance and costs through proactive sourcing and strong internal stakeholder partnerships.
• Comfortable managing multiple vacancies at different stages of the recruitment lifecycle.
• Experience in communicating with stakeholders at all levels.
• Working knowledge of Recruit Genie would be advantageous but not essential.

In return, we are offering a rewarding role with scope for career progression along with:

• A competitive salary, negotiable dependent on experience
• Stream - the ability to access up to 40% of your wages as you earn them each week
• 33 days annual leave
• Company paid health cash plan
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Enhanced maternity and paternity pay
• Apprenticeships available
• Generous employee discounts
• Pension and Life assurance
• Long service awards, including free meals and free stays with friends and family
• Bespoke training programmes accessible to all
• An engaging supportive work environment