Talent Partner

Join us at the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT), where we are on a mission to translate scientific discovery into real-world impact. We bring together visionary scientists, technologists, engineers, researchers, educators, and innovators to tackle humanity's greatest challenges in four transformative areas:

• Health, Medical Science & Generative Biology
• Food Security & Sustainable Agriculture
• Climate Change & Managing CO₂
• Artificial Intelligence & Robotics

This is ambitious work that demands curiosity, courage, and a relentless drive to make a difference. At EIT, you'll join a community built on excellence, innovation, tenacity, trust, and collaboration, where bold ideas become real-world breakthroughs. Together, we push boundaries, embrace complexity, and create solutions to scale ideas from lab to society.

Your Role: We are expanding our Central Talent Team and are looking for an experienced Talent Partner to support EIT Oxford's continued growth. This is a hands-on, delivery-focused role working closely with hiring managers and HR Business Partners to deliver high-quality recruitment across the organisation.

You will manage end-to-end recruitment for a range of roles, partnering with stakeholders to define hiring needs, attract strong candidates, and deliver a positive and professional candidate experience. This role suits someone who thrives in a scale-up environment, enjoys variety, and balances operational recruitment with strong stakeholder relationships.

Your Responsibilities:

• Partner with hiring managers and HR Business Partners to understand workforce needs and define recruitment strategies
• Manage full-cycle recruitment: sourcing, screening, interviewing, offers, and onboarding support
• Write and refine job descriptions and adverts aligned to role requirements and employer brand
• Proactively source candidates through direct search, networks, referrals, and job boards
• Act as the main point of contact for candidates throughout the recruitment process
• Manage recruitment agencies, including briefing, performance management, and cost control
• Build strong talent pipelines for current and future hiring needs
• Apply best-practice hiring principles, ensuring fair, equitable, and compliant processes
• Contribute to continuous improvement of recruitment processes and candidate experience
• Collaborate with wider HR and Talent Team for current, ongoing, and future projects

Requirements

Essential Skills & Experience:

• Demonstrable experience in in-house recruitment or a 360 recruitment role
• Experience recruiting within life sciences, plant sciences, biotech, or related scientific environments
• Proven experience working in a startup or scale-up environment
• Strong stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence and advise hiring managers
• Excellent communication skills and a candidate-focused approach
• Ability to manage multiple roles and priorities in a fast-paced setting
• ATS and CRM experience, and strong user of MS Office
• Strong knowledge of the Oxford local talent market
• Familiarity with UK employment law and regional employment trends
• Outstanding time management and multitasking skills
• Strong analytical skills to track and improve on recruitment KPIs
• Strong understanding of diversity and inclusion best practices

Desirable Skills & Experience:

• Understanding of LinkedIn Recruiter, creating projects and actively pipelining/sourcing candidates
• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Psychology, or a related field
• Relevant industry certifications (e.g. CIPD or equivalent)

Benefits:

• Salary: Depending on Experience + travel allowance + bonus
• Enhanced holiday + options to buy additional days
• Pension
• Life Assurance
• Income Protection
• Private Medical Insurance
• Hospital Cash Plan
• Therapy Services
• Perk Box
• Electric Car Scheme
• Childcare benefit

Working Together – What It Involves:

You must have the right to work permanently in the UK with a willingness to travel as necessary. In certain cases, we can consider sponsorship, and this will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. You will live in, or within easy commuting distance of, Oxford (or be willing to relocate). This is a hybrid role, minimum 3 days per week in Oxford.