Talent Acquisition Lead

Location: London (Hybrid – 1-2 days in office, flexible)

Industry: AI SaaS

Salary: £80,000-£85,000 + Stock Options

Hawkwood are recruiting for a Technical Talent Acquisition Lead to join a high-growth, AI scale-up that counts many of the world’s largest financial institutions and law firms among their loyal customers. Having doubled revenue every year for the past five years, and growing headcount from 200 to 400 employees in just the last 12 months, the company offers not just fast-paced growth but proven resilience in turbulent economic times - making this an exceptional long-term career move.

The Role: As a Talent Acquisition Lead, you’ll join a high-performing talent team and have full ownership of the talent strategy and execution for all technical business areas. This is a great opportunity to shape the future of a rapidly growing tech company where technology is at the heart of everything they do. You will work as part of a close-knit Talent Acquisition team and will also have direct management responsibility. This is a leadership role, and your responsibilities will be a mix of strategy, execution, and team management.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Own the talent strategy for tech business areas (AI, Engineering, Data, Design and Product), from headcount planning to hiring for senior technical talent.
• Partner with senior leadership to understand strategic hiring needs and ensure efforts align with business goals.
• Take ownership of employer branding and build proactive talent communities, particularly in high-growth areas like AI, including participating in and hosting events.
• Manage and mentor one Talent Partner, helping them grow and succeed in their role.
• Support on key company-wide projects, including interview training, headcount planning, and reporting to the Executive Leadership Team (ELT).
• Lead the end-to-end recruitment process for technical leadership and highly specialised roles, from proactively sourcing and engaging passive candidates to conducting thorough screening calls and managing the interview process.
• Use data from the Applicant Tracking System (ATS), Ashby, to refine hiring processes, improve outcomes, and ensure a positive candidate experience.

About You: We’re looking for someone who is a leader, a strategic thinker, and a hands-on recruiter. If you have a proven track record of recruiting for challenging technical roles and a passion for building great teams, you’d be a great fit. You have a solid background in recruiting technical roles within a fast-paced environment, ideally with a specialism in data and AI roles. You are skilled at managing complex stakeholder relationships and can align recruitment efforts with broader business goals. You have a proven ability to source, engage, and recruit high-quality candidates through multiple channels. You thrive on sourcing hard-to-find talent. You are passionate about building diverse teams and are skilled at creating fair, unbiased hiring pipelines. You are comfortable using data from an ATS to improve processes, influence decision-making, and track key metrics. You can build rapport with candidates and hiring managers at all levels and maintain high attention to detail. You are comfortable working autonomously, taking ownership, and holding yourself accountable for a high standard of delivery.

Why Join?

• Work for a company with impressive, consistent growth and a loyal customer base.
• Be part of a collaborative, high-performing, and global Talent Acquisition team.
• Flexibility in your working patterns – trust-based hybrid working environment.
• Huge opportunity for career progression as the business continues to scale rapidly.

If you are interested in this opportunity, we kindly request that you apply via this LinkedIn advert, as opposed to sending us an email or LinkedIn direct message. We are eager to ensure that each candidate application is considered fairly, and receives a consistent experience. Unfortunately, we cannot ensure this standard if you enquire about a role via email or LinkedIn message, as it falls outside of our established process.