The Director of Talent Acquisition serves as a strategic and operational leader responsible for driving the full lifecycle recruitment function while directly contributing to critical role fulfillment. This player-coach role balances hands-on recruiting execution with leadership of a high-performing team, ensuring the organization attracts, engages, and hires top-tier talent in a highly competitive healthcare market. The role also optimizes and scales talent acquisition processes, leverages Workday as a strategic HRIS, and implements innovative sourcing and engagement strategies while acting as a consultative advisor to leaders.

Shepherd Center is known for its highly desirable, people-first culture, where employees are deeply connected to the mission and to one another. The Talent Acquisition function plays a critical role as culture-keepers, ensuring every hire not only meets capability needs but also strengthens and preserves the organization’s values, engagement, and workplace experience.

The ideal candidate brings a strong track record of setting and delivering on ambitious goals, with the ability to modernize, optimize, and scale the talent acquisition function. This leader thrives in a highly relationship-driven environment, navigating change with influence, credibility, and care. Equally important, they embody Shepherd Center’s values of heart, humor, and hard work, bringing authenticity, resilience, and a people-first mindset to how they lead, partner, and achieve results.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Serve as a player-coach carrying a requisition load for critical roles

• Lead and execute a modern, scalable talent acquisition strategy with a positive mindset and results orientation

• Partner with leaders on workforce planning and talent pipelines

• Drive diversified sourcing streams and leverage data to determine most impactful opportunities in talent acquisition processes and practices.

• Drive consultative recruiting practices and hiring excellence

• Lead, coach, and develop recruiting team members

• Personally manage complex recruiting searches end-to-end

• Lead offer development and negotiation aligned with total rewards

• Optimize recruiting processes using Workday and data insights

• Implement innovative sourcing strategies and work in collaboration with our marketing team to strengthen employer branding

Required Qualifications

Education: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience
Experience: 6+ years in full lifecycle recruiting or talent acquisition leadership

• Proven success in a player-coach recruiting role

• Strong negotiation skills and experience with total rewards

• Experience leading high-performing teams

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in clinical or healthcare recruitment environments strongly preferred

• Experience optimizing or transforming talent acquisition functions

• Demonstrated strengths in leveraging ATS and recruitment technologies (e.g., Workday) to drive scalable, data-informed talent acquisition strategies preferred

Core Competencies

• Strategic and operational leadership

• Consultative influence

• Advanced sourcing capability

• Negotiation and closing expertise

• Data-driven decision making

• Process optimization

• Relationship building

• Adaptability and accountability