The Principal Recruiter is a senior individual contributor responsible for owning hiring outcomes and talent strategy across a designated business unit. This role partners directly with Regional Directors and Sr HRBPs, providing consultative guidance on workforce planning, hiring strategy, and talent market dynamics.
Operating with an executive search mindset, the Principal Recruiter delivers high quality, curated candidate slates and influences hiring decisions through data driven insights and structured assessments. The role requires strong technical and operational understanding of the business, enabling effective talent evaluation and ongoing upskilling of the recruiting team.
This role offers a high degree of autonomy and ownership, with accountability for business unit hiring outcomes, pipeline health, and overall recruiting performance. The Principal Recruiter is empowered to shape strategy, influence senior stakeholders, and drive meaningful improvements in how hiring is executed across the business.
This is a high impact role for a recruiter who wants to operate as a true business partner and drive outcomes at scale.
Key Responsibilities- Each Principal Recruiter will be aligned to a business unit
- Act as the primary recruiting partner to Regional Directors and Sr HRBPs
- Own business unit hiring strategy, workforce planning alignment, and execution
- Provide market insights, hiring trends, and strategic recommendations to leadership
- Lead staffing reporting in weekly and monthly business reviews
Executive Search and Advisory- Operate with an executive search mindset for leadership and critical roles, prioritizing quality over volume
- Build and present curated candidate slates with structured assessments and clear hiring recommendations
- Partner with Regional Directors and Sr HRBPs to define success profiles and calibrate hiring decisions
- Provide consultative guidance on talent availability, compensation positioning, and competitive landscape
- Elevate candidate presentation standards by delivering insight driven profiles rather than resume forwarding
Technical Acumen and Capability Building- Develop deep understanding of business unit operations, including building infrastructure, equipment types, and maintenance workflows
- Build working knowledge of systems such as robotics, conveyor systems, controls, and automation equipment relevant to each business unit
- Translate technical and operational concepts into clear recruiting strategies and candidate profiles
- Act as a subject matter expert for assigned business unit, elevating the team's understanding of roles, environments, and skill requirements
- Design and deliver training sessions, enablement materials, and ongoing coaching to upskill recruiters on technical knowledge and role requirements
- Lead regular presentations to recruiting teams and business stakeholders on market insights, technical trends, and hiring strategy
Recruiting & Data Reporting- Manage a reduced requisition load focused on high priority, complex, and high throughput sites
- Support critical, hard to fill, and leadership level roles
- Drive consistency and quality across hiring processes, including interview and selection standards
- Own business unit reporting including staffing levels, pipeline health, time to fill, and offer conversion
- Translate data into actionable insights to drive performance and decision making
- Identify risks early and implement corrective actions
Operational Excellence & Team Development and Leadership- Coach and mentor recruiters to improve stakeholder management, technical fluency, and recruiting effectiveness
- Raise the bar on candidate quality, process discipline, and overall team performance
- Partner with recruiting managers to drive accountability and continuous improvement
- Operational Excellence
- Standardize recruiting processes and ensure alignment with recruiting and business expectations
- Partner with internal teams including Candidate Care, People team, and Operations to remove bottlenecks
- Support hiring events, launches, and surge hiring needs as required
Basic Qualifications- Minimum 7+ years of full cycle recruiting experience
- Experience supporting high volume and/or technical hiring environments
- Strong stakeholder management experience with senior business leaders
Preferred Qualifications- Experience within executive search, agency recruiting or retained search environment with a focus on consultative hiring support
- Experience supporting engineering, maintenance, or automation related roles
- Strong ability to learn and translate technical concepts into hiring strategies
- Experience building training materials or enabling teams
- Strong analytical skills with experience with recruiting dashboards and data tools
- Experience mentoring or leading recruiters
Travel Requirement- This role requires minimum 25% travel to support business unit alignment, site engagement, hiring events, and stakeholder partnership
Success Profile- Proven ability to elevate team capability and drive measurable improvements
- Strategic thinker with strong business and operational acumen
- Ability to quickly build credibility in technical environments
- High ownership and accountability for results
- Strong communication skills with the ability to present to senior stakeholders
CBRE carefully considers multiple factors to determine compensation, including a candidate's education, training, and experience. The minimum salary for the Principal Recruiter position is $100,000.00 annually and the maximum salary for the Principal Recruiter position is $115,000.00 annually. The compensation that is offered to a successful candidate will depend on the candidate's skills, qualifications, and experience.
CBRE GWS
CBRE Global Workplace Solutions (GWS) works with clients to make real estate a meaningful contributor to organizational productivity and performance. Our account management model is at the heart of our client-centric approach to delivering integrated real estate solutions. Each client is entrusted with a dedicated leader and is supported by regional and global resources, leveraging the industry's most robust platform. CBRE GWS delivers consistent, measurably superior outcomes for our clients at every stage of the lifecycle, and across industries and geographies.
Find out more
