Talent Acquisition Executive job description
A Talent Acquisition Executive finds, screens and brings candidates to hiring managers for open roles. The role fills vacancies faster and with better fit than posting an advertisement and waiting.
Why the role exists
The Talent Acquisition Executive works with hiring managers to understand each opening and then runs the search. In startups and mid-sized firms they often work alone or in a small team, handling job posts, sourcing, calls, interview scheduling and offer follow-up from first request to joining.
What the person does
- Meet hiring managers to understand the role, the team, the must-have skills and the budget range before starting a search.
- Write clear job posts and publish them on job portals, LinkedIn and relevant professional groups.
- Source candidates through portal search, social profiles, referrals and past applicant databases.
- Screen candidates by phone on skills, experience, notice period, expected pay and willingness to relocate.
- Share shortlisted profiles with a brief note and schedule interview rounds with managers and candidates.
- Collect interview feedback promptly and keep candidates informed at every stage.
- Coordinate offers, negotiation, documents and joining follow-up until the candidate starts.
- Maintain an applicant tracker with open roles, pipeline stages, sources and reasons for rejection.
Skills and tools
- Job portal and LinkedIn Recruiter search using Boolean strings and filters
- Applicant tracking tools such as Zoho Recruit, Freshteam or a structured spreadsheet
- Phone screening that tests skills, motivation and notice period honestly
- Writing clear job posts and candidate messages that get replies
- Understanding of role requirements across tech, sales, operations and support roles
- Scheduling and coordination across interviewers and candidates working in different shifts
- Handling offers, counter-offers and notice period risks professionally
- Respect for candidate data, consent and confidentiality
Education and experience
Preferred, never a bar: equivalent experience counts.
- Graduate in any stream preferred, with an HR diploma or MBA useful but not required, or equivalent recruiting experience.
- Preferred one to three years in recruitment, in an agency or an in-house team.
- Experience hiring for the type of roles you need most, such as technology, sales or frontline operations, is preferred.
- Practices on candidate data and fees depend on the employer, state and facts, so confirm any concern with your own adviser.
How the work is judged
- Time taken to fill roles from approval to joining.
- Quality of shortlists, judged by hiring manager acceptance and interview conversion.
- Offer acceptance and joining rates, including drop-offs before day one.
- Candidate experience, shown by clear communication and timely feedback.
- Accuracy and upkeep of the tracker and pipeline reports.
Where the role can lead
- Senior Talent Acquisition Executive or Lead handling a function such as technology or sales.
- Talent Acquisition Manager or Head of Hiring for scale-up hiring plans.
- Move into HR business partnering, employer branding or recruitment operations.
Interview questions to ask
Ask every candidate the same questions in the same order and score them against written anchors, so the decision rests on the work and not the impression.
- Take us through how you would start a search for a role you have never hired before.
- A hiring manager rejects every profile you send. What do you do?
- How do you check that a candidate's notice period and expected pay are realistic before you shortlist?
- Describe a time a selected candidate did not join. What did you learn?
- Show us a Boolean search or a post you wrote that worked well and explain why.
- How do you keep candidates warm during a long interview process?
Hiring tips for this role
- Give a live brief and ask for a search plan and a screening call script. It shows how they think faster than a CV review.
- Ask for their closing ratio on past roles and how they handled drop-offs. Confident recruiters talk openly about failures.
- Check which levels they have hired. Entry-level volume hiring and senior niche search need different skills.
- Be wary of inflated pipeline claims. Ask for process detail, such as sources used and rounds run, rather than raw counts.
Questions about hiring a talent acquisition executive
A talent acquisition executive focuses on finding and bringing in candidates for open roles. An HR executive covers wider people processes such as records, onboarding, queries and exits. Small firms sometimes hire one person for both.
In-house suits steady, frequent hiring. For occasional or specialist roles, an outside service can be more practical. Many firms start with an outside service and add an in-house recruiter once hiring becomes regular.
Look for hands-on sourcing and closing experience in roles similar to yours. Tool knowledge helps, but the ability to understand a brief, talk to candidates honestly and keep managers engaged matters more.
GullyHR supports permanent hiring. We agree the job description with you, search and screen candidates with sourcing and closing experience, and help you through the offer stage.
Hiring a talent acquisition executive?
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles. We agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.