Senior Talent Acquisition Partner

Function: Talent Acquisition

Experience: 7 - 10 years

Location: Andheri, Mumbai

Role Purpose:

We are looking for a Senior Talent Acquisition Partner who can operate as a strategic and hands-on talent partner to the business.

The role will have a strong focus on talent mapping, market intelligence, direct sourcing and passive candidate engagement, while also partnering closely with senior business stakeholders to translate business requirements into effective hiring strategies.

The ideal candidate should be equally comfortable building a talent map from scratch, approaching a passive candidate, running a stakeholder discussion with a senior business leader, and analysing recruitment data to identify gaps and improve outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

1. Talent Mapping & Market Intelligence:

- Build detailed talent maps for critical, niche and recurring positions.

- Identify relevant talent pools across competitors, adjacent industries, functions and geographies.

- Conduct competitor and market mapping to understand:

1. Talent availability

2. Competitor talent pools

3. Organisation structures

4. Key skills and capabilities

5. Talent movement

6. Compensation trends, wherever available

- Build and maintain ready-to-engage talent pools for future hiring requirements.

- Provide market intelligence to stakeholders and recommend realistic hiring strategies.

2. Sourcing & Passive Candidate Engagement:

- Own advanced/direct sourcing for critical and difficult-to-fill positions.

- Proactively identify and engage passive candidates through:

1. LinkedIn Recruiter

2. Boolean/X-ray searches

3. Professional networks

4. Referrals

5. Industry communities

6. Talent databases and other sourcing platforms

- Develop personalised candidate engagement strategies rather than relying primarily on job postings.

- Build long-term relationships with high-quality candidates, even when there is no immediate opportunity.

- Develop strong pipelines for senior, niche and business-critical roles.

- Continuously experiment with new sourcing channels, tools and AI-enabled sourcing technologies.

3. Stakeholder Management & Talent Advisory:

- Partner with hiring managers and senior business leaders as a trusted Talent Advisor.

- Conduct detailed intake discussions to understand the actual business requirement behind a position.

- Translate business requirements into:

1. Search strategy

2. Target companies

3. Target talent pools

4. Candidate profiles

5. Assessment criteria

- Challenge unrealistic requirements using market data and talent intelligence.

- Set clear expectations around talent availability, compensation, timelines and hiring challenges.

- Present talent-market insights and recommendations to senior stakeholders.

- Establish regular hiring reviews with stakeholders covering pipeline, quality, risks and decisions required.

4. End-to-End Recruitment:

- Own recruitment delivery from requisition through joining for assigned positions.

- Manage sourcing, screening, interview process, offer management and candidate closure.

- Conduct structured candidate assessments and provide clear recommendations to hiring managers.

- Partner with stakeholders to ensure timely feedback and decision-making.

- Manage candidate experience throughout the recruitment lifecycle.

- Proactively manage offer and pre-joining engagement to minimise dropouts.

5. Recruitment Data & Analytics:

- This role will have a strong data ownership component.

- Maintain accurate and up-to-date recruitment data across ATS, trackers and dashboards.

- Analyse recruitment funnel data to identify bottlenecks and opportunities.

- Track and analyse:

1. Time to shortlist

2. Time to hire

3. Source effectiveness

4. Screening-to-interview conversion

5. Interview-to-offer conversion

6. Offer acceptance

7. Joining conversion

8. Candidate pipeline health

9. Hiring manager turnaround time

- Build meaningful recruitment reports and dashboards for stakeholders.

- Use data to explain what is happening, why it is happening and what action should be taken.

- Ensure high data accuracy and discipline across all recruitment activities.

Essential Experience:

- 7 - 10 years of Talent Acquisition / Recruitment experience.

- Strong experience in direct sourcing and passive candidate engagement.

- Demonstrated experience in talent mapping and market intelligence.

- Experience hiring for niche, specialist, senior or business-critical positions.

- Strong experience using LinkedIn Recruiter and advanced search techniques.

- Proven ability to engage and influence senior stakeholders and hiring managers.

- Strong understanding of recruitment funnel metrics and data.

- Experience working with ATS/recruitment systems and maintaining recruitment data.

- Strong communication, influencing and negotiation skills.

- Ability to independently manage multiple complex hiring mandates.