Senior Director - Recruitment & Staffing

Position Summary

The Senior Director leads the design and execution of recruitment strategies that build a diverse, high-quality pipeline of instructional and support staff for DPSCD. The Senior Director develops and manages recruitment systems, data, and partnerships. The Senior Director proactively identifies and addresses systemic staffing challenges, leads cross-departmental collaboration to align recruitment functions with the district's broader strategic priorities, and cultivates recruiting partnerships with universities, community organizations, and talent pipeline programs.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution in Human Resources, Business Administration, Public Administration, Education Leadership, or a related field required
• Master's degree preferred
• Minimum of eight (8) years of professional experience, with significant time spent leading one or more core human capital functions (e.g., talent acquisition, workforce planning, performance management, professional development); at least four (4) years of senior-level experience working directly with executive-level leaders
• Demonstrated experience leading large-scale recruitment operations and continuous improvement efforts in a K-12 district, charter school network, or comparable urban education setting
• Demonstrated experience conducting stakeholder engagement with a wide variety of audiences, including school leaders, community partners, and executive leadership
• Demonstrated proficiency with PeopleSoft and/or other applicant tracking systems (e.g., JobVite, Talemetry)
• Experience building and managing external recruitment partnerships including higher education institutions, community organizations, and teacher pipeline programs
• Demonstrated ability to analyze recruitment and workforce data and translate findings into strategy

Essential Functions

• Design and lead the implementation of a comprehensive, data-driven recruitment and staffing strategy aligned with DPSCD's strategic priorities; develop department goals, objectives, and key performance indicators and report progress to the Executive Director and HR Leadership Teams.
• Serve as a member of the HR Management team, contributing to district-wide goals around vacancy reduction, time-to-hire improvement, candidate quality, and workforce diversity; lead or co-lead cross-functional HR initiatives as assigned.
• Lead efforts to map current recruitment and staffing processes, assess the degree to which existing systems meet the needs of staff and stakeholders, and design and implement improved approaches.
• Proactively identify persistent staffing challenges and develop new and novel solutions to address them; advocate for well-reasoned, strategic approaches that advance the district's goals while managing change skillfully across stakeholder groups.
• Design and execute recruitment campaigns that yield a robust, diverse, and highly qualified applicant pool for instructional and support vacancies across the district.
• Recommend improvements to the district's applicant tracking and talent management systems (PeopleSoft, JobVite, and related platforms).
• Collaborate with Communications and Marketing to develop and execute multi-channel recruitment marketing campaigns, including web, social media, and print materials, that build DPSCD's reputation as an employer of choice.
• Coordinate and lead recruitment events including job fairs, career expos, and campus recruitment visits.
• Ensure that all applicants experience a smooth, efficient, and candidate-centered application and hiring process that reflects the district's commitment to service and professionalism.
• Work collaboratively with hiring managers to understand progression/succession plans, staffing gaps, and incumbents' developmental areas to design a long-term recruiting strategy.
• Conduct research to surface best practices in talent acquisition and workforce planning from K-12 peers, adjacent industries, and national HR organizations; apply findings to improve district recruitment functions.
• Build and manage strategic partnerships with local and national teacher education programs, HBCUs, community organizations, and alternative certification pipelines to cultivate a sustainable, diverse talent pipeline for DPSCD.
• Supervise the codification of recruitment processes and best practices; ensure that tools, workflows, and institutional knowledge are documented, accessible, and consistently applied across the team.
• Provide direct leadership, supervision, and coaching to the team; conduct Thrive evaluations, facilitate regular 1:1s, and create structured opportunities for professional growth that align with team and district goals.
• Foster a team culture that values innovation, continuous improvement, collaboration, and equity; model and reinforce the District's core values of service, integrity, students first, excellence, equity, and tenacity.
• Perform other duties as assigned by the Executive Director, Recruitment, Staffing & Onboarding