Senior Manager, Global Recruiting

WorldStrides is the global leader in educational travel and experiential learning. Founded in 1967, the company provides a wide range of programs for over half a million students annually to more than 100 countries. WorldStrides offers experiential learning in educational travel, performing arts, language immersion, career exploration, service-learning, study abroad, and sports, helping students see beyond the classroom and the world in new ways.

About the role

WorldStrides is seeking a strategic, hands-on recruiting leader to serve as Sr. Manager, Global Recruiting. Reporting directly to the Chief Human Resources Officer, this role will lead recruiting across executive, professional, and seasonal/high-volume hiring in the United States and key global locations, including Mérida, Toronto, London, and Australia. The Sr. Manager will drive recruiting strategy, oversee in-house executive search, and modernize seasonal recruiting programs.

Responsibilities

• Implement a clear global recruiting operating model with defined portfolio ownership, service expectations, decision rights, and consistent practices across executive, professional, and seasonal hiring.
• Increase proactive sourcing and pipeline development, creating a cost-effective mix of direct sourcing, internal talent, referrals, agencies, and external search partners.
• Further mature the in-house executive recruiting function, strengthening long-term talent mapping, senior-level search execution, and the disciplined use of external firms for C-suite and specialized assignments.
• Establish a proactive seasonal recruiting model that anticipates summer workforce needs, builds recruiting capacity, and delivers qualified hires across program locations.
• Improve Greenhouse adoption, workflow design, data quality, and reporting to assess recruiting performance, hiring risks, source effectiveness, and quality of hire.
• Create stronger alignment among Recruiting, HR Business Partners, and Finance to inform recruiting capacity, sourcing plans, and talent pipelines earlier in the planning cycle.
• Introduce consistent hiring-manager tools and training to improve intake quality, structured interviewing, candidate calibration, and selection decisions.
• Set and evolve the global recruiting strategy, operating model, service standards, and annual priorities across executive, professional, and seasonal hiring.
• Build a deep understanding of WorldStrides’ business model, operating cycles, financial priorities, and talent needs to advise leaders proactively.
• Challenge assumptions about role design, level, location, skills, timing, and sourcing approach, identifying alternative talent solutions.
• Bring forward-looking labor-market and economic intelligence to leadership, including talent availability, competitor activity, compensation pressures, and emerging skill needs.
• Partner with HR Business Partners and Finance on workforce planning and demand forecasting.
• Advise ELT members and senior leaders on Director-, VP-, and SVP-level hiring, including search strategy, market calibration, candidate assessment, and offer strategy.
• Coach and support the Executive Recruiter on VP- and SVP-level searches, stepping in personally for senior, confidential, or business-critical assignments.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for external executive search firms, negotiating scope and holding firms accountable for quality, speed, and cost.
• Build long-term external talent maps and relationships for priority leadership roles and succession needs.
• Set strategy and quality standards for professional recruiting across corporate, technology, product, sales, and program delivery functions.
• Direct proactive sourcing and pipeline strategies for recurring, difficult-to-fill, and future-critical roles.
• Guide efforts to strengthen internal mobility, ensuring internal talent is identified, considered, and assessed consistently.
• Establish consistent intake, assessment, selection, offer, and closing practices to improve hiring quality and speed.
• Provide strategic oversight for seasonal recruiting, staffing programs across the U.S. with peak hiring from June through August.
• Build an annual workforce and recruiting plan aligned with forecasted program volume, location needs, and recruiter capacity.
• Balance scale and speed with a high selection bar, ensuring seasonal candidates meet qualifications and service standards.
• Partner with HR Governance & Culture, Legal, and HR Delivery to operationalize compliant processes for work authorization, visas, background checks, and jurisdiction-specific hiring.
• Evaluate seasonal sourcing channels based on conversion, quality, retention, cost, and program outcomes.
• Serve as business product owner for Greenhouse, defining recruiting-system priorities, process requirements, and data-quality controls.
• Partner with HR Systems on integrations, enhancements, vendor decisions, and implementation while retaining business ownership for the recruiting experience.
• Stay current on recruiting technology, sourcing platforms, assessment tools, and AI-enabled capabilities; recommend investments based on business value.
• Use AI and automation responsibly to improve talent research, sourcing, candidate communication, and workflow efficiency while preserving fairness and privacy.
• Establish controls to address candidate-authenticity and identity risks, including AI-enabled impersonation.
• Build dashboards and decision tools to convert recruiting data into clear business insight and support continuous improvement.
• Lead and develop a recruiting team spanning executive, professional, and seasonal hiring, including team members in the U.S. and Mérida, Mexico.
• Set clear goals, metrics, service expectations, and accountability across the team; manage capacity and priorities during peak hiring periods.
• Coach recruiters to operate as talent advisors with strong sourcing, assessment, stakeholder-management, and consultative-selling skills.
• Partner with Learning & Development to create hiring-manager training, structured interview tools, and calibration guides.
• Define and monitor candidate and hiring-manager experience standards, addressing friction points and ensuring timely, respectful communication.
• Translate recruiting policies and legal requirements into practical, scalable operating processes.
• Manage recruiting agencies, executive search firms, technology vendors, and external partners, including selection, contracts, and performance standards.
• Reduce avoidable agency and referral expenses by strengthening direct sourcing and using paid channels where they create value.
• Partner with Communications, Marketing, and business leaders to strengthen WorldStrides’ talent story and market-specific recruiting messages.
• Develop clear business cases for new recruiting investments or process changes, including expected cost, benefit, risk, and operational impact.

Qualifications

We are using a skills-based approach. No candidate is expected to have followed one specific career path or to be equally deep in every recruiting segment. The strongest candidates will demonstrate most of the following through the results they have delivered:

• Progressively responsible experience leading a complex talent acquisition portfolio, typically developed through approximately 8-10 years in corporate recruiting, executive search, recruitment consulting, or a combination of environments.
• Demonstrated people leadership, including setting direction, coaching experienced recruiters, managing performance, and leading through change.
• Meaningful executive search experience. Experience in a retained executive search firm or leading complex in-house executive searches is preferred; top-tier search-firm experience is particularly valuable.
• Evidence of building a recruiting strategy or operating model rather than only managing requisition delivery.
• Experience leading across multiple recruiting segments. Direct seasonal or high-volume expertise is valuable but not required when paired with strong leadership and the ability to hire and empower specialists.
• Fluency with applicant tracking systems and recruiting analytics; deep Greenhouse experience is strongly preferred.
• Experience evaluating or implementing recruiting technology, sourcing platforms, assessment tools, or AI-enabled capabilities.