Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition Operations

About the Role

Gensler’s South Central Region is seeking a Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition Operations to lead the Talent Acquisition function and build an operating model that meets the region’s continued growth strategy. This role will focus on process design, systems adoption, stakeholder experience, recruiter enablement and management, and senior lateral hiring strategy.

Reporting to the Regional HR Director, the Senior Manager will serve as a strategic advisor and operational partner to regional leadership, HR, Talent Acquisition, and hiring stakeholders to strengthen how talent is identified, engaged, assessed, and hired across the region. The role will lead the TA function, ensuring the team meets defined KPIs and delivers successful hiring outcomes efficiently and consistently in a dynamic growth environment.

In addition to leading TA strategy and operations, this role will support regional leaders in navigating senior lateral hiring needs, particularly high-impact or complex searches requiring thoughtful workforce planning, stakeholder alignment, market perspective, compensation coordination, and a high-touch candidate experience. The role will also provide secondary operational support for other talent function processes (like Talent Development and HR Advisory), particularly where consistency, workflow design, and service delivery overlap with TA.

The ideal candidate brings deep experience in talent acquisition and talent operations, recruiting strategy, process improvement, analytics, change management, and stakeholder partnership. This is a highly visible role with the opportunity to further elevate Talent Acquisition into a proactive, process-driven, and scalable talent function that supports the region’s continued growth, evolving business priorities, and future opportunities. The position will be based onsite daily from Gensler's Dallas office.

Responsibilities

• Manage the TA function and team; partner with regional leaders and hiring stakeholders to meet hiring goals in support of continued growth across the region.
• Design and continuously improve standardized workflows across the full talent acquisition lifecycle, from intake and sourcing strategy through offer readiness and onboarding handoff.
• Translate regional business needs into clear, repeatable TA processes that create structure, consistency, transparency, and shared accountability.
• Identify opportunities to streamline recruiting operations, strengthen speed, quality, candidate experience, and stakeholder confidence.
• Define and maintain practical service level expectations with hiring managers, leaders, and TA team members to support timely decisions, feedback, and communication.
• Develop frameworks to prioritize requisitions based on business impact, urgency, office or practice area need, leadership alignment, and recruiting capacity.
• Build visibility into requisition health, aged openings, candidate pipelines, hiring velocity, sourcing effectiveness, and other key measures that support proactive leadership and hiring stakeholder decisions.
• Support senior lateral hiring needs by clarifying role requirements, search strategy, leadership involvement, market positioning, and candidate engagement approach; partner with regional and office leadership on complex or high-impact strategic searches requiring alignment, market insight, and thoughtful engagement strategy.
• Lead regional adoption and process integration for Avature and related recruiting tools so systems support a consistent recruiter, candidate, and hiring manager experience.
• Redesign processes outside the CRM or ATS where needed to create a more seamless and efficient end-to-end workflow.
• Define operational standards for pipeline management, applicant review, prospect engagement, timely disposition, data integrity, and reporting accuracy.
• Help define senior lateral hiring processes that clarify stakeholder roles, interview approach, compensation coordination, candidate communication, and decision-making expectations.
• Support cross-functional HR initiatives that require process design, implementation planning, change management, data visibility, or consistent execution across offices in the region.
• Help connect TA, TD, and HR Advisory processes where candidate and employee lifecycle handoffs overlap to create collaboration opportunities and structural efficiencies.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in human resources, Organizational Development, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, or related field.
• 12+ years of progressive experience in Talent Acquisition, Talent Operations, Recruiting Operations, Talent Strategy, HR Operations, or related talent/people operations function.
• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, or improving talent operating models, workflows, service standards, or scalable processes.
• Strong understanding of the end-to-end talent lifecycle, with significant experience and focus on the candidate/recruiting lifecycle, including intake, sourcing strategy, candidate pipeline management, interview stakeholder coordination, offer process, candidate experience, and onboarding handoffs.
• Experience leading talent or recruiting teams and operations, TA transformation, systems adoption, process improvement, or change management initiatives in a complex, matrixed, multi-office, or high-growth environment.
• Ability to partner with senior leaders and hiring stakeholders on workforce planning, requisition prioritization, senior lateral hiring strategy, market intelligence, and talent decision-making.
• Strong analytical capability and experience with CRM/ATS platforms, HRIS tools, dashboards, and collaboration platforms; familiarity with Avature, Workday, Tableau, Power BI, Excel; experience leveraging AI-enabled tools to drive efficiency and process.
• Operational mindset with the ability to simplify complex processes, clarify ownership, build practical tools, reduce manual effort, and create consistent ways of working across teams.
• Proven ability to influence, drive adoption of new processes, and hold stakeholders accountable while maintaining collaborative and trusted relationships.
• Exceptional communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to translate operational detail into clear, executive-ready recommendations and updates; strong project management and organizational skills.
• Demonstrated judgment, discretion, and professionalism when supporting confidential searches, senior lateral candidates, compensation discussions, and sensitive business or people matters.
• Experience in architecture, design, engineering, consulting, professional services, or another highly relationship-based, matrixed environment preferred.
• Certification in HR is strongly preferred (SPHR, GPHR).

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits.
• Disability and wellness programs.
• Flex spending and paid holidays.
• Paid time off.
• 401k, profit sharing, and employee stock ownership.
• Twice annual bonus opportunities.
• Reimbursement for certain professional licenses and associated renewals and exam fees.
• Tuition reimbursement for certain eligible programs or classes.

Pay

Our annual base salary range has been established based on local markets.