Senior Talent Acquisition Manager

About Black Spectacles

Black Spectacles helps architects thrive in their careers through effective, high-quality digital education and career development. We are a remote, founder-led company building a small, high-performing organization. Our growth depends on consistently hiring the right people into the right roles—not simply adding headcount.

The Role

Black Spectacles is hiring a Senior Talent Acquisition Manager to own and operate the system we use to attract, evaluate, select, and close exceptional talent. We have already developed a rigorous, evidence-based hiring philosophy and process. We need an experienced talent acquisition leader who believes in what we have built, can take full ownership of running it, and can use deeper expertise to make it stronger. This is a hands-on functional-owner role. You will personally source, engage, screen, evaluate, and close candidates while managing the entire recruiting process. You must be able to take the football and run with it—without disregarding the standards, systems, and judgment that already exist.

Mission

Own and continuously improve Black Spectacles' talent acquisition system so the company can consistently hire the right people without relying on the CEO to manage recruiting day to day.

Candidate Sourcing and Attraction

• Personally build strong candidate pipelines for leadership, specialized, and hard-to-fill roles through:
  • Candidate research and target-company mapping
  • Outbound sourcing and personalized outreach
  • Referral and network development
  • Candidate screening and follow-up
  • Ongoing relationship and talent-bench development

Hiring Process

• Own and operate our existing hiring system, including:
  • Role scorecards
  • Sourcing strategies
  • Interview plans
  • Behavioral and cognitive assessments
  • Career interviews
  • Candidate evaluation packets
  • Structured references and debriefs
  • Recruiting dashboards and weekly reviews

Talent Judgment

Help determine whether candidates are not merely qualified, but right for the role, manager, company stage, and future we are building. You should recognize when:

• Enthusiasm is running ahead of evidence
• A likable candidate does not meet the scorecard
• Interview feedback is vague or unsupported
• Assessment results require deeper investigation
• A candidate's career history reveals an important pattern
• The company does not yet have enough information to decide

System Improvement

Respect and understand the system that already exists before changing it. We expect you to bring expertise the company does not yet have, identify meaningful gaps, and recommend improvements. We do not expect you to replace our hiring philosophy with a generic or personally preferred process.

Future Talent Benches

Build relationships with potential candidates before positions become urgent so Black Spectacles does not begin every important search from zero. Hiring Manager Accountability Help managers:

• Clearly define the results required from each role
• Prepare for interviews
• Evaluate candidates against scorecards
• Provide timely, evidence-based feedback
• Avoid decisions driven primarily by urgency, charisma, or likability

Hiring Philosophy

Black Spectacles uses a structured, evidence-based hiring process. Our core principles are:

• Evidence over instinct
• Role fit over generic talent
• Structured evaluation over casual conversation
• Long-term success over short-term speed
• Disciplined judgment over recruiting activity

AI-Enabled Talent Acquisition

We are actively using AI to improve candidate research, interview preparation, assessment synthesis, documentation, and hiring decisions. You will help us advance these workflows while ensuring that final judgment remains human, rigorous, and evidence-based.

First-Year Outcomes

• Take ownership of all active searches
• Personally build and manage candidate pipelines
• Ensure every role has a clear scorecard, sourcing plan, and evaluation process
• Establish clear recruiting visibility and weekly accountability
• ID the highest-value improvements to the existing system
• Define where CEO involvement is and is not required
• Establish talent benches for critical future roles
• Improve outbound sourcing and referral systems
• Advance our use of AI in recruiting and candidate evaluation
• Reduce reliance on outside recruiting firms

The Person We Are Looking For

• An independent, level-headed owner
• Persuasive and capable of establishing trust quickly
• Comfortable selling a company and opportunity without overselling
• Fast-moving without being careless
• Structured without being bureaucratic
• Collaborative without waiting to be managed
• Confident enough to bring recommendations and challenge weak thinking
• Disciplined enough to respect standards and preserve what already works
• Curious enough to understand before changing
• Accountable for outcomes, not merely activity

This Role Is Not

• An HR generalist, recruiting coordinator, or advisory-only role
• A role for someone who expects to immediately delegate sourcing
• A role for someone who prefers to operate without constraints
• A role for someone who intends to replace our established hiring philosophy with their own process

Reporting Relationship

This role reports directly to the CEO. The Senior Talent Acquisition Manager owns the day-to-day operation, application, measurement, and improvement of the hiring system. The CEO retains governance over the company's hiring philosophy, talent bar, assessment approach, major changes to the system, and final decisions for critical roles.

Compensation

The expected base salary range is $145,000 to $180,000, depending on experience and fit. The position is also eligible for Black Spectacles' companywide performance-based bonus program.

Location

Black Spectacles is a fully remote company. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States.

Requirements

• Typically 8+ years of talent acquisition or executive recruiting experience
• Several years personally sourcing and evaluating leadership, specialized, or hard-to-fill talent
• Demonstrated success attracting and closing passive candidates
• Experience owning a structured recruiting process
• Expertise in outbound sourcing, candidate outreach, screening, and pipeline management
• Experience working directly with founders, CEOs, or senior leaders
• Strong knowledge of role scorecards, interview design, assessments, structured references, and evidence-based debriefs
• Strong talent judgment and the ability to challenge unsupported conclusions constructively
• Willingness to personally operate the recruiting process rather than immediately delegating it

Strongly Preferred

• Formal training or certification in structured hiring or assessment systems
• Experience using behavioral or cognitive assessments in hiring decisions
• Experience conducting chronological career interviews
• Experience using AI to improve recruiting and candidate evaluation
• Experience taking ownership of and improving an established hiring system
• Experience in a founder-led, remote, SaaS, education, or professional-services company
• Experience building candidate benches before roles are open