Job Description
The Director of Talent Acquisition is responsible for designing and executing a forward-looking talent acquisition strategy that supports the growth and performance of a large, multi-brand restaurant organization. This role leads full-cycle recruiting across the organization, ensuring the company attracts, hires, and retains high-quality talent at scale in a competitive labor market. Partnering closely with senior business leaders and HR, the Director sets strategy and ensures prioritization aligns with business needs, capacity, and enterprise workforce plans.
This leader builds and develops a high-performing TA team, leverages data and market insights to inform decisions, and ensures compliance with all employment laws. Success in this role requires a blend of strategic vision and operational excellence, with a strong-understanding of the unique talent dynamics within the restaurant industry.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Hiring Strategy & Demand Shaping
- Own Talent Acquisition strategy aligned to enterprise talent and workforce plans, ensuring the function delivers against hiring demand while operating within approved headcount
- Shape and sequence hiring demand in partnership with HRBPs, Finance, and business leaders; make prioritization and tradeoff decisions across competing hiring needs
- Partner with Workforce Planning on headcount forecasting, position approvals, and executive leadership staffing governance
Team Leadership & Performance - Lead and develop the talent acquisition team, establishing clear expectations for intake rigor, requisition health, and candidate experience
- Drive team performance through capacity planning, workload balancing, and aging requisition management; ensure stable recruiter workloads and reduced stalled searches
- Oversee the calibration and development of recruiters across all levels, ensuring title and scope alignment to the future-state operating model
Stakeholder Partnership & Escalation - Serve as final escalation point for complex or high-impact hiring issues, including executive-level intake, offer negotiations, and hiring manager disputes
- Partner with Compensation, HRBPs, and hiring managers on role scoping, leveling, and competitive offer strategy
- Represent Talent Acquisition in executive-level staffing discussions, and cross-functional talent initiatives
Operational Excellence - Establish and enforce intake discipline, sourcing standards, and quality benchmarks across Talent Acquisition
- Monitor, report on, and drive excellence in recruiting KPIs including time-to-fill, hiring quality, candidate experience, and requisition aging
- Drive continuous improvement in recruiting workflows in partnership with TA Operations and Technology teams
- Partner with the shared services model and TA Operations for sourcing support, scheduling, and candidate coordination to maximize recruiter capacity and efficiency
Agency & Vendor Management - Manage all recruitment agency relationships including vendor selection, performance management, and contract terms
- Oversee agency invoice tracking, spend management, and dashboarding/metrics to ensure cost-effectiveness and ROI
- Ensure agency usage aligns with the capacity model and is deployed strategically for hard-to-fill or surge hiring needs
EDUCATION QUALIFICATIONS - 4 Year Degree / Bachelor's preferably in Human Resources, Business Administration, or related Field
- Preferbaly MBA or related graduate degree
EXPERIENCE QUALIFICATIONS - 10+ years leading corporate/professional recruiting teams
- Experience managing recruiting functions supporting 400+ annual requisitions across multiple business functions
- Multi-brand, high-growth, or complex matrixed organization; restaurant, hospitality, or consumer industries strongly preferred
- Proven ability to influence senior leaders on hiring strategy, role design, and workforce prioritization
REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS or ABILITIES - Applicant Tracking Systems (preferred: Workday), CRM/automation platforms (preferred: Paradox), LinkedIn Recruiter, Indeed
- Executive-level communication, storytelling, and stakeholder influence
- Capacity planning, demand forecasting, and data-driven decision-making
- Team development, coaching, and performance management
- Strong business acumen with ability to connect talent decisions to business outcomes
- Change management and organizational transformation experience
- Budget awareness and ability to manage recruiting spend and agency costs
- Experience integrating workforce planning with talent acquisition strategy
- Familiarity with contingent workforce and flexible staffing models
Inspire is a multi-brand restaurant company whose portfolio includes more than 33,000 Arby's, Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin', Jimmy John's, and SONIC restaurants worldwide.
We're made up of some of the world's most iconic restaurant brands, but we're much more than just a restaurant company. We're a team of hundreds of thousands who individually and collectively are changing the way people eat, drink, and gather around the table. We know that food is much more than a staple-it's an experience. At Inspire, that's our purpose: to ignite and nourish flavorful experiences.
Job Tags
Contract work, Worldwide, Flexible hours