Head of Talent

The Head of Talent is responsible for organising recruitment around the company's needs and the priorities discussed with its leadership. Depending on the responsibilities assigned, they may also lead employee development, internal mobility or succession planning. The title alone therefore does not fully describe the role.

On the recruitment side, they turn managers' needs into priorities, organise candidate sourcing and structure assessment. They negotiate the resources needed, monitor activity and, when responsible for a team, support the recruiters they manage. Their work connects the company's decisions with their implementation in recruitment.

The development side needs to be defined separately. It may include training and development programmes for managers, or identifying employees who could fill future roles. FMBcapital's Head of Talent, Development & Performance role illustrates this variant. It does not automatically apply to a recruitment leadership role.

Head of Talent, recruitment manager and HR leadership: who does what?

• The Head of Talent may combine recruitment and talent development. The activities they actually lead must be specified.
• The recruitment manager and Head of Talent Acquisition focus on recruitment. Some organisations also assign them related activities, such as internal mobility.
• To distinguish the role from a Head of People or HR Director / CHRO, specify the HR responsibilities expected beyond talent. Do not assume the titles are equivalent.

The reporting line and decisions reserved for senior leadership must be explicit. At FMBcapital, the role reports to the group's HR lead. In another organisation, this relationship may differ. Managers remain involved in recruiting and developing their employees.

The first challenge is to make recruitment priorities clear so that senior leadership and managers can discuss them. When several managers request new hires, the Head of Talent must relate their needs to the company's plans and available resources. They provide senior leadership with the information needed to decide the order of searches and the budget to allocate to them.

Another challenge is consistency across the candidate journey. Sourcing, interviews and hiring decisions involve different people. Defining what each person should assess helps them work towards a shared understanding of the need. The Head of Talent helps coordinate this work and improve interview practices, without taking over from every team manager.

Activity data should inform decisions. Tracking conversion rates between stages can help identify where recruitment is running into difficulty. Interpreting these results also requires examining the profiles sought and the quality of assessment. A dashboard that prompts no questions about practices contributes little to managing recruitment.

Fictional example: a company observes that many applicants pass the initial conversation but that managers select few of them afterwards. Examining the criteria used at each stage may help explain this gap before choosing new sourcing channels. The difficulty does not necessarily stem from the recruiters.

When talent development is part of the role, the challenge extends to the skills the company needs to build. Programmes must align with managers' needs and training activities. Assigning this responsibility without specifying the decisions expected risks creating overlaps between managers' responsibilities. To avoid a poorly defined hire, distinguish the achievements expected in recruitment from those expected in development: success in the first area does not, on its own, demonstrate experience in the second.

• Define recruitment priorities with senior leadership and managers.
• Organise candidate sourcing and talent pools suited to the profiles sought.
• Structure selection stages with the managers who take part in interviews.
• Assess and negotiate the budget needed to meet recruitment objectives.
• Manage the recruiters reporting to them and support their development.
• Analyse recruitment indicators to propose improvements to practices.
• Coordinate recruitment providers according to needs and authorised resources.
• Organise talent development programmes with managers and training leads when assigned this responsibility.

Studies in human resources, occupational psychology, employment law, social sciences or management can prepare candidates for the role's responsibilities. Apec also mentions business schools, French institutes of political studies (IEP) with an HR specialisation, and engineering schools for the related role of recruitment manager. Educational requirements vary by employer and country: these routes do not constitute a mandatory qualification shared by all Heads of Talent.

For a role focused on recruitment, hands-on experience helps connect an understanding of different roles with conducting recruitment and working with managers. Experience in HR projects, employer branding or school and university relations can also contribute to this career path.

When the role includes a team, management experience brings skills distinct from personally sourcing candidates: organising recruiters' work, supporting their practices and developing the team.

For a role that extends to development, implementing programmes, analysing training needs or working on employees' career paths are useful experiences. Recruitment experience does not replace these skills.

GetPro structures assessment around a set of prioritised criteria, distinguishing what can be checked in a candidate's career history from what needs to be explored in an interview. An assessment method is defined for each criterion. Interviews use open questions and concrete examples. Reference checks help corroborate achievements and clarify points that remain open.

For a Head of Talent role, the steps below suggest criteria and exercises to adapt to the responsibilities assigned. They are advice for the employer, rather than a GetPro protocol specific to this role.

1. Build an assessment framework linked to the role

Define the criteria that will guide the decision with senior leadership and managers. Distinguish recruitment leadership, recruiter management and any talent development responsibilities.

For each criterion, specify what you want to observe. You might select the ability to prioritise needs, interpret data or explain a budget decision. Separate essential skills and experience from those that can be developed.

Clarify the decisions the role holder will be able to make independently. A candidate who negotiated a budget without deciding its allocation should be able to explain that limit.

2. Examine past achievements

Ask the candidate to present a recruitment assignment or project they personally led. Ask them to clarify the initial need, their role, the people involved and the decisions made.

Examine an anonymised job description, tracking dashboard or interview structure. Look for the connection between the problem described and the changes made.

A positive sign is a precise explanation of what the candidate and their team each achieved. A warning sign is taking personal credit for all results without describing others' contributions.

For a broader role, ask separately for an achievement in talent development. Do not treat recruitment experience alone as evidence of proficiency in training or succession programmes.

3. Use a case exercise based on the role’s responsibilities

Fictional example: several managers want to launch recruitment searches while the team's resources are limited. Ask the candidate what information they need to prepare a recommendation for senior leadership.

Invite them to propose priorities, a way to organise the work and indicators to track progress. Then change an assumption to observe how they adapt their reasoning.

Assess the consistency between their questions and recommendations. A positive sign is distinguishing available facts, assumptions and decisions requiring approval. A warning sign is an immediate solution without clarifying needs.

4. Explore management and dialogue in more depth

Ask how the candidate helped a recruiter improve their practice or discussed a difficult request with a manager. Ask them to specify the feedback given and the changes observed.

Observe their ability to express disagreement without leaving the other person without a solution. Look for a clear explanation of expectations and each person's responsibilities.

If the necessary expertise is not available internally, involve an experienced recruitment or development professional in the assessment, depending on the activities assigned. Share the same assessment framework with them.

5. Cross-check the evidence and decide

With the candidate's consent, speak to referees who can describe their work. Focus on points that still need clarification: autonomy, management or leading a project.

Compare their observations with the achievements presented, without treating a general opinion as evidence of every skill. Record points of agreement and questions that remain open.

Bring the assessors together to distinguish demonstrated skills and experience from impressions. Decide on the basis of the role's requirements and any support needs, without giving every criterion equal weight.