Talent Acquisition Business Partner

Up Education; Auckland; On-site; NZD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

UP Education is seeking a Talent Acquisition Business Partner to lead recruitment for a designated portfolio across our New Zealand and Australia operations. You will work with senior leaders and HR Business Partners to understand workforce priorities and translate them into practical recruitment and talent plans.

Reporting to the Talent Acquisition Lead, you will manage a varied portfolio, handling senior, complex, sensitive, and business-critical appointments while guiding TA Specialists and

Qualifications

• Proven recruitment experience delivering senior and complex appointments.
• Able to partner with leaders and HRBPs to translate workforce priorities into plans.
• Able to challenge requests and guide stakeholders to fair hiring decisions.
• Strong digital fluency and practical AI literacy; evaluate outputs for bias and privacy.

Responsibilities

• Build senior business partnerships with leaders and HRBPs.
• Shape workforce and talent responses across external and internal sourcing.
• Personally deliver complex recruitment from scoping to onboarding coordination.
• Develop talent pipelines for priority capabilities and reduce reliance on advertised flow.
• Advise on assessment methods, data, and decisions to improve delivery.

Skills

Recruitment experience

Stakeholder management

AI literacy

Job description

UP Education brings together education providers across New Zealand and Australia, delivering vocational training, higher education and university pathway programmes.

Our businesses have different disciplines, operating environments and workforce needs. For Talent Acquisition, that creates meaningful work: understanding what each business needs, advising leaders on their options and finding people who can contribute to its success. You'll join a group where recruitment calls for commercial awareness, local market knowledge and the ability to work across organisational boundaries.

Job Description

Please note, this role will start in January 2027.

This role is for a recruitment professional who loves influencing talent decisions and bringing hiring managers along through the process.

As the Talent Acquisition Business Partner, you'll be the senior TA partner for an allocated entity portfolio, working with leaders and HR Business Partners to understand workforce priorities and translate them into practical recruitment and talent plans.

Reporting to the Talent Acquisition Lead, you'll manage a varied recruitment portfolio, taking responsibility for senior, complex, sensitive and business-critical appointments. You'll also provide professional guidance to TA Specialists and work with colleagues across the group as recruitment needs change.

Key Responsibilities

• Build senior business partnerships: Understand your entities' priorities, challenge hiring assumptions constructively and provide credible advice to leaders and HRBPs.
• Shape workforce and talent responses: Consider external hiring, internal talent, capability development and alternative resourcing approaches when recommending solutions.
• Personally deliver complex recruitment: Own critical appointments from scoping and sourcing through assessment, offer management and onboarding coordination.
• Strengthen proactive sourcing: Develop talent intelligence and engaged pipelines for priority capabilities, reducing reliance on advertised applicant flow.
• Apply sound judgement and improve practice: Advise on assessment and high-risk matters, guide TA Specialists, and use recruitment data, market insight and technology to improve decisions and delivery.

Qualifications

You'll bring proven recruitment experience, including personal delivery of senior, complex or sensitive appointments. You'll be able to demonstrate both effective business partnership and strong recruitment execution. You're comfortable advising senior leaders, explaining trade-offs and constructively challenging requests to help stakeholders make fair, well-informed hiring decisions.You'll also bring:

• Experience developing proactive sourcing strategies and talent pipelines.
• Strong knowledge of structured assessment, skills-based hiring and fair recruitment practice.
• The ability to turn workforce, recruitment and market information into clear recommendations.
• Experience guiding recruitment colleagues and hiring managers.
• Strong digital fluency and practical AI literacy, including critically evaluating outputs and applying judgement around accuracy, bias and privacy.

Experience recruiting in Australia, or a sound understanding of Australian employment practices and the recruitment market, is desirable. Experience in education or another complex, multi-entity organisation would also be valuable.

Additional Information

We welcome different backgrounds and perspectives and are committed to a fair, consistent recruitment process. If you need an adjustment to participate, please let us know.

Questions about your identity help us appreciate the diversity of individuals looking to work with us, ensuringwe're attracting applications from people with identities and perspectives that are as diverse as our students.

We are an equal opportunity employer. As part of our commitment to equity, we work to ensure a fair and consistent interview process. We celebrate diversity and we are committed to an inclusive work environment.