Talent Acquisition Lead

Mcchrystalgroup; Alexandria (VA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

McChrystal Group is seeking a Talent Acquisition Specialist to design, build, and operate a scalable recruiting strategy that supports the next phase of growth. You will partner with executive leadership, hiring managers, Finance, Operations, and Team People to attract, assess, and hire top talent across practice areas in a fast-paced, in-person environment.

The role emphasizes equity, performance metrics, and collaboration with internal stakeholders to maximize outcomes for all talent.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of in-house full-cycle recruiting experience.
• Experience recruiting mid-career and senior professional roles.
• Strong negotiation skills and closing offers.
• Familiar with compensation practices and market data.
• Advanced LinkedIn Recruiter experience for hard-to-fill roles.
• Experience drafting job descriptions with hiring managers.
• Agency or consulting recruiting experience preferred.
• Compliance experience with federal contractor recruiting preferred.

Responsibilities

• Manage full-cycle recruiting for open roles across all practice areas.
• Conduct intake meetings with hiring managers to define role requirements, evaluation criteria, interview panels, and timelines.
• Screen, assess, and advance candidates against agreed criteria.
• Coordinate interview process, scheduling, and debriefs.
• Carry a steady-state load of 8 to 12 concurrent searches.
• Extend offers and manage negotiations within approved compensation ranges.
• Manage pre-employment checks and onboarding handoff.
• Identify and elevate stalled searches and underlying causes.

Skills

Negotiation

Compensation knowledge

Advanced sourcing

Structured interviews

Professional presence

Communication

Recruiting data

Attention to detail

Education

Bachelor's degree in HR or related field

PHR/SPHR/SHRM certification preferred

Tools

LinkedIn Recruiter

Rippling (ATS)

Job description

About McChrystal Group:

McChrystal Group is a leadership and management consulting firm that partners with executive teams to solve their most complex performance and coordination challenges. Founded in 2011 by General (Ret.) Stanley McChrystal, we help organizations operate with the speed, alignment, and cohesion required to succeed in dynamic environments.

Our work is rooted in the Team of Teams® framework—a leadership system developed from General McChrystal’s transformation of the Joint Special Operations Command. We believe that enduring performance depends not just on strategy, but on how effectively leaders, teams, and systems work together under pressure.

McChrystal Group consultants work on small, high-impact teams tackling challenges that matter. The pace is demanding, the problems are complex, and the impact is tangible. People join McChrystal Group because they want to grow as leaders and do work that makes a difference.

Role Overview

The Talent Acquisition Specialist will work directly with executive leadership, hiring managers, Finance, Operations, and Team People to design, build, operate, and adapt a recruiting and talent integration strategy for all practice areas that drives critical business results in support of the next phase of growth for McChrystal Group.

This role requires expertise in designing and delivering highly attractive, scalable, and equitable talent acquisition processes; attention to performance metrics and market trends; and deep partnership with internal stakeholders in order to maximize outcomes for all human capital. As the talent facing representative of the McChrystal Group brand, this role must exercise an exceptional level of organizational, market, and interpersonal expertise to attract, assess, and influence skilled to executive level talent.

This is a full-time, in person position and it is our commitment that as you bring your best, we will bring ours to make the most of the time you invest here. Our mission is to grow a team that reflects the diversity of our clients and embodies the characteristics that are foundational to our Team of Teams philosophy. If that sounds aligned with your goals, we want to hear from you.

Full-Cycle Recruiting

• Manage full-cycle recruiting for open roles across all practice areas and levels, from intake through start date.

• Conduct intake meetings with hiring managers to define role requirements, evaluation criteria, interview panels, and decision timelines.

• Screen, assess, and advance candidates against agreed criteria.

• Manage the interview process, including scheduling, panel coordination, and debriefs.

• Carry a steady-state load of 8 to 12 concurrent searches, scaling during peak hiring periods.

• Extend offers and manage candidate negotiations within compensation ranges approved by the HR Director.

• Manage the pre-employment process, including background checks, references, and offer contingencies.

• Coordinate handoff to Team People for onboarding.

• Identify and elevate stalled searches, including the underlying cause, whether related to role profile, compensation, process, or market conditions.

Job Descriptions and Market Insight

• Draft and maintain job descriptions for all open roles in partnership with hiring managers.

• Maintain the firm's job description library and ensure consistency across practice areas and levels.

• Provide market data and compensation recommendations to the HR Director to inform rangesetting.

• Advise hiring managers on market conditions affecting a specific search, including salary expectations, candidate availability, and competitor hiring activity.

• Flag to the HR Director when the firm's compensation ranges appear out of step with the market or when an offer presents internal equity risk.

• Maintain current knowledge of talent trends in consulting and professional services.

Sourcing and Pipeline Development

• Source candidates directly using LinkedIn Recruiter, including complex Boolean and filtered search, in-platform projects, and outbound messaging.

• Build and maintain pipelines for recurring and hard-to-fill roles in advance of requisition approval.

• Document sourcing approaches by level and practice area.

• Maintain a candidate CRM and an alumni database, and re-engage former employees and prior finalists.

• Administer the employee referral program, including tracking, payout processing, and internal promotion.

• Manage agency and search firm relationships, including fee terms, guarantee periods, candidate ownership terms, and vendor performance.

Hiring Plan Support and Reporting

• Report search status to hiring managers on a daily to weekly cadence.

• Provide the HR Director and the management team with regular reporting on open requisitions, pipeline health, and risks to the hiring plan.

• Report time-to-fill and pipeline conversion, and recommend additional recruiting metrics appropriate to the firm's size.

• Support the HR Director in building and maintaining the firm's hiring plan, using inputs from Operations and Finance including utilization, bench, and sold work.

• Support proposal and pursuit teams with named-personnel identification and contingent commitments as engagements require.

Hiring Manager Enablement

• Train hiring managers on structured interviewing, scorecards, evidence-based evaluation, and legal boundaries.

• Develop and maintain process documentation and self-service resources for hiring managers.

• Recommend recruiting process improvements and supporting business cases for tools, sourcing channels, and programs.

• Coach contract or junior recruiting support as the firm adds capacity.

University, Intern, and Veteran Programs

• Maintain relationships at target schools, including career center contacts, faculty sponsors, and student veteran organization leads.

• Run the firm's summer intern program, including cohort selection, program structure, evaluation, and full-time conversion.

• Maintain the veteran and military transition pipeline and related organizational partnerships.

• Track conversion rates by channel across university, intern, and veteran programs.

Employer Brand and Candidate Experience

• Own how the firm presents itself to candidates, including job postings, careers content, and interview experience.

• Ensure every candidate has a consistent, professional experience regardless of outcome.

• Represent the firm credibly to senior candidates and articulate the value of the McChrystal Group method.

• Gather and act on candidate feedback to improve the process.

Recruiting Systems and Data

• Administer the applicant tracking system, including configuration, workflow design, and data hygiene.

• Maintain accurate requisition, pipeline, and offer data.

• Use AI tools to support sourcing, job posting quality, candidate communications, and interview documentation.

Compliance

• Maintain recruiting practices in compliance with employment law and internal policy, including consistent evaluation criteria and appropriate documentation.

• Execute federal contractor recruiting requirements under VEVRAA and Section 503, including outreach and recordkeeping, state workforce agency job listings, self-identification invitations, and applicant flow data.

• Support EEO-1 and VETS-4212 reporting.

• Maintain records required for audits and reporting.

• Support clearance-eligible hiring where engagements require it.

• Handle confidential candidate and compensation information with discretion at all times.

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or related field, or equivalent experience.

• PHR, SPHR, SHRM-CP, or SHRM-SCP preferred.

Experience

• 6 or more years of in-house full-cycle recruiting experience. Agency experience combined with in-house experience is acceptable; agency-only experience is not a substitute.

• Experience recruiting mid-career and senior professional roles.

• Demonstrated experience negotiating and closing offers with candidates at all levels.

• Working knowledge of compensation practices, including market data sources, benchmarking methodology, and internal equity.

• Experience building candidate pipelines through direct outreach.

• Experience drafting job descriptions in partnership with hiring managers.

• Professional services or consulting recruiting strongly preferred.

• Advanced LinkedIn Recruiter experience, including complex search construction and pipeline projects for hard-to-fill roles.

• Applicant tracking system administration experience. Rippling preferred.

• Federal contractor recruiting compliance experience, including OFCCP, VEVRAA, and Section 503, preferred.

• Campus, early-career, or intern program experience preferred.

• Agency and vendor management experience preferred.

• Military or veteran pipeline familiarity preferred.

• Experience using AI tools in recruiting workflows preferred.

Skills

• Strong negotiation skills, including the ability to manage compensation conversations with senior candidates, hold an approved range under pressure, and close offers while preserving the candidate relationship.

• Strong working knowledge of compensation, including how to read market data, apply it to a specific role, and build a defensible recommendation.

• Advanced sourcing skills, particularly LinkedIn Recruiter, for roles with a small qualified candidate population.

• Ability to design structured interviews and scorecards and train hiring managers to use them.

• Professional presence appropriate for representing the firm to senior candidates and partnering with practice leads.

• Clear written and verbal communication, including candidate outreach and job postings.

• Comfort with recruiting data and the ability to translate metrics into recommendations.

• High attention to detail, particularly in compliance documentation.

Abilities

• Ability to manage a high volume of concurrent searches while maintaining candidate experience and data accuracy.

• Ability to work independently, anticipate hiring needs, and follow through without close supervision.

• Ability to set expectations with hiring managers and communicate constraints directly.

• Ability to handle confidential candidate and compensation information with discretion at all times.

• Ability to build and maintain external relationships that produce candidates over time.

• Ability to establish and improve recruiting processes where limited process exists.

• Ability to adapt to changing priorities and remain organized in a fast-paced environment.

This is a full-time, in-office position. The Talent Acquisition Specialist is expected to work on-site Monday through Friday during standard business hours. Occasional additional hours may be required to support peak hiring periods, candidate availability, or campus recruiting timelines.

The role involves prolonged periods of sitting, regular use of a computer and office technology, and frequent interaction with candidates, employees, and hiring managers. Travel is required periodically, at approximately 10 percent, for campus recruiting, career fairs, and university relationship building. The work environment is professional and collaborative.