Head of Talent Acquisition and Management

Zutari; Pretoria; Presencial; ZAR 1.800.000 - 2.400.000; Tempo integral

Resumo da vaga

Zutari seeks a Head of Talent Acquisition and Management to lead an integrated talent agenda across Africa and the Middle East. You will drive recruitment, succession, internal mobility, and employer branding while partnering with business leaders and People teams to build sustainable pipelines for critical roles.

Role requires 10–12 years in talent acquisition and talent management, with hands-on leadership of diverse teams, and experience navigating country-specific employment and localisation

Qualificações

• Approximately 10–12 years’ relevant experience across talent acquisition and talent management.
• Experience delivering recruitment pipelines, talent reviews, succession planning, internal mobility and early-career programmes.
• Experience recruiting across African and/or Middle Eastern markets.
• Experience leading geographically dispersed teams across multiple countries.
• Experience using applicant tracking and talent systems, analytics and business testing.

Responsabilidades

• Develop and execute an integrated talent plan aligned to business strategy and project demand across Africa and the Middle East.
• Lead the talent team and personally undertake executive hiring and priority programme design.
• Own recruitment process requirements and ensure data quality and reporting.
• Lead employer branding and candidate attraction activities across relevant talent markets.
• Coordinate succession planning, internal mobility and retention initiatives.

Conhecimentos

Talent acquisition

Talent management

Executive hiring

Stakeholder management

People leadership

Formação

Bachelor’s degree in HR or related field

Honours or postgraduate qualification

Ferramentas

ATS systems

Descrição da vaga

Head of Talent Acquisition and Management - (HR-L10.3)

Requisition #

HR-L10.3

Job title

Head of Talent Acquisition and Management

Category

Human Resources

Contract type

Permanent (Employee)

Full Time

Description

Behind every transformative infrastructure project is a network of people, systems, and ideas working in sync.

We are a leading buildings, infrastructure engineering and advisory firm with over 90 years of experience across Africa and the Middle East. While our work shapes physical infrastructure, from schools to stadiums, dams to bridges, it is powered by the strength of our people and the systems that support them.

We are seeking individuals who bring clarity, structure, and insight to complex environments, enabling our teams to deliver meaningful, sustainable impact at scale.

Role overview

Lead an integrated talent agenda that attracts, deploys and retains the capability Zutari needs for growth and client delivery across Africa and the Middle East. Combine strategic leadership with hands-on execution across talent acquisition, employer brand, succession, internal mobility, emerging talent and retention.

Translate agreed workforce requirements into coordinated hiring and talent plans across Zutari’s operating regions in Africa and the Middle East. Lead the talent team, personally deliver critical recruitment and talent interventions, and partner with business leaders, working through People Business Partners to deliver talent programmes in their businesses and build sustainable pipelines for critical roles and skills.

Work with People Business Partners, who take forward succession actions with business leaders, and with the Head of Learning and Development, who owns leadership and capability development. Work with Organisational Effectiveness and Change on workforce and operating model insights, and with Reward on performance and retention implications.
Role responsibilities

Integrated talent strategy and workforce priorities

• Develop and execute an integrated talent plan aligned to business strategy, project demand, critical skills and approved workforce plans across Africa and the Middle East, balancing external hiring and internal deployment, and informing development priorities with the Head of L&D.
• Partner with business leaders, Finance and People Business Partners to translate validated demand into hiring forecasts, succession priorities and development investment. Review priorities as project demand changes.
• Define and monitor critical role and skills pipelines, agree accountable business sponsors and accelerate capacity gaps and delivery risks.
• Lead the combined team with clear responsibilities, service standards and delivery plans; personally undertake executive hiring, critical talent discussions and priority programme design.

Talent acquisition and recruitment delivery

• Lead end-to-end recruitment, from approved requisitions and role briefs through sourcing, selection, offers and handover to onboarding. Partner with People Operations and managers on joining readiness.
• Build pipelines for scarce and future skills across African and Middle Eastern talent markets through targeted sourcing, academic and professional partnerships, talent communities and referrals; personally support critical searches.
• Apply consistent, job-relevant assessment and selection standards. Coach hiring managers, reduce unnecessary interview stages and manage candidate experience and timely decisions.
• Manage recruitment partners, agency spend and recruitment budgets within delegation; use Reward-approved offer parameters and approval controls.
• Apply country-specific employment, immigration and localisation requirements in hiring, including employment equity in South Africa and nationalisation programmes in Middle Eastern markets; the designated DEI role, regional People teams and legal advisers own employment equity plans and compliance.
• Own recruitment process requirements and applicant tracking system use, data quality and reporting. Partner with OE and Technology on implementation, integrations and adoption.
• Monitor hiring timeliness, offer acceptance, early retention and agreed indicators of quality of hire; address bottlenecks without compromising assessment quality.

Employer brand and employee value proposition

• Lead development and activation of the employee value proposition with the CPO, Marketing, Reward, OE and business leaders. Ensure promises reflect the actual employee experience and can be delivered.
• Execute targeted employer branding and candidate attraction activities across relevant talent markets in Africa and the Middle East, with Marketing governing brand standards and channels.
• Use candidate and new-joiner feedback, talent market insight and recruitment outcomes to improve messaging and recruitment experience.

Succession and internal talent mobility

• Design and run talent reviews and succession planning for critical and leadership roles with business leaders and People Business Partners, using clear criteria and calibrated decisions.
• Assess successor readiness and agree exposure, deployment and development actions with People Business Partners, who own follow-through with named owners and review dates; monitor succession coverage and progress.
• Implement internal career and mobility frameworks that support movement across businesses, disciplines and countries, including cross-border moves between Africa and the Middle East; agree fair access, selection and release arrangements with leaders.
• Partner with OE and Reward on job families and role architecture, and own career pathways within the agreed architecture. L&D owns competency frameworks and development routes.
• Coordinate ownership nomination inputs where applicable, using agreed eligibility criteria and approval governance; nomination support does not confer ownership approval authority.

Emerging talent and retention

• Own the graduate programme and wider internship and early-career agenda end to end, connecting demand-led recruitment with assessment, onboarding, mentoring, development, placements and progression.
• Build academic partnerships and manage programme cohorts with business sponsors; monitor conversion, retention, development and progression outcomes.
• Identify critical talent retention risks with People Business Partners and leaders. Develop career and mobility responses, involving L&D on development needs and Reward where pay or benefits are implicated.
• Use exit, early-tenure and employee listening themes supplied by process owners and OE to improve talent practices; leaders and People Business Partners own individual retention actions.

Talent governance, analytics and functional interfaces

• Maintain talent policies, approval controls, provider governance and reliable records; protect confidential candidate and employee information and apply agreed access and retention controls.
• Produce integrated reports on recruitment, succession readiness, internal movement, emerging talent and retention risks across regions; use findings to prioritise action.
• Own talent process requirements, user acceptance testing and adoption for HRIS talent modules; OE leads the overall People business implementation and Technology owns technical delivery.
• Use engagement findings to inform acquisition, mobility and retention priorities. OE owns annual engagement and organisational pulse surveys, results analysis and enterprise action tracking; L&D owns leadership and development interventions.
• Business leaders own workforce demand, selection decisions, deployment and team outcomes. People Business Partners coordinate local workforce plans and lead delivery of talent programmes, succession actions and retention responses in their businesses. OE provides organisation design, workforce shape and operating model analysis; the Head of L&D owns leadership and capability development; DEI sits with the designated DEI role. The CPO resolves cross-functional priorities.

Measures of success

• Agree balanced targets with the CPO covering critical vacancy delivery, candidate experience, offer acceptance, early retention, succession readiness, internal mobility and emerging talent outcomes across Africa and the Middle East. Validate definitions and baselines with process owners; workforce and retention outcomes are shared with business leaders.
• Approximately 10–12 years’ relevant experience across talent acquisition and talent management (succession, mobility and emerging talent), including substantial delivery experience in both disciplines and at least five years leading teams or complex talent portfolios.
• Relevant degree in Human Resources, Industrial or Organisational Psychology, Business or a related discipline, or equivalent relevant professional experience.
• Honours or postgraduate qualification; relevant professional registration or talent assessment certification.
• Demonstrated delivery of recruitment pipelines, talent reviews, succession planning, internal mobility and early-career programmes.
• Experience personally delivering critical recruitment and talent interventions, influencing senior leaders and leading geographically dispersed teams across multiple countries.
• Experience recruiting across African and/or Middle Eastern markets, including working with country-specific employment, immigration and localisation requirements.
• Experience using applicant tracking and talent systems, analytics and business testing. Professional services, engineering or consulting experience is advantageous.

We believe that a diverse workforce is key to our business success. We seek the best people for our jobs based on their skills, qualifications, and experience. We embrace the principle of equal opportunity in employment, and we work towards eliminating all forms of unlawful discrimination in our employment practices. In support of diversity and the equal opportunity principle, preference will be given to individuals from designated groups.