This is a senior leadership role with responsibility for shaping and delivering the CMS approach to talent acquisition, strategic workforce planning and resourcing.
Working closely with the Chief People Officer, partners and business leaders, you’ll translate business priorities into practical workforce and hiring plans, helping CMS secure the people, skills and capabilities needed to support its growth strategy.
You’ll lead the full talent acquisition remit, including lateral partner recruitment, experienced hires and early careers, as well as talent pipelines, employer brand and attraction, selection and assessment, candidate experience, recruitment technology, data and governance.
You’ll also help shape how CMS approaches resourcing more broadly, considering how permanent talent, flexible resources, alternative delivery models and AI-enabled solutions can support productivity, client service and sustainable growth.
What you’ll do
Lead talent acquisition: Set the direction for talent acquisition across lateral partners, experienced hires and early careers, aligning hiring activity and priorities with the firm’s business strategy.
Develop talent pipelines: Build sustainable and diverse pipelines for priority skills and roles, creating stronger access to talent for both current and future business needs.
Shape employer brand and attraction: Develop the firm’s employer brand, employee value proposition and attraction approach, using market insight and targeted activity to reach relevant and diverse talent.
Lead lateral partner recruitment: Work with firm leadership and practice groups to understand strategic priorities, identify relevant markets and talent, develop relationships with prospective lateral partners and support appointments that contribute to growth.
Improve recruitment effectiveness: Develop inclusive and effective selection, assessment and hiring processes, with a consistent focus on candidate and partner experience, quality of hire and efficient decision-making.
Develop the resourcing strategy: Shape an agile approach spanning direct hiring, lateral partner recruitment, contingent labour, outsourcing and alternative resource models. You’ll also contribute to the firm’s evolving thinking about how human talent, flexible resources and AI-enabled solutions can work together.
Lead strategic workforce planning: Translate business strategy and anticipated demand into workforce, capability and hiring plans, balancing immediate priorities with longer-term requirements.
Provide market intelligence and insight: Use labour-market data, competitor intelligence, recruitment analytics and workforce insight to identify talent opportunities and risks and provide clear recommendations to senior stakeholders.
Lead early careers recruitment: Shape recruitment across the firm’s early careers programmes, balancing current business requirements with the need to build sustainable future talent.
Lead and develop the talent acquisition team: Set clear priorities and expectations, create alignment across the different areas of talent acquisition and maintain delivery through changing business priorities.
Strengthen governance and supplier management: Maintain appropriate recruitment governance and oversight of external suppliers, using data and insight to assess effectiveness, cost and outcomes.
What you’ll bring
Essential experience and capabilities
We’re looking for someone who can bring:
Significant senior-level experience leading an end-to-end talent acquisition function within a complex, commercially focused organisation, together with experience in strategic workforce planning and resourcing.
The ability to translate business strategy into practical workforce requirements, capability plans and hiring priorities.
Experience developing workforce and resourcing strategies that support growth, productivity and organisational resilience.
Leadership experience across a broad talent acquisition remit, which may include lateral partner or…