Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition - Construction

Position: Senior Manager to Associate Director, Talent Acquisition

Reports To: Executive Leadership (People / HR Leadership)

Location: Chicago (Hybrid)

Travel: Occasional travel to project sites and affiliated entity locations to support field hiring

Compensation: Competitive base salary commensurate with experience, plus a performance-based bonus, participation in the company's Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), and a comprehensive benefits package.

We're partnering with a rapidly growing Chicago-based general contractor with 200+ employees, and a clear trajectory to grow to more than 500 employees and over $1B in revenue to find an exceptional Sr. Manager of Talent Acquisition to join their HR team. This is a newly created role established to get ahead of that growth: the requisition load has moved from fewer than ten a year ago to roughly twenty to twenty-five today and is projected to reach thirty-five or more as additional awards land.

The company is seeking a builder to own hiring end to end and to establish talent acquisition as a company-wide standard and Center of Excellence.

• Function Ownership & Executive Partnership:
  You will own talent acquisition end to end and serve as the single, all-encompassing owner of hiring across the organization, partnering directly with executive leadership, project executives, and field leaders. You will operate as a strategic advisor on workforce planning and go-to-market for talent rather than a transactional order-taker, establishing TA as a recognized company-wide standard and cultural attribute. Over a six to eighteen month horizon you will grow from hands-on operator into the leader of a Talent Acquisition Center of Excellence with runway across additional entities and future acquisitions.
• Hands-On Full-Desk Builder:
  You will be a full-desk operator from day one, personally sourcing, screening, and closing high-touch and confidential searches while you build the function around you. You will earn credibility with hiring managers and field leaders by delivering results in the seat, not by delegating the work. You understand that this is a role that rewards rolling up your sleeves now in exchange for a clear path to a strategic Associate Director or Director seat.
• TA Infrastructure & Systems Ownership:
  You will stand up the infrastructure that a scaling TA function requires rather than execute an existing playbook, taking personal ownership of the build across the applicant tracking system and workforce-planning tools, structured interview guides, employer brand, candidate experience, and quality-of-hire calibration. You will push structured, criteria-based hiring down to hiring managers and field leaders, moving the organization away from gut-feel decisions toward defined behavioral and technical evaluation.
  
  You will treat these systems as your own initiatives to design and land, not projects to hand off.
• Award-Driven Staffing Command:
  You will command award-driven staffing in a federal construction environment, building pipelines ahead of contract award, running kickoff and mobilization staffing, and forecasting a growing requisition load without falling into a reactive posture. You will recruit across both corporate roles and niche field roles, including superintendents, QC managers, safety and SSHO personnel, estimators, and project managers, and you will manage the mandatory QC and safety hiring cadence that federal awards require.
  
  You will build durable pipelines that anticipate demand rather than chase it.
• Builder's Mindset & Cultural Fit:
  You will bring an authentic builder's mindset and a genuine appetite for the growth trajectory this role offers, valuing the title and the path to leadership while embracing the hands-on work required to get there. You will thrive in a fast-moving, award-driven environment and take ownership of outcomes tied directly to project delivery. A candidate who wants only strategic oversight and will not personally carry a desk, or who operates reactively and waits for requisitions to arrive, will not succeed in this role.