Talent Acquisition Specialist

Join a dynamic People and Culture team dedicated to fostering a thriving, inclusive workplace at the Arboretum. In this role, you’ll guide the recruitment and selection process to attract exceptional talent, partner with supervisors to support career growth, and help shape strategies that strengthen employee engagement across the organization. The selected individual will join a team dedicated to supporting the needs of the Arboretum staff, which helped earn the designation as a Chicago Tribune Top Workplace for five consecutive years. If you’re a proactive HR professional who values collaboration, innovation, and meaningful employee connections, we invite you to bring your expertise and energy to our team.

Location: Hybrid (The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL) 

Position Summary: Lead the recruitment, selection, and staffing functions for the People and Culture department. Partner with supervisors to ensure a talent acquisition process that attracts and retains top talent, and support managers in facilitating career mobility for their team members. As part of the People and Culture team, promote positive employee relations and foster employee engagement. 

Essential Functions:

• Lead the recruitment, selection, and onboarding process. Advise hiring supervisors on related human resources concepts, principles, and practices. Assist in screening candidates. Keep abreast of legal and best practices pertaining to hiring and recruiting, ensuring processes remain relevant and compliant. Develop and maintain recruiting and hiring guidelines and track recruitment metrics.

• Serve as administrator of the applicant tracking system. Prepare positions for posting, and work with supervisors to generate appropriate screening questions and surveys. Train and support supervisors on the use of the applicant tracking system and best hiring practices to meet their recruiting needs. 

• Develop sourcing strategies to attract top candidates, including generating partnerships with schools, groups, networks, and other community organizations.  

• Draft, review, and maintain job descriptions in collaboration with managers/supervisors and the director of people and culture to ensure consistency and alignment with organizational needs. Support employees and leaders with guidance on pay practices and job classifications, and support the implementation of compensation changes with communication and documentation as needed.

• Partner with managers to facilitate internal career mobility by coordinating the promotion and transition process; serve as a subject matter expert on organizational changes to ensure consistency in role leveling, compensation alignment, and employee onboarding during internal shifts.

• Initiate the onboarding process by ensuring that hiring documents and background screening is accurately processed and recorded. Collaborate with people and culture team and hiring supervisors to ensure a smooth onboarding process for new employees.

• Oversee and review data entry related to talent acquisition and mobility in the HCM, and serve as a backup for data entry into the system. 

• Demonstrate alignment with the Arboretum’s employee core values.

• Other duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities: Serve in a supervisory capacity of one or more employees, providing leadership guidance and communicating the organization's goals. This includes:

• • Hiring, training, coaching and developing team members, by providing recognition and feedback, and evaluating performance 

  • Ensuring that team members adhere to the Arboretum’s policies and procedures, and maintaining a safe and compliant work environment

  • Building and maintaining positive working relationships with team members, colleagues, and other stakeholders to foster a collaborative and supportive work environment

Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree preferred. 3+ years of direct talent acquisition experience required, with broad human resources experience preferred. Ability to handle sensitive information in a confidential manner required. Excellent verbal and written communication skills required. Proficiency with Google applications beneficial; applicant tracking systems, and HR/Payroll systems required. Project coordination skills with a high attention to detail and accuracy and the ability to manage multiple tasks, all at various stages of execution. Ability to adapt to changes with new technologies and evolving trends. 

Success Factors: Outgoing, friendly, and energetic individual who is able to relate effectively with people of diverse cultural backgrounds, education, ages and experiences. Highly organized individual who can handle multiple tasks with frequent interruptions. 

Physical Demands and Work Environment: The physical demands and work environment characteristics described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions.

• Physical Demands: Requires some physical activity:  operating a computer for prolonged periods.

• Work Environment: Office environment. 

• Equipment: General office equipment.

The expected hiring range for this position is annualized at $60,000-$66,000 based on experience. Experience and qualifications will be evaluated during the candidate selection process. We believe in the importance of pay equity and consider the internal equity of our current team members as a part of the final offer. This position is also eligible for a competitive benefits package. 

For full consideration, please include a resume and cover letter with application.

The Morton Arboretum is a champion for diversity, supporting a culture of inclusion that attracts, inspires, and engages people to achieve success. The Arboretum is committed to hire and develop employees based on job-related qualifications irrespective of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, or veteran status. The Morton Arboretum is dedicated to complying with our obligations as an equal-opportunity employer. All applicants are guaranteed equal consideration for employment.