Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world.

Ricardo plc is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

The Role 

We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced Talent Acquisition Partner to join the Ricardo Talent Acquisition Centre of Excellence. TA is a critical function within Ricardo’s people function. The TA function is responsible for attracting, recruiting and hiring top talent. The Talent Acquisition Partner will play a lead role in ensuring Ricardo plc attracts and hires first-rate talent by providing an efficient, high quality, end-to-end recruitment service and candidate experience for all candidates; delivering on all KPIs/SLAs.

Additionally, the role calls for collaborative and innovative partnership with key stakeholders across all regional lines of business, including senior leaders and the management team, and internal HR peers. This role will report directly to the Group Head of Talent Acquisition and Strategic Workforce Planning. The position will be based in Michigan with the role requiring support for all North America hiring in line with our globally developed standards.

Key Responsibilities

- Talent Acquisition Planning & Partnering

• Act as a talent and resourcing expert, anticipating future hiring needs and delivering against forecasted demand.
• Align recruitment strategies with business priorities, planning for the next 12 to 24 months.
• Partner with internal leaders and business partners to understand hiring needs and provide strategic talent insights.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with leaders, agency partners, and direct candidates (both active and passive).
• Manage end-to-end recruitment, from demand identification to onboarding.
• Conduct proactive sourcing, building diverse talent pools and talent pipelines to address key skill areas and anticipated demand.
• Support internal talent mobility and identify opportunities for internal career progression.
• Anticipate hiring challenges, implementing proactive solutions to ensure effective demand management and timely fulfilment.
• Leverage various sourcing channels, with a focus on direct sourcing, to identify and engage prospective candidates.
• Ensure salary offers align with defined ranges and manage approvals and confidential negotiations.
• Oversee background checks, references, and assessments where required.
• Provide market intelligence and data insights to drive informed hiring decisions.
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of recruitment regulations, ensuring compliance.
• Stay informed on evolving talent acquisition strategies, tools, and best practices.
• Build a strong external network, attending industry events to expand the talent pipeline.

- Employer Brand, Diversity & Inclusion

• Embed employer brand and culture into all recruitment activities.
• Ensure a best-in-class candidate experience from recruitment through onboarding.
• Champion diversity and inclusion, ensuring underrepresented groups are well-represented in hiring decisions.
• Coach hiring managers on inclusive hiring best practices.
• Develop proactive, pipeline-led hiring strategies to support diverse hiring in competitive markets.

- Talent Acquisition Service Delivery

• Work within agreed SLAs, ensuring agility to meet evolving business needs.
• Take timely action to address SLA breaches or unexpected business demands.
• Ensure data accuracy and system integrity for all recruitment records.
• Manage third-party suppliers to ensure optimal service delivery.
• Continuously improve recruitment processes to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
• Provide meaningful recruitment insights and market intelligence to inform hiring decisions.
• Monitor and manage recruitment budgets, including attraction, agency, and third-party costs.

Key Competencies and Experience

• In-depth expertise and curiosity in all areas of Talent Acquisition especially culture and business transformation and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
• Proven track record of affecting a significant uplift in service delivery, team behaviour and capability, and leading hyper-growth talent acquisition.
• Data driven interest - connecting analytics to business outcomes with a technology-driven, analytical approach that is communicated meaningfully to all audiences.                           
• A good storyteller and a great visionary with the ability to create a sense of purpose and shared values.
• Experience of working in a team where first class performance, collaboration, transparency and exemplary behaviours are the norm.
• Experience of talent acquisition budget management and control.
• Generator of new ideas and better ways of doing things to optimise Talent Acquisitions performance.
• A developed organizational prowess and strong ability to prioritize and communicate effectively in demanding situations and change programmes.
• First-class communication skills with the gravitas to challenge, partner and influence at all levels of the organisation

Working here

You will be warmly welcomed into our workplace where every voice matters. We are diverse thinkers and doers, coming together to create a culture of inclusion. We will support you to find your place.

We will encourage you to use your passion and expertise to make a positive impact through the projects you work on.  Your knowledge and desire to bring about change will be invaluable in helping deliver innovative solutions that support communities across the globe in becoming safer and more sustainable.

Work life balance 

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that is working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential.

Benefits

We want you to know how much you are valued. Your remuneration and benefits package will reflect that. You will receive a range of benefits which include support for your physical and mental health. 

Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion statement

We are an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, color, religion, creed, gender identity. sexual orientation, pregnancy or pregnancy-related condition, marital or parental status (IL only), height, weight, national origin, citizenship status, age, domestic violence victim status, arrest record  or conviction record (MI only), genetic information, military or veteran status or disability, or any other classification protected by applicable federal, state, or municipal law. VEVRAA Federal Contractor.

Next steps

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date.

Ricardo is a Disability confident employer please advise the recruitment team via recruit@ricardo.com if you require any adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process.