Senior Talent Acquisition Manager

About Black Spectacles

Black Spectacles empowers architects to excel professionally through superior digital education and career advancement opportunities. The company operates as a remote, founder-led organization that values strategic growth by hiring the most suitable candidates rather than increasing headcount indiscriminately.

Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced Senior Talent Acquisition Manager to oversee and manage the comprehensive hiring system used to attract, evaluate, select, and onboard outstanding talent. The position requires a proactive leader who embraces our evidence-based, structured hiring philosophy and can enhance this system by applying deeper expertise.

This hands-on role involves personally sourcing, engaging, screening, and closing candidates while managing the entire recruitment process. The successful candidate is expected to independently drive the process while maintaining adherence to existing standards and systems.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop strong candidate pipelines for leadership, specialized, and challenging roles through targeted research, outbound sourcing, personalized contact, and relationship cultivation.
• Operate and uphold the rigorous structured hiring process, including scorecards, sourcing strategies, interview plans, assessments, and comprehensive candidate evaluations.
• Exercise sound talent judgment by distinguishing suitable candidates beyond basic qualifications, ensuring alignment with role requirements and company values.
• Collaborate with hiring managers to define role objectives, prepare for interviews, ensure evidence-based evaluation, and maintain discipline in hiring decisions.
• Continuously improve the existing recruitment system by identifying gaps and recommending enhancements, respecting the foundational philosophy in place.
• Build and maintain talent benches proactively to avoid starting searches from scratch when positions open.
• Integrate AI tools thoughtfully to augment candidate research, interview preparation, and assessment synthesis while ensuring human oversight remains central.

Expected Milestones

• Within 90 days: Fully take charge of active searches, build pipelines, enforce scorecards and sourcing plans, establish recruiting visibility, identify system improvements, and clarify the CEO’s recruiting role.
• Within 6 months: Develop talent benches, enhance outbound sourcing and referrals, advance AI usage in recruiting, and decrease reliance on external recruiters.
• Within 1 year: Substantially reduce CEO day-to-day involvement in recruiting, solidify internal hiring capabilities, and demonstrate improvements in quality of hire, retention, and role fit.

Candidate Profile

• A self-driven, thoughtful leader with persuasive communication and trust-building skills.
• Capable of promoting the company and opportunity authentically and swiftly without compromising standards.
• Efficient and methodical, balancing speed with structure and collaboration without heavy oversight.
• Confident in providing recommendations, challenging weak assumptions, and respecting proven processes.
• Accountable for measurable outcomes and able to work synergistically with senior leadership.

Non-Suitable Candidates

This position is not for HR generalists, recruiting coordinators, or those intending only advisory functions. Immediate delegation of sourcing or attempts to overhaul our established hiring philosophy are incompatible with this role.

Reporting Structure

The Senior Talent Acquisition Manager reports directly to the CEO and is responsible for the daily execution, measurement, and refinement of the hiring system. The CEO maintains oversight of the philosophy, talent standards, and final hiring decisions for critical roles.

Compensation and Benefits

The role offers a base salary between $145,000 and $180,000 annually, determined by experience and fit, alongside eligibility for company-wide performance bonuses.

Additional benefits include fully remote work flexibility, comprehensive healthcare coverage from day one, retirement plans with company matching, referral incentives, and biannual team events fostering unity and collaboration.

Location & Eligibility

Black Spectacles operates fully remotely across the United States. Candidates must be authorized to work in the US.

Requirements

• Minimum of 8 years in talent acquisition or executive recruiting, with direct experience sourcing and evaluating leaders and specialized hard-to-fill roles.
• Proven ability to attract and close passive candidates and manage structured recruiting processes.
• Expertise in outbound sourcing, candidate engagement, pipeline development, and collaboration with executive leadership.
• Deep understanding of role scorecards, interview designs, assessments, structured references, and evidence-driven debriefing.
• Strong talent judgment capable of constructively challenging premature or unsupported hiring decisions.
• Commitment to personally managing recruitment activities without immediate delegation.
• Preferred qualifications include formal training in structured hiring, experience with behavioral and cognitive assessments, career interview techniques, AI applications in recruitment, and experience improving established hiring systems especially in founder-led, remote SaaS, education, or professional services environments.