Sr Talent Acquisition Recruiter (Strategic Hiring)

The Senior Recruiter, Strategic Hiring is responsible for building, maintaining, and optimizing forecast-driven talent pipelines for business-critical leadership and professional positions across Zachry Group. This role focuses on workforce readiness, talent market intelligence, and long-range candidate engagement to ensure the organization maintains access to highly qualified talent aligned with current and future business needs. Working closely with the Director of Strategic Hiring, Workforce Planning, and business leaders, this position translates workforce forecasts, business growth projections, and succession planning insights into targeted sourcing strategies and sustainable talent pipelines. The Senior Recruiter develops and maintains relationships with leadership talent, technical professionals, and other hard-to-find candidates while ensuring pipeline readiness and alignment with anticipated hiring demand. Unlike traditional requisition-based recruiting roles, this position emphasizes talent mapping, competitive intelligence, relationship development, networking, and pipeline management to support future workforce requirements. Success in this role requires a strong understanding of talent markets, creative sourcing strategies, and the ability to build candidate communities that support long-term organizational growth. This role primarily supports management, director-level, executive-level, and other business-critical positions across Engineering, Nuclear, Operations, Project Controls, Supply Chain, and other strategic functions throughout the organization. Develop, maintain, and optimize strategic talent pipelines for business-critical leadership and professional positions across Zachry. Translate workforce forecasts, succession planning insights, and business growth projections into targeted sourcing strategies and long-range talent acquisition initiatives. Build and maintain robust candidate inventories designed to support future hiring demand and reduce organizational talent risk. Establish and maintain talent pipeline targets based on workforce forecasts, tracking pipeline-to-demand ratios, candidate readiness, and projected hiring requirements to ensure adequate talent coverage for future business needs. Conduct talent mapping exercises to identify high-performing professionals, industry experts, emerging leaders, and passive candidates within targeted labor markets. Research competitor organizations and talent markets to identify potential candidate sources, talent concentrations, and emerging workforce trends. Develop and execute innovative sourcing strategies designed to identify difficult-to-find and highly specialized talent. Cultivate ongoing relationships with prospective candidates to ensure talent pipelines remain current, engaged, and aligned with forecasted workforce needs. Regularly evaluate talent pool quality, candidate availability, career progression, geographic mobility, and organizational fit. Conduct intake and discovery meetings with hiring leaders to understand future workforce requirements, critical skill needs, and anticipated hiring demand. Partner with recruiting team members to transition qualified candidate slates when hiring needs materialize. Monitor and report talent pipeline depth, readiness, coverage ratios, candidate conversion rates, and talent community engagement metrics. Measure and evaluate recruiting outcomes associated with conferences, networking events, industry associations, referrals, and sourcing initiatives. Attend targeted industry conferences, networking events, association meetings, and other professional gatherings to expand Zachry’s talent network and employment brand. Develop and present recommendations for new sourcing channels, recruiting technologies, networking initiatives, and talent attraction investments. Build relationships with industry leaders, professional associations, universities, trade organizations, and technical communities that support long-term workforce needs. Leverage labor market intelligence, competitive research, and industry trends to strengthen sourcing strategies and improve talent pipeline effectiveness. Ensure all recruiting activities are conducted in compliance with company policies and applicable federal, state, and local employment laws. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS Experience recruiting within industrial construction, engineering, EPC, energy, manufacturing, nuclear, infrastructure, or related industries. Executive search experience within a corporate, retained search, or agency recruiting environment. Experience recruiting leaders within Engineering, Operations, Project Controls, Supply Chain, Nuclear, Construction Management, or other technical disciplines. Established professional network within industrial construction, engineering, energy, manufacturing, or related talent markets. Experience supporting workforce planning, succession planning, or strategic talent acquisition initiatives. Experience using labor market analytics, talent intelligence tools, and workforce data to guide recruiting strategies. Professional certifications such as SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, SPHR, AIRS, CIR, CTS, or related recruiting certifications. Experience supporting large-scale project-based organizations. Demonstrated success creating innovative sourcing campaigns and identifying non-traditional talent channels. Experience evaluating recruiting effectiveness through pipeline metrics, networking event outcomes, and sourcing performance analytics. PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS Ability to sit, stand, walk, bend, and perform routine office-related activities. Ability to effectively communicate in person, virtually, and by telephone with candidates, employees, and business leaders. Ability to occasionally lift or move materials weighing up to 25 pounds. Ability to travel as necessary to support recruiting initiatives, networking activities, conferences, and business objectives. WORK ENVIRONMENT Hybrid work environment with regular collaboration in a Zachry office location. Position may be based in Houston, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; or Downers Grove, Illinois. Up to 25% travel for conferences, networking events, industry meetings, project site visits, recruiting initiatives, and candidate engagement activities. Occasional visits to active construction, industrial, manufacturing, engineering, or project locations where personal protective equipment (PPE) may be required. Work environment may include both professional office settings and industrial field environments. #LI-AR1