Talent Acquisition Specialist

The Opportunity

We are looking for an experienced Talent Acquisition Specialist who enjoys the strategy of recruiting just as much as the hands-on work. You will lead full-cycle searches across multiple KPFF offices, disciplines, and markets, helping teams find the engineers, designers, and business professionals who will shape the firm's next chapter.

This is an individual-contributor role with meaningful ownership. You will have room to build a search strategy, test ideas, share market feedback, and guide hiring teams when the original plan needs to change. Some searches will move quickly. Others will require patience, creativity, and a well-timed follow-up. If you like solving recruiting puzzles and building genuine relationships, you will find plenty to dig into here.

The Team

You will join a collaborative Talent Acquisition team that shares candidates, sourcing ideas, market intelligence, and lessons learned. You will have support when you need a second opinion and the autonomy to run with your work when you know the path forward.

Because we support independently operated offices, we spend a lot of time listening, asking good questions, and learning how each team works. We do not expect every search to follow the same formula, but we do care about clear communication, sound judgment, and a consistently strong candidate experience.

What You Will Be Doing

Lead Full Cycle Searches

• Independently lead full-cycle recruiting for technical, professional, and leadership positions across multiple offices, disciplines, locations, and experience levels.
• Start each search with a thoughtful intake that clarifies the business need, required and preferred qualifications, target candidate profile, decision process, timeline, and measures of success.
• Build and execute search strategies for difficult-to-fill roles using direct sourcing, talent mapping, referrals, professional networks, targeted research, and relevant recruiting platforms.
• Create personalized outreach that connects the opportunity and team with what matters to the candidate.
• Manage job postings, applicant flow, phone screens, interview coordination, feedback, references, offers, and search documentation in SmartRecruiters.
• Keep multiple searches moving while providing hiring teams and candidates with clear, timely communication.

Partner With Hiring Teams

• Build trusted relationships with hiring managers and operational leaders, bringing practical recommendations and a clear point of view to the search.
• Use market research, sourcing results, candidate feedback, compensation information, and recruiting data to evaluate search viability and guide decisions.
• Help teams recognize when qualifications, compensation, title, geography, interview practices, or timing may be limiting the available candidate pool.
• Recommend thoughtful adjustments when a search is not producing the needed results.
• Help teams distinguish essential qualifications from preferences and establish consistent, job-related evaluation criteria.
• Adapt your approach to the needs of independently operating teams while introducing consistent practices where they improve quality, efficiency, or candidate experience.

Know the Market and Build Relationships

• Apply knowledge of architecture, engineering, construction, consulting, or related technical talent markets to understand relevant skills, credentials, project experience, and career paths.
• Develop talent maps and competitive intelligence for priority disciplines, markets, locations, and experience levels.
• Build and maintain relationships with passive candidates, including people who may not be ready to make an immediate move.
• Translate market insight into clear guidance for hiring teams and realistic, relevant messaging for prospective candidates.

Improve How We Recruit

• Partner with Talent Acquisition teammates, coordinators, and administrative or operational staff to keep recruiting activities accurate and moving efficiently.
• Share candidates, sourcing approaches, market findings, and lessons learned across the team.
• Identify and help implement improvements to recruiting workflows, technology use, data quality, candidate engagement, and hiring-team practices, and contribute to recruiting or employer-brand initiatives that support priority talent markets.

What You Bring

• 5 or more years of full-cycle recruiting experience, including demonstrated ownership of complex or difficult-to-fill searches.
• Direct recruiting experience within architecture, engineering, construction, consulting, or a closely related technical environment is highly preferred.
• Demonstrated success finding and engaging passive candidates through LinkedIn Recruiter, Boolean search, talent mapping, professional networks, ATS or CRM databases, and other research methods.
• Experience partnering directly with hiring managers and business leaders to define needs, develop recruiting strategies, evaluate market conditions, and adjust search requirements when necessary.
• The ability to independently manage multiple searches with different disciplines, stakeholders, locations, priorities, and timelines.
• Strong judgment and the confidence to offer recommendations, raise concerns, and respectfully challenge assumptions when market information points to a different approach.
• Clear, engaging written and verbal communication with candidates and colleagues at different levels of an organization.
• Strong organization and follow-through, with attention to both the candidate experience and the details that keep a search moving.
• Experience using recruiting data, sourcing results, candidate feedback, and market information to assess effectiveness and guide decisions.
• Proficiency with an Applicant Tracking System and recruiting technology. Experience with SmartRecruiters is a plus.
• Comfort working in a decentralized environment where teams may have different business needs, processes, priorities, and decision-making styles.
• A collaborative, curious approach and the ability to build influence through trust rather than formal authority.

Work Environment and Flexibility

This is a work-from-home position, not a location-independent position. Candidates must be based in the United States and able to work standard business hours aligned with the Pacific or Mountain Time Zones. Team members who live near a KPFF office may have the option to work onsite or in a hybrid arrangement. Occasional travel for team meetings, recruiting activities, and office visits may be required.

Physical Demands and Work Environment

• Primarily a work-from-home role requiring prolonged periods of sitting, computer use, and participation in virtual meetings.
• Requires a reliable internet connection and a professional environment appropriate for virtual meetings and candidate conversations.
• Regular use of standard office technology, including a computer, headset, phone, and video conferencing tools.

Compensation

The anticipated base salary range for this position is $85,000 to $100,000. Final compensation will be determined based on the depth and relevance of the candidate's recruiting experience, including experience within architecture, engineering, construction, consulting, or related technical talent markets; demonstrated success leading complex searches; geographic location; and other job-related qualifications.

Culture and Benefits

At KPFF, you will have the autonomy to make an impact, colleagues who are willing to share what they know, and opportunities to keep building your craft. Our benefits support employees both at work and outside of it.

• Medical Plan Options: Choice of Traditional PPO or HDHP with HSA, including preventive care and prescription coverage.
• Flexible Spending Accounts: Tax-advantaged healthcare and dependent care accounts.
• Dental and Vision: Preventive care and coverage for additional dental and vision services.
• Employee Assistance Program: Confidential support for personal, family, and work-related needs.
• Life and AD&D Insurance: Company-provided life insurance equal to one year's salary, plus AD&D coverage.
• 401(k) Retirement Plan: KPFF contributes 3% of salary with no employee contribution required.
• Disability Insurance: Short-term and long-term disability coverage provided by KPFF.
• Paid Time Off: PTO, two floating holidays, and paid company holidays.
• Paid Family Leave: Six weeks at 60% pay, with the option to use available PTO to supplement income.

Work Authorization

This position is not eligible for employment-based visa sponsorship or transfer. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States without employer-sponsored visa support now or in the future.

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KPFF Consulting Engineers participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S.

KPFF Consulting Engineers is an equal opportunity employer and considers all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, creed, ethnicity, national origin, religion, marital status, sex/gender (including sexual orientation or gender identity), pregnancy, veteran status, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, or any other protected basis.