Vice President of Human Resources

Vice President of Human Resources

We are looking for a Vice President of Human Resources who understands that great HR is about more than policies, benefits, and compliance. It is about building the workforce a growing company needs quickly, intelligently, and without wasting money.

This is a hands-on executive leadership role reporting to the Chief People Officer. The Vice President of Human Resources will lead the HR function for a designated department, oversee a team of talent acquisition professionals, HR generalists, and benefits coordinators, and serve as a strategic partner to department leadership.

The right person knows how to build and lead a strong internal recruiting function, but also understands that internal recruiting cannot and should not solve every hiring problem. You know how to strategically use outside staffing firms, specialized recruiters, contract talent, contract-to-hire arrangements, and direct-hire partners when they can deliver better or faster results.

Just as importantly, you know when not to use them.

You understand the economics behind hiring. You can look at a position and determine whether it makes sense to hire directly, use a third-party recruiter for a permanent placement, bring someone in contract-to-hire, or temporarily supplement the team with contract labor.

You don't blindly approve a 30–50% staffing markup for six or twelve months when the business could have hired the person directly. At the same time, you recognize when paying that markup makes perfect sense because the company needs flexibility, speed, specialized talent, reduced hiring risk, or immediate capacity.

What You'll Own

Reporting to the Chief People Officer, you will own the Human Resources function for your designated department and lead a team that includes talent acquisition professionals, HR generalists, and benefits coordinators.

Your responsibilities will include talent acquisition, workforce planning, employee relations, compensation, benefits coordination, performance management, compliance, organizational development, leadership support, HR policies, employee engagement, onboarding, retention, and HR systems.

You will ensure that your team delivers consistent, responsive, and business-focused HR support while aligning with the broader people strategy established by the Chief People Officer.

A major part of your responsibility will be workforce strategy and talent acquisition.

You will partner directly with department leaders, Finance, Operations, and the Chief People Officer to understand upcoming hiring needs rather than waiting for requisitions to land on HR's desk. You should be able to anticipate talent gaps, understand project timelines, identify difficult-to-fill positions early, and develop a hiring strategy before a staffing problem becomes an operational problem.

You will lead and hold accountable the talent acquisition team supporting your department, establishing clear expectations around sourcing, candidate quality, speed, communication, interview coordination, offers, candidate experience, and time-to-fill.

When internal recruiting is the best solution, you will make sure the internal team executes.

When an outside partner can produce a better result, you will know when to make that call.

You will develop and manage relationships with outside staffing agencies, executive recruiters, niche recruiting firms, and contract labor providers in partnership with the Chief People Officer and appropriate internal stakeholders. You will negotiate agreements, rates, markups, conversion terms, guarantees, and service expectations while holding vendors accountable for performance.

You will also create discipline around how your department uses staffing companies. Managers should not be independently spending significant amounts on contract labor simply because it is the fastest or easiest option. Your team should understand the business requirement, evaluate the alternatives, and help determine the most effective hiring structure.

Leading Your HR Team

You will directly lead and develop the HR professionals assigned to your department, including talent acquisition team members, HR generalists, and benefits coordinators.

You will establish clear priorities, define service expectations, coach team members, monitor workload and performance, and ensure that HR support is consistent across the department.

You will also ensure effective coordination among your team members. Talent acquisition should be aligned with workforce planning and onboarding. HR generalists should have the information and support needed to manage employee relations and performance matters. Benefits coordinators should provide accurate, timely, and responsive support to employees and leaders.

You will identify gaps in capability, improve processes, and ensure your team operates as a trusted partner to the department rather than as a reactive administrative function.

You will escalate significant employee relations, compliance, compensation, benefits, or organizational risks to the Chief People Officer while maintaining appropriate ownership of day-to-day HR leadership for your designated department.

You Understand the Numbers

This role requires someone who can speak the language of both people and finance.

If a department wants ten contract-to-hire employees, you should be able to sit down with the department leader, Finance, and the Chief People Officer and understand the actual cost.

What is the hourly pay rate? What is the agency markup? What will those employees cost over six months? Nine months? Twelve months? What would direct employment cost? What risk or flexibility are we purchasing with the additional spend? At what point does conversion make financial sense?

Sometimes contract-to-hire is absolutely the right decision.

Sometimes direct hire is the right decision.

Sometimes paying a recruiting firm a one-time placement fee is considerably less expensive than carrying a staffing markup for months.

We want someone who knows the difference and can clearly explain the recommendation to department leadership and the Chief People Officer.

Beyond Recruiting

Talent acquisition is important, but this is still a true VP of Human Resources position.

You will serve as a trusted advisor to department leadership and the Chief People Officer while helping build an organization where strong performers want to stay and leaders know how to lead.

You will oversee employee relations and difficult personnel matters within your designated department, ensure compliance with applicable employment laws and regulations, strengthen performance management, support compensation and benefits processes, improve onboarding and retention, implement HR policies and procedures, and ensure the department has effective and scalable HR support.

You will help identify organizational problems before they become expensive problems.

That means understanding turnover patterns, compensation issues, management weaknesses, employee relations concerns, recruiting bottlenecks, workforce capacity, succession risks, benefits concerns, and departments that may be solving personnel problems by simply adding more headcount.

You will work closely with the Chief People Officer to ensure department-level HR priorities are aligned with the company's broader people strategy.

We want HR to have a seat at the table because HR understands the business—not simply because HR owns the employee handbook.

Who We're Looking For

You have significant HR leadership experience and have operated at the Director, VP, Head of HR, or comparable level in an organization with meaningful hiring volume and complexity.

You have experience leading HR teams that include talent acquisition professionals, HR generalists, benefits coordinators, or comparable HR specialists.

You have personally managed or led internal recruiting teams and know how to measure whether they are actually performing.

You have substantial experience working with third-party staffing and recruiting firms and understand direct hire, permanent placement, contract staffing, contract-to-hire, temporary labor, conversion structures, markups, guarantees, and vendor negotiations.

You are comfortable challenging both sides of the equation. You can tell an outside staffing firm that its pricing or performance isn't acceptable, and you can tell an internal department leader that their preferred hiring approach doesn't make financial or operational sense.

You are comfortable reporting to and partnering with a Chief People Officer. You can operate independently within your designated department while maintaining alignment with enterprise-wide HR strategy, policies, and priorities.

You are process-driven without becoming bureaucratic.

You move quickly without becoming careless.

You understand compliance without allowing HR to become an obstacle to the business.

You know how to lead through influence, build credibility with operational leaders, and develop a team that delivers high-quality HR support.

The goal is to get the right people into the right roles, at the right speed, through the hiring channel that makes the most sense for the business.

What Success Looks Like

Within this role, we expect to see better workforce planning, faster hiring, stronger candidates, greater accountability from the talent acquisition team, better-performing external staffing partners, lower unnecessary agency spend, smarter use of contract-to-hire, improved retention, stronger HR processes, responsive benefits support, effective employee relations, and better visibility into the true cost of talent across your department.

Success also means building a capable, accountable HR team that department leaders trust and employees can rely on.

Ultimately, we are looking for an HR executive who can report effectively to the Chief People Officer while walking into a department leadership meeting and contributing to conversations about people, operations, budgets, growth, risk, and execution.

If your view of HR is primarily administration, this probably isn't the role.

If you believe HR should help the company build the workforce required to execute its business plan and you know how to lead a team and make that happen, we want to talk to you.

Pay: $175,000.00 - $250,000.00 per year

Benefits

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Flexible spending account
• Health insurance
• Health savings account
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Parental leave
• Professional development assistance
• Retirement plan
• Vision insurance

Application Question(s)

• Are you currently employed with your current company? If so, what is motivating you to consider leaving, and what would need to be different in your next organization for you to make a move?
• Talk to me about your experience balancing an internal talent acquisition team with outside staffing and recruiting agencies. How do you decide which roles stay internal versus when it makes sense to engage an outside partner?
• What’s a challenge you’ve been trying to solve where you haven’t quite found the right vendor or solution yet; particularly something you already have budget allocated for?

Work Location: Remote