Principal Recruitment Partner

Principal Recruitment Partner- Delivery

Hays, Rushden

About Hays:

At Hays, we believe in being long-term partners to our people and customers. As a global leader in specialist recruitment and workforce solutions, we’re passionate about delivering exceptional outcomes and creating a best-in-class experience for our clients.

As a Principal Recruitment Partner, you'll support the delivery of recruitment services across the Kier MSP account, specialising in the recruitment of white-collar professionals.

This is a blended role, with around 50% of your time focused on leading and developing a team of three, and 50% dedicated to hands-on recruitment delivery. Working closely with, and reporting into the Client Manager, you'll help drive account performance, build strong client relationships and ensure an excellent recruitment experience for hiring managers and candidates alike.

What you'll be doing:

Recruitment Delivery

• Manage end-to-end recruitment activity across a range of white-collar vacancies.

• Partner with hiring managers to understand hiring needs and provide recruitment advice.

• Work closely with sourcing teams and suppliers to attract and secure quality talent.

• Manage vacancy progress, candidate experience and stakeholder communication throughout the recruitment process.

• Build talent pipelines to support future hiring requirements.

• Ensure all recruitment activity is compliant and accurately recorded within recruitment systems.

Stakeholder Management

• Build strong relationships with hiring managers and key client stakeholders.

• Provide market insight, recruitment guidance and service updates.

• Manage expectations and resolve recruitment challenges in a professional and solutions-focused way.

• Represent Hays as a trusted recruitment partner across the account.

Team Leadership

• Lead, coach and support a team of three Recruitment Partners.

• Encourage a collaborative, high-performing team culture.

• Provide regular feedback, guidance and development support.

• Help drive team performance against agreed objectives and service levels.

Account Performance

• Contribute to account targets and overall service delivery.

• Identify opportunities to improve recruitment outcomes and ways of working.

• Support reporting, workforce planning and continuous improvement initiatives.

What we're looking for

• Recruitment experience, ideally within MSP, RPO, construction, infrastructure or professional services environments.

• Previous experience coaching, mentoring or managing others.

• Strong stakeholder management and relationship-building skills.

• Ability to manage multiple vacancies and priorities in a fast-paced environment.

• Commercial awareness and a customer-focused approach.

• Strong communication, organisation and problem-solving skills.

• Confidence using recruitment systems and Microsoft Office applications.

• A proactive, professional and team-oriented mindset.

Our culture is driven by our valued behaviours; at Hays we encourage everyone to be:

Be bold and curious: we are ambitious, push outside our comfort zone and experiment

Own the outcomes: we strive for performance, see things through & always act with integrity

Be better together: we support, celebrate and share with each other to create stronger outcomes for all

Champion the customer: we proactively partner with our customers to build better, profitable solutions

What you will get in return:

• Culture built on rewarding success and the opportunity to influence your earning potential

• Best technology in the industry and a renowned training programme to support success and drive rapid career progression and ongoing development

• Flexible hybrid working patterns

• Opportunity to take your career globally

• Incentives and rewards to recognise performance both locally, regionally and nationally

• Broad range of employee wellbeing initiatives and benefits

• Referral bonus scheme

• Community of support networks from Hays Pride to Parents@Hays

• Paid charity day for all employees #HaysHelps and working closely with charity partners

At Hays, we know that diverse teams deliver better results, and that inclusion fuels our innovation. We’re committed to building a culture where different perspectives are embraced and where all of our people can flourish.

As an Equal Opportunities Employer, we see Diversity, Equity & Inclusion not just as the right thing to do but also as a business advantage. We welcome applicants from talented people of all backgrounds who want to grow with us & contribute to our shared success.