Talent Acquisition Manager

ROLE: Talent Acquisition Manager

REPORTS INTO: Director of People Operations

LOCATION: Primarily remote West Coast or in Southern California preferred.

TRAVEL: Less than 15% annually - subject to the employee’s home location. Periodic in-person meetings and offsites throughout the year, along with selected industry events.

What is a Talent Acquisition Manager at Salt+ Pinch

We are looking for a highly connected, proactive, and entrepreneurial Talent Acquisition Manager to help us identify and recruit exceptional talent across the experiential marketing, creative, production, strategy, design, and agency industries. This person will operate as a talent hunter, actively going into the marketplace to find exceptional people who may not be looking for a new opportunity.

The ideal candidate understands the agency and experiential marketing ecosystem and knows how to identify who worked on a major campaign, activation, brand experience, or creative project and then build a relationship with that person. The successful candidate will be equally comfortable attending an industry event, introducing themselves to a potential candidate, researching a Creative Director on LinkedIn, sending a highly personalized message, or partnering with leadership to sell an exceptional candidate on joining the company.

Job Responsibilities

Passive Talent Hunting

• Proactively identify exceptional talent across experiential marketing, creative agencies, production, entertainment, and adjacent industries.
• Research the people behind standout campaigns, activations, events, brand experiences, and creative work.
• Identify high-performing individuals who are not actively looking for a new role and develop relationships with them.
• Build and maintain a pipeline of future candidates across key creative and business disciplines.
• Reach out to passive candidates through LinkedIn, email, networking, referrals, and industry relationships.
• Develop personalized outreach that demonstrates an understanding of the candidate’s work and career.
• Act as a talent ambassador for the company and create excitement around potential opportunities.
• Develop and sustain inclusive sourcing frameworks and interview training programs to meet and exceed annual diverse hiring metrics.

Industry Networking & Talent Scouting

• Attend experiential marketing, creative, production, entertainment, and industry networking events.
• Attend agency events, conferences, award shows, portfolio reviews, panels, and other relevant gatherings to identify potential talent.
• Build relationships with people throughout the industry, not just candidates actively engaged in a search.
• Develop a strong personal network of creative directors, producers, strategists, designers, account leaders, project managers, and other agency professionals.
• Stay informed about who is producing the industry’s most interesting work and where that talent currently works.
• Represent the company professionally and authentically within the creative and experiential community.
• Turn industry relationships into long-term talent relationships.

LinkedIn Recruiter & Talent Research

• Use LinkedIn Recruiter as a primary tool for identifying and engaging passive candidates.
• Build targeted searches based on agency experience, specific skills, seniority, geography, client experience, campaign experience, and areas of expertise.
• Research candidate backgrounds, portfolios, agency experience, and project history.
• Identify talent through the agencies, brands, campaigns, and projects they have worked on.
• Develop targeted outreach campaigns for priority talent pools.
• Track candidate outreach, conversations, follow-ups, and relationship history within the company’s recruiting/ATS systems.
• Continuously expand and improve the company’s passive talent database.

Candidate Relationship Management

• Stay connected with high-value candidates over time and maintain warm relationships.
• Understand each candidate’s career goals, motivations, interests, and potential fit.
• Serve as a knowledgeable resource to candidates throughout the recruiting process.
• Create a candidate experience that feels personal, thoughtful, and differentiated from traditional recruiting.
• Develop a network of candidates who know and trust the recruiter even when there is no immediate opening.

 Recruiting & Hiring

• Partner with hiring managers and leadership to understand open positions and the type of talent needed to minimize time-to-fill, decrease new-hire failure rates and improve first-year retention.
• Translate job requirements into clear candidate profiles and sourcing strategies.
• Build targeted candidate lists for each search.
• Conduct initial candidate conversations and assess experience, skills, culture fit, career goals, and interest level.
• Present qualified candidates to hiring managers with thoughtful context around their background and potential fit.
• Help close candidates by effectively communicating the company’s culture, creative work, opportunities, and career potential.
• Provide market feedback and talent-landscape insights to hiring managers and leadership, including trends, competitive hiring activity, and emerging talent to watch
• Drive the end-to-end recruitment strategy for all production and creative functions 
• Manage high-volume, concurrent requisitions, overseeing full-cycle recruitment operations and continuously optimizing hiring workflows.

Requirements

• 4–7 years of professional experience working within an experiential marketing, advertising, creative, production, or entertainment agency.
• Strong understanding of the experiential marketing and creative agency ecosystem.
• Strong experience using LinkedIn Recruiter to recruit and source passive creative, production, strategy, account, or agency leadership talent.
• Strong networking and relationship-building skills to proactively identify talent based on experience attending and confidently networking at relevant industry events.
• Highly organized and capable of managing a large pipeline of relationships and candidates.
• Comfortable working independently and taking ownership of a search from sourcing through hire.
• Ability to effectively sell an opportunity to candidates who may not be actively looking.
• Existing relationships within the experiential and creative agency community.
• Familiarity with major experiential campaigns, agencies, brands, award shows, and industry leaders.
• Strong understanding of creative portfolios and the types of work that indicate exceptional talent.

Salt Core Values + You 

• Redefine the Rules: Creative and production fighting like cats and dogs? Not here. We bring creative and production together from the start because a great idea is only as good as how it’s brought to life. For us, logistics and aesthetics go hand in hand. We’re all about delivering experiences that go beyond the ask.
• In Search Of: Tackling challenges is our favorite pastime. Obstacles? We call them plot twists. We are creative thinkers and problem-solvers who always find a way forward with curiosity and determination. Our focus is exceeding expectations, turning client asks into an opportunity to deliver something unexpectedly brilliant.
• Expect More, Get More: We hold ourselves to higher standards than anyone else, always looking for ways to elevate each project. We don’t stop at simply checking all the boxes; we push until time runs out. That extra 10% is where we surpass the competition, delivering results beyond what our clients could imagine—or even think to ask for. 
• Compassion is Culture: We are powered by extraordinary humans, and we’re dedicated to cultivating an environment where company success is tied to team success. We combat burnout with inspiration, motivation, and genuine support. Without fun, work sucks 

Who You Are

• You are someone who is naturally a hunter who sees an incredible experiential campaign and immediately wants to know: “Who made this?”
• You can look at a major activation and figure out who the creative director, producer, strategist, or account lead was, and then find that person.
• You enjoy meeting people, starting conversations, making introductions, and building relationships. You don’t need to wait for someone to apply for a job.
• You are curious, persistent, personable, and commercially minded. You understand that recruiting exceptional creative and experiential talent is about relationships and credibility, not simply filling job requisitions.