About The Role

You will partner with leaders across CDP to define and implement our Talent Acquisition strategic direction and development, own full-cycle recruitment and manage our contractor resourcing requirements.  You will design and execute proactive sourcing strategies – especially for hard-to-fill and leadership roles – whilst ensuring we maintain compliance, cost efficiency and an outstanding candidate experience across both directly employed (permanent and fixed term) and contingent workforces.

Job Duties and Responsibilities 
 
Strategic Collaboration:
 
  • Collaborate with Leaders and Hiring Managers to define headcount plans, identify skill gaps, and determine the mix of employed versus contractor roles.
  • Develop annual Talent Acquisition (TA) roadmaps covering campus recruitment, direct sourcing, agency partnerships, and internal mobility.
  • Act as a trusted advisor to Leaders on talent and resourcing strategies, compensation benchmarking, and interview best practices.
  • As recruitment volumes grow, design and recommend a scalable TA operating model, team headcount plan, and budget, ensuring alignment with organisational goals and growth projections.

End-to-End Hiring Support:

  • Guide Hiring Managers through the entire hiring process, from approvals and role profiles to sourcing, screening, interviewing, selection, and offer negotiation.
  • Partner with Hiring Managers to establish interview guides, debriefs, and decision-making criteria
  • Document processes, playbooks, and regular status updates. Work with the wider People Experience team to ensure cross-team learning and a seamless experience during high peaks or absences.

Contractor & Vendor Management:

  • Oversee the full contractor lifecycle, including SOW drafting, vendor/contractor selection, rate negotiation, compliance (UK IR35/US contracting rules), timesheet and invoicing approval, renewals, and offboarding.
  • Act as the primary liaison to recruitment agencies/partners, and independent contractors, tracking performance, cost, and utilisation.
  • Monitor contractor spend, forecast budgets, and mitigate off-payroll risks.

Targeted Sourcing & Talent Pipelining:

  • Execute data-driven sourcing campaigns using platforms like LinkedIn Recruiter and niche forums to build talent pipelines, especially in hard-to-fill areas.
  • Build communities of active and passive candidates in the UK and US markets, leveraging market mapping and competitive intelligence.
  • Use talent-market insights to refine role requirements, compensation benchmarks, and employer-brand messaging.

Process Implementation, Analytics & Reporting:

  • Configure and optimise ATS workflows, interview scheduling tools, and candidate-relationship touchpoints.
  • Support the development and maintenance of SLAs and KPIs, reporting monthly to the Leadership Team with key trends, analysis, and recommendations.
  • Identify process bottlenecks and introduce continuous improvements like automation or standardised playbooks.

Employer Brand:

  • Promote CDP’s brand at virtual/in-person events, university partnerships, and through social channels.
  • Manage and optimise the Careers website to ensure it effectively attracts and engages potential candidates.

About You

Skills and Attributes
  • Creating and improving effective business processes.
  • Excellent presentation, communication, and interpersonal skills.
  • Attention to detail.
  • Confident working in a fast-paced environment.
  • Self-starter, ability to work autonomously and drive improvement initiatives forward across multiple time zones.
  • Knowledge of MS Tools, and other creative packages.
Experience and Education
  • Bachelor’s degree in HR, Business or related discipline (or equivalent experience)
  • Strong demonstrable recruitment experience, ideally in high-growth professional services, engineering or technology environments.
  • Proven experience in contractor/vendor management, ideally with hands-on knowledge of UK IR35 regulations and US contracting frameworks.
  • Demonstrable success in targeted sourcing for niche technical and leadership roles across UK and US.
  • Proficiency with ATS and sourcing tools i.e. Eploy, LinkedIn Recruiter
  • Data-driven mindset, experienced in defining and reporting recruitment metrics
  • Certifications such as AIRS, SHRM-SP, SCP, CIPD or LinkedIn Certified Professional – Recruiter are a plus.

About Us

Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) is an end-to-end innovation partner, propelling global brands and ambitious start-ups to success. We build breakthrough products and services – from insight to ideas, prototypes to production – bringing innovation to life. Our teams are multi-disciplinary, uniting scientific rigor, design ingenuity, and engineering excellence for consumer and healthcare clients. People-centred, deeply collaborative, and – above all – expert, we’re uniquely positioned to shape the future for consumers, patients, and industry. Even our ownership model is innovative: We’re 100% owned by our employees, ensuring an open culture and a total commitment to our projects’ success. As part of our benefits package we offer:

  • flexible working (ideally a minimum of 3 days per week on-site)
  • a discretionary bonus
  • excellent learning and development opportunities
  • a 12% non-contributory pension
  • private healthcare
  • electric vehicle lease salary sacrifice scheme
  • share incentive plan
  • 33 days holiday inclusive of bank holidays
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