Talent Acquisition Leadership
I am Jen Wade. More than twenty years in talent acquisition, on the agency side and inside the company, in startups and at global scale. I own the whole function: the workforce plan and the hiring roadmap, the searches themselves at every level, the systems and automation underneath, and the onboarding that decides whether a hire actually sticks.
Open toFull-time talent leadership roles, interim leadership, and fractional engagements. Which one makes sense usually depends on the size of the problem, not on my preference.
The same three phases whether the role is full-time or a defined stretch of work.
First few weeks
What the plan supports, in what order, and what is already in place.
The build
Process and systems go in while the hiring is happening, not before it. I carry the requisitions and train your managers as they use the loops.
Once it is running
Documented process, systems your team can operate, and a recruiter I have hired and trained. If I step out, nothing stalls. If I stay, the next layer is already built.
On capacityWhat one person can carry depends on volume, seniority and timeline, so I will not promise a number in advance. When the plan needs more, I bring in contract sourcers or recruiters and manage them.
Not only the part where a candidate says yes. Planning and strategy sit above the hiring, and the ninety day mark is where it is judged.
How you compete for the people you need: which markets you can actually win in, what your offer has to look like to land them, and where the process has to be better than the companies you are losing candidates to.
When no one owns this yet, I build it. What gets hired, in what order, at what cost, and what moves if the plan slips a quarter. A roadmap your leadership team can actually run against instead of a list of open reqs.
A player coach. I do the sourcing, screening and closing myself. What makes an offer hold is pattern recognition: hard questions asked early, attention to what a candidate is not saying, and the real objection surfaced while there is still time to work it out.
Considerable experience with searches that cannot be visible: replacing a sitting executive, a leadership change before a raise, a role the market should not hear about yet.
I use AI and automation to take administrative load off hiring, from sourcing and screening support to scheduling and reference checks, and I have cut recruiting admin by more than half doing it. I have also written the governance that has to come with it: where AI is allowed in screening, where a person still makes the call, and what gets documented. Comfortable across Greenhouse, Lever, iCIMS, Taleo, Workday, SuccessFactors, BambooHR and Dayforce, including migrations and cleanup.
Agency and MSP contracts negotiated and held to service levels, contingent programs, and PEO management for teams outside the US.
A sample of the work, not a career history.
A team of three became a team of one, and executive search had always gone out to Heidrick & Struggles. I brought it in house, carried every open role alongside it, and filled four C-level seats directly. No leadership search has gone to an outside firm since.
A brand rollout with ten sales executives to hire and a launch date that was not moving. All ten filled inside the window.
More than 50 hires in under twelve months across leadership and every core function, with a sourcing team I coached to 40% higher output.
Contingent labor operations launched across four regions, an MSP negotiated at 15% annual savings, and a vendor program that cut 52 vendors to five.
I have sat on the agency side as well, stepping in to lead a branch office through a transition and negotiating with Fortune 500 procurement from the vendor's chair. I know how these firms price and where the leverage sits.
Where it startedAn IT staffing firm off Wall Street, back when resumes arrived by fax and we were unpacking the office's first computer. Corporate technical and executive recruiting came next, then global vendor and contingent programs, then talent leadership inside venture backed companies.
A newsletter about hiring executives without paying a retainer.
May 23, 2026
May 12, 2026
Thirty to sixty minutes on the scope of the roles, the timeline, the budget and whatever is currently in the way. That is usually enough for me to tell you whether this is a good match, and for you to hear how I would approach it. Same conversation whether you are hiring a full-time talent leader or bringing someone in for a defined stretch.