Talent Acquisition Lead

Location: Ottawa, Ontario (Hybrid)

Reports to: Chief Operating Officer

Position type: Permanent, Full-time

Classification: Management

Salary Range: CAD $74,909 - $93,636 per annum

Language requirements: English essential; Fluency in French strongly preferred; Spanish considered an asset.

Job Posting: Internal & External

Status: New Position

ABOUT CUSO INTERNATIONAL

Cuso International (Cuso) is a made-in-Canada non-profit organization committed to ending poverty and inequality. Cuso works with local partners around the world to build skills, employment, and entrepreneurship to enable dignified work and resilient livelihoods. It places strong emphasis on gender equality and social inclusion, while integrating environmental sustainability across its programming to ensure long-term impact. Through partnerships, knowledge exchange, and volunteer cooperation, Cuso mobilizes global expertise to support locally driven development solutions. Volunteers play a distinctive and essential role in Cuso’s model, bringing skills, experience, and solidarity to support program delivery alongside staff and partners. As Cuso enters a period of renewal and growth, attracting and mobilizing the right talent, both employees and volunteers, is critical to advancing its mission and impact.

WHY JOIN CUSO?

Competitive Compensation and Benefits: Cuso offers competitive compensation, generous benefits, and the opportunity to contribute to meaningful, global programs that make a real impact.

Work-Life Balance: We prioritize flexibility and wellbeing with a hybrid work model of two in-office days per week, remote work options, up to 4 weeks of paid vacation, a paid corporate closure between Christmas and New Year’s, summer hours, and No-Meeting Fridays.

Inclusive Culture: Join a diverse, inclusive workplace that champions employment equity and values a broad range of perspectives, lived experiences, and strengths as key drivers of success.

Wellness Programs: Benefit from wellness initiatives designed to support your whole self, including comprehensive mental health coverage and in-office wellness offerings like Yoga Thursdays.

ABOUT THE ROLE

The Talent Acquisition Lead plays a critical leadership role in ensuring that Cuso meets its volunteer delivery commitments and achieves high-quality placement outcomes across all programs and projects. In addition to overseeing the full Volunteer Journey, this role is responsible for driving a proactive, strategic talent acquisition approach aligned with Cuso’s organizational pivot toward securing highly skilled technical volunteers.

The successful candidate is accountable for building and sustaining talent pipelines through institutional, diaspora, and corporate partnerships; expanding engagement with new volunteer pools; and strengthening our recruitment approach through more targeted, market‑facing acquisition strategies.

The successful candidate ensures the systems, tools, data, and processes required for effective volunteer delivery and supports department-wide talent initiatives. They will also provide oversight of both volunteer and staff recruitment, including onboarding, performance management guidance, and employee experience from entry to exit.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Proactive Talent Acquisition & Pipeline Development (50%)

Lead a forward-looking, proactive talent acquisition strategy that identifies and attracts talent aligned with Cuso’s evolving technical staffing and volunteer needs.

Build and maintain strategic partnerships with universities, polytechnics, research institutes, sector associations, diaspora communities, corporations and other relevant institutions to develop year-round talent pipelines and develop customized international and domestic (Canada) volunteer placements.

Develop sourcing strategies to attract staff and volunteers with specialized technical skills (e.g. engineers, agri-food product development, tourism industry business planning).

Lead Recruitment Marketing efforts to design campaigns and outreach tools that increase visibility and attract high-quality technical applicants.

Ensure placement descriptions are compelling, marketable, and aligned with partner expectations and market trends.

Skilled Talent Acquisition (30%)

Develop and monitor target‑setting systems to effectively manage both volunteer and employee recruitment pipelines, ensuring alignment between organizational needs, staffing plans, and placement requirements.

Ensure consistency, quality, and responsiveness across all stages of the recruitment and engagement lifecycle, including screening, onboarding, pre‑departure preparation, in‑placement support, performance monitoring, and reintegration/exit for volunteers and personnel.

Lead the development and management of systems and workflows to ensure effective matching of candidates (volunteers and employees) to roles and placements, and maintain strong information flows across internal teams and Country Program Offices.

Strengthen and monitor KPIs, reporting tools, and dashboards to support forecasting, staffing/volunteer delivery, and organizational knowledge management.

Manage and evolve the HR database (employees and volunteers) to ensure accurate and complete data for monitoring, reporting, forecasting, compliance, and budgeting purposes, and to support a smooth and consistent journey for both staff and volunteers.

Support Country Program Offices in effective engagement and management of volunteers and personnel, including escalation of complex issues, complaints management, debriefs, performance issues, and staff orientation and training.

Ensure effective management and monitoring of annual project budgets, maintaining strict control of all expenditures through performance‑to‑budget analysis and alignment with staffing and volunteer deployment plans.

Team Leadership & Collaboration (20%)

Oversee the Talent Advisory Services Team, providing coaching, supervision, and performance support.

Foster collaboration between Talent Advisory, Country Program Offices, Program Quality & Impact, Engagement, Communications, and Finance.

Ensure adherence to organizational policies, decisions, and processes within the area of responsibility.

Promote a learning-oriented, high-performance culture within the team.

General Responsibilities

Collaborate with Communications & Marketing to develop outreach materials, campaigns, and events that support proactive recruitment.

Contribute to organizational reporting requirements, including donor reports, forecasting, and strategic updates.

Undertake Talent Management projects as required by the Leadership Team.

Perform other responsibilities as required by the COO or Leadership Team.

POSITION REQUIREMENTS

Essential Qualifications

Graduate degree in Human Resources, Talent Management, International Development, Business Administration, Organizational Development, or a related field; or an equivalent combination of education and progressively responsible experience.

Minimum 8-10 years of progressive experience in talent acquisition, recruitment, or workforce planning, including leadership responsibility.

Demonstrated success designing and implementing proactive, strategic talent acquisition models, including active sourcing and pipeline development.

Proven experience recruiting for specialized or technical skill sets, rather than only generalist or volume recruitment.

Experience building and managing external talent partnerships (e.g., academic institutions, diaspora groups, corporate or sector associations).

Strong people‑management experience, including team supervision, coaching, and performance management.

Advanced experience managing recruitment systems, HR databases and platforms with strong data integrity and reporting skills.

Demonstrated ability to use KPIs, dashboards, and forecasting to inform recruitment and delivery decisions.

Proven ability to collaborate effectively across departments and with geographically dispersed teams.

Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.

Ability to legally work in Canada and willingness to travel internationally as required.

Asset Qualifications: The following are considered strong assets, but are not required:

Professional HR designation (e.g. CHRP/CHRL, SHRM‑CP/SCP).

Experience working in international development or volunteer‑based organizations.

Direct experience managing or supporting international volunteers, secondees, or mobile workforces.

Existing networks within diaspora communities, post‑secondary institutions, professional bodies, sector associations or the private sector.

Familiarity with equity, diversity, inclusion, safeguarding, and ethical recruitment frameworks in international contexts.

Budget management experience within donor‑funded or project‑based environments.

Fluency in French strongly preferred. Fluency in Spanish would also be considered an asset.

Experience leading talent initiatives during organizational transformation or strategic pivots. 

HOW TO APPLY 

Please click the “Apply for This Job” button to submit your application no later than May 11, 2026, at 11:59 PM (EST). Expressions of interest should be sent in English. Your résumé and one-page cover letter should demonstrate how you meet all the essential and any desirable qualifications. Please note that a confirmation email will be generated once you submit your application, but it may be directed to your spam or junk folders in your email inbox. 

Cuso International is committed to the integrity of our volunteers, interns, staff, managers, board members and subcontractors in preventing sexual violence in the way we operate. This is done through a defined framework, code of conduct, values and guiding principles, as well as Cooperation Canada’s Leaders’ Pledge.