Career Opportunity

Director of Talent Acquisition (0932 Manager IV) - SFO - People, Performance & Development

Recruitment: RTF0165579-01156016

Published: May 27, 2026

Apply using SmartRecruiters, the City and County of San Francisco's application portal.

About:

• Application Opening: 5/27/2026
• Application Deadline: Apply Immediately. Application filing will be open at least through 6/3/2026, 5:00 PM (Pacific Daylight Time) and will close any time thereafter
• Compensation: $169,858 to $216,710 annually
• Recruitment ID: TEX-0932-165580

Working at SFO:

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is one of the most dynamic and consequential airports in the world, serving as the primary international gateway to Northern California and Silicon Valley. As an enterprise department of the City and County of San Francisco, SFO welcomes over 54 million guests annually and offers nonstop service to more than 140 destinations worldwide on 50+ airlines.

SFO is far more than a transportation hub. It is a recognized leader in environmental sustainability, equity, arts and culture, and forward-thinking infrastructure. With approximately 1,900 City employees and a broader community of more than 25,000 workers across airlines, concessionaires, and partners, SFO generates significant economic vitality across the Bay Area region.

Our mission is to deliver an airport experience where people and our planet come first. Our core values of Safety and Security, Teamwork, Excellence, Care, and Equity guide everything we do as we build a supportive, purpose-driven workplace where all employees can thrive.

SFO is proud to be an equal opportunity employer committed to a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. We welcome candidates of all backgrounds, identities, and lived experiences. Applicants are considered regardless of race, sex, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, disability, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under applicable law.

Learn more about careers at SFO at flysfo.com, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Bluesky and Threads.

Appointment Type: This is a Temporary Exempt (TEX) position. This position is excluded by the Charter from the competitive Civil Service examination process and shall serve at the discretion of the Appointing Officer. The duration of the appointment is up to 12 months. 

Role description

As the Director of Talent Acquisition, you will oversee our recruitment team and strategies. You will help build a thoughtful, data-driven, best-in-class recruiting organization. You will be responsible for supporting your team in achieving recruiting goals, establishing, and iterating on processes that create efficiencies, and ensuring we continue to hire top talent. The ideal candidate has a deep understanding of the talent acquisition landscape, is highly collaborative, thrives in a fast-paced environment, is passionate about delivering extraordinary experience to every candidate, manager, and colleague, and can effectively communicate with multiple stakeholders.

This position reports to the Director of People, Performance & Development.

The essential functions of this position include:

 Talent Acquisition

• Oversees Talent Acquisition, including full lifecycle of recruitment, exams, classifications, compensation, selection.
• Identifies, implements, and executes a talent acquisition strategy that will successfully recruit candidates needed to move SFO forward.
• Empowers employees to take responsibility for their jobs and performance goals and ensures effective recruitment assessment development are embedded and valued in all managers and supervisors.
• Models professional management conduct; maintains appropriate confidentiality of sensitive information; complies with and supports City policies and procedures, labor laws and Memoranda of Understanding provisions.
• Oversees and manages relevant people metrics including time-to-hire to monitor and evaluate organizational objectives and process improvement initiatives.
• Partners with, influences, and serves as subject matter expert resource to advise business leaders and HR business partners on talent acquisition strategies, plans, and practices to ensure achievement of overall business objectives.
• Identifies opportunities to improve people procedures and streamline workflow; establishes talent acquisition processes that are efficient, compliant, follow best practices, and are customer focused.
• Appears before committees, legislative and governing bodies; and conducts presentations involving talent acquisition related matters, such as interpreting and explaining Civil Service Rules, laws and regulations concerning recruitment, examinations, classification and compensation.
• Develops and implements a sustainable, best-in-class Talent Acquisition process inclusive of progress visibility, achievement metrics and excellent communication.
• Collaborates with hiring managers and ensures a high-level of candidate engagement and a positive candidate experience.
• Maintains knowledge of broad talent acquisition policies, programs, laws, and issues with focus on how they systematically relate to talent practices.

Recruitment 

• Develops talent sourcing strategies and implements plans and programs to effectively identify talent pipelines for various positions across the Airport.
• Refines SFO's recruiting function to make data-driven recruiting decisions and to continue improving the overall effectiveness of our recruiting efforts.
• Establishes targeted recruiting and workforce development efforts for underrepresented groups including strategic planning, partnership management, tactical implementation, and effective program evaluation.
• Champions SFO’s recruitment branding strategy to effectively attract top talent by building awareness and promoting localized recruiting efforts through collaboration with Marketing and Communications.
• Strategizes on ways to build talent pipelines through employee referrals, events, sourcing campaigns; cultivates of a strong network of passive talent by being creative and innovative.
• Plans and leads the execution of targeted recruiting events and initiatives to boost the SFO’s employer brand.
• Collaborates closely with internal partners to align operational excellence of the talent acquisition function to ensure seamless, effective service experience for employee and hiring managers.
• Defines, develops, and expands a welcoming employer brand, promoting our employer value propositions and growing brand awareness consistent with SFO’s mission.

Strategic Workforce Planning

• Oversees workforce strategic planning; plays a key and lead role in succession planning and budget/contracts.
• Partners/collaborates with SFO’s leadership team to align and execute people strategies in support of SFO’s mission, strategic goals, and objectives.
• Develops and implements strategic short-term and long-range plans and projects to address organizational priorities; evaluates effectiveness of people programs in meeting goals and objectives.
• Leads special projects and other assignments that require strategic understanding of operational and mission-based goals to enhance candidate experience and client focus including implementing appropriate change management plans.

Team Responsibilities

• Plans, manages, monitors, evaluates, and supervises the Talent Acquisition and Recruitment team; leads and develops employees into a highly effective team by setting clear performance objectives and goals, regular and honest feedback, and individualized development plans.
• As a member of the PPD Leadership Team, provides leadership and makes recommendations affecting PPD vision, initiatives, programs, services, and budget expenditures.
• Manages work activities to prevent delays in required actions or to improve programs or services.
• Coaches and counsels staff on complex HR issues; facilitates problem-solving complex HR situations at all levels.
• Fosters a spirit of teamwork and unity among staff that allows for: differences of ideas, appreciation for diversity and inclusivity as well as cohesiveness, support and working effectively together to enable each employee to succeed, and promoting people as SFO's most-valued asset.
• Identifies, develops, and implements Airport goals, objectives, policies, and priorities; assists in the determination of resource allocation and levels of service according to established policies.
• Manages the work of the Talent Acquisition and Recruitment team; advises and consults with managers; meets with appropriate staff to identify and resolve problems or conflicts; recommends final decisions regarding policy, operations, and administrative procedures.
• Participates in budget development by providing detailed justification and persuasive arguments for proposals or initiatives; oversees and administers division budget; directs and monitors expenditures in accordance with the approved budget; directs the preparation and maintenance of a wide variety of statistical, fiscal, and operational reports and studies; and provides executive management with an early warning and practical options to potential cost overruns.
• May plan, develop, implement, or direct major or complex projects or programs which span several sections or divisions; manage the research of complex, highly technical issues; analyze alternative solutions or approaches; and recommend the most effective course of action.
• May serve as liaison for the Airport with a variety of other City/County staff and officials of outside agencies; explain and justify Airport or administrative procedures, policies, or programs; negotiate and resolve difficult and complex issues and problems.
• Performs other duties as assigned

How to qualify

Qualifications

1. Education: Possession of a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university; AND
2. Experience: Six (6) years of Human Resources experience in the following areas: recruitment and selection, employment life cycle management, workforce planning, of which three (3) years must include supervising professionals.

Education Substitution: Additional qualifying work experience may be substituted for up to two years of the required education on a year for year basis (30 semester/45 quarter units equals one year).

Experience Substitution: Possession of a Juris Doctorate (J.D.) or Master's degree in Personnel Administration, Human Resources Management, Business Administration, Public Administration, or Industrial-Organizational Psychology may substitute for one (1) year of the non‐supervisory experience.

Every application is reviewed to ensure that you meet the minimum qualifications as listed in the job ad. Please review our articles on Employment Application and Minimum Qualifications and Verification of Experience and/or Education for considerations taken when reviewing applications. 

Applicants must meet the minimum qualification requirement by the final filing date unless otherwise noted.

One year full-time employment is equivalent to 2,000 hours (2,000 hours of qualifying work experience is based on a 40 hour work week). Any overtime hours that you work above 40 hours per week are not included in the calculation to determine full-time employment.

Desirable Qualifications
The stated desirable qualifications may be used to identify job finalists at the end of the selection process when candidates are referred to hiring.

• Alignment on the importance and value of an inclusive work environment, and strong belief in the power of diversity at work is non-negotiable.
• Strong experience with recruiting funnel operations, enablement, and analytics; demonstrated ability to mentor recruiters to improve their performance using data.
• Extensive experience leading the design, validation, implementation, and continuous improvement of civil service examinations and assessment strategies, including job analysis, competency modeling, structured interviews, and selection methodologies aligned with merit system principles and equal employment opportunity standards.
• Experience within a governmental agency managing professional-level Human Resources staff engaged in recruitment and selection, classification and compensation.
• Effective track record working in a fast paced, highly professional environment.
• A strong focus on customer and client service.
• Focus on delivery results and meeting commitments.
• Collaborative leadership style and approach to problem resolution.
• Exceptional presentation, interpersonal communication skills, including strong presence and confidence.
• Experience using LinkedIn Recruiter and Handshake for sourcing talent.
• Ability to work in a dynamic, fast-paced, collaborative environment.
• Experience from similarly large municipal organizations with unions.
• Detail-oriented with excellent organizational, prioritization and multitasking skills.
• Contract experience with RFP, RFQ, negotiating and managing the process.
• Working knowledge of applicable local, state and federal laws and regulations which include San Francisco City Charter, Administrative codes, Civil Service Rules, Annual Salary Ordinance and Collective Bargaining Agreements affecting department operations.
• Advanced degree in Personnel Administration, Human Resources Management, Business Administration, Public Administration, or Industrial-Organizational Psychology is a plus.

Nature of Work
May require extensive walking, standing, computer work requiring keyboarding and prolonged sitting and working off a flat screen monitor to perform job duties; ability to work effectively with executives, managers, co-workers, contractors and other personnel; and ability to identify issues and problem solve.

Verification
Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience at any point during the recruitment and selection process. If education verification is required, information on how to verify education requirements, including verifying foreign education credits or degree equivalency, can be found at Verification of Experience and/or Education

Note: Falsifying one’s education, training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco.

All work experience, education, training and other information substantiating how you meet the minimum qualifications must be included on your application by the filing deadline. Information submitted after the filing deadline will not be considered in determining whether you meet the minimum qualifications.

Resumes will not be accepted in lieu of a completed City and County of San Francisco application. Applications completed improperly may be cause for ineligibility, disqualification or may lead to lower scores.

Selection Procedures
The selection process will include evaluation of applications in relation to minimum requirements.  Applicants meeting the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed advancement to interview.  Depending on the number of applicants, the Department may establish and implement additional screening mechanisms to comparatively evaluate the qualifications of candidates.  If this becomes necessary, only those applicants whose qualifications most closely meet the needs of the Department will be invited for an interview.

NOTE: Applicants who meet the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed advancement through all of the steps in the selection procedure.

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Security Clearance: Candidates for employment with the San Francisco Airport Commission are required to undergo a criminal history record check, including FBI fingerprints, and Security Threat Assessment in order to determine eligibility for security clearance and may be required to undergo drug/alcohol screening. Per Civil Service Commission Rule Section 110.9.1, every applicant for an examination must possess and maintain the qualifications required by law and by the examination announcement for the examination. Failure to obtain and maintain security clearance may be basis for termination from employment with the Airport Commission.

What else should I know?

Additional Information Regarding Employment with the City and County of San Francisco:

• Information About the Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview  
• Equal Employment Opportunity 
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

Applicants will receive a confirmation email from notification@careers.sf.gov that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records. Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received.

HOW TO APPLY
Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process. 

Visit https://careers.smartrecruiters.com/CityAndCountyOfSanFrancisco1/ and begin the application process.

• Select the “I’m Interested” button and follow instructions on the screen

Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and, therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also, applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking, applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@sfgov.org, @sfdpw.org, @sfport.com, @flysfo.com, @sfwater.org, @sfdph.org, @asianart.org, @sfmta.com, @sfpl.org, @dcyf.org, @first5sf.org, @famsf.org, @ccsf.edu, @smartalerts.info, and @smartrecruiters.com).

Recruiter Information: If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please contact the Recruiter Vicky Lei at vicky.lei@flysfo.com.

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.