Senior Recruiter, Talent Acquisition

At Rocketship Public Schools, we believe in the infinite possibility of human potential. We believe that every student deserves the right to dream, to discover, and to develop their unique potential and it is our responsibility and our privilege to unleash the potential inside every Rocketeer we serve. Our non-profit network of public elementary charter schools propels student achievement, develops exceptional educators, and partners with parents who enable high-quality public schools to thrive in their community. We are a collective of parents, teachers, leaders, and students working together to transform the future for underserved communities across our country. At Rocketship Public Schools, we are unleashing potential.

Position Description

The Senior Recruiter, Talent Acquisition plays a critical role in ensuring Rocketship DC has the high-quality, mission-aligned talent necessary to deliver exceptional outcomes for students. Reporting to the Director of Human Resources, the Senior Recruiter serves as the primary Talent Acquisition partner for the DC Region and leads the day-to-day execution of the region's recruitment strategy.

This role goes beyond filling vacancies. The Senior Recruiter partners with regional and school leaders to anticipate future talent needs, develop high-quality and diverse candidate pipelines, strengthen Rocketship's presence in the local talent market, and ensure candidates move efficiently from prospect through hire.

The Senior Recruiter will bring particular focus to hard-to-fill and specialized positions, including special education/ISE roles, while reducing reliance on passive applicant flow through proactive sourcing, referrals, community partnerships, internal talent pathways, and sustained candidate cultivation.

The ideal candidate combines strong recruiting execution with strategic thinking, relationship management, data fluency, and a relentless commitment to candidate quality and experience.

Regional Talent Planning & Recruitment Strategy

• Partner with the Director of HR, school leaders, and regional leadership to translate projected staffing needs, historical turnover, enrollment assumptions, anticipated talent movement, and confirmed vacancies into actionable recruitment plans.
• Develop role- and campus-specific recruiting strategies aligned to projected and confirmed hiring needs.
• Establish and manage talent pipelines ahead of confirmed vacancies to support earlier hiring and reduce reliance on late-season recruitment.
• Identify emerging talent risks, pipeline gaps, and hiring barriers and proactively recommend strategies to the Director of HR.
• Maintain particular focus on hard-to-fill and specialized positions, developing differentiated recruitment strategies rather than relying solely on general applicant flow.
• Use historical and current hiring data to recommend sourcing priorities, interview volume, pipeline targets, and recruitment activities throughout the hiring season.

Strategic Sourcing & Pipeline Development

• Build and maintain high-quality prospective candidate pipelines through proactive sourcing, talent mapping, professional networks, resume databases, LinkedIn, Indeed, Lever, career fairs, community outreach, social media, and other creative channels.
• Use Boolean search methodology, talent communities, past applicant data, and targeted sourcing campaigns to identify candidates for current and future hiring needs.
• Develop dedicated sourcing strategies for ISE/special education and other hard-to-fill roles.
• Re-engage strong former candidates, previous applicants, alumni, and other warm leads through intentional cultivation and nurture campaigns.
• Partner with regional HR leadership to establish annual goals for sourced, self-sourced, referred, partnership-generated, and internal candidates.
• Track sourcing effectiveness and continuously adjust strategies based on candidate quality, conversion, hires, and retention outcomes.

Candidate Assessment, Cultivation & Selection

• Conduct resume reviews, phone screens, and candidate assessments using established selection criteria and candidate profiles.
• Evaluate candidates for both technical readiness and alignment with Rocketship's instructional model, mission, culture, coaching practices, and expectations.
• Ensure candidates receive a clear and realistic understanding of the Rocketship employee experience, including role responsibilities, work expectations, professional development, coaching, and performance expectations.
• Move qualified candidates efficiently through the recruitment process and maintain consistent communication throughout the candidate journey.
• Develop strong candidate slates for hiring managers rather than measuring success solely by applicant volume.
• Coordinate and facilitate individual interviews, group interview days, hiring fairs, and other selection events.
• Partner with hiring managers to drive timely selection decisions and reduce candidate loss caused by process delays.
• Actively cultivate high-priority candidates from initial contact through offer acceptance and start date.

Hiring Manager Partnership & Accountability

• Serve as the primary Talent Acquisition partner to assigned DC school leaders.
• Conduct regular talent reviews with principals and regional leadership to review vacancies, projected needs, pipeline health, candidate quality, interviews, offers, and hiring risks.
• Establish clear expectations with hiring managers regarding candidate review, interview scheduling, feedback, and final decisions.
• Escalate hiring delays, recurring bottlenecks, or candidate-quality concerns to regional HR leadership when necessary.
• Provide leaders with talent-market insights, candidate feedback, compensation themes, and competitive intelligence that may affect Rocketship's ability to attract and secure talent.
• Train and coach hiring managers on structured interviewing, candidate evaluation, equitable selection practices, candidate experience, and effective closing.
• Support alignment across hiring teams regarding the profile and competencies required for successful Rocketship educators.

Talent Analytics & Funnel Management

• Maintain accurate, timely candidate and requisition data within Lever and other applicable systems.
• Monitor the recruitment funnel from prospect through hire, including sourcing activity, applications, qualified candidates, screens, interviews, offers, acceptances, starts, and early retention.
• Analyze conversion rates by role, campus, source, and stage to identify where candidates are advancing or exiting the process.
• Distinguish applicant volume from qualified pipeline health and recommend interventions when conversion indicates sourcing, selection, compensation, or process challenges.
• Maintain dashboards and provide regular hiring updates to regional HR leadership.
• Track and analyze key Talent Acquisition metrics including time to fill, time in stage, source effectiveness, qualified-candidate conversion, interview-to-offer rate, offer acceptance rate, hiring-manager responsiveness, and early new-hire retention.
• Ensure recruiting activity and outcomes remain aligned with regional hiring milestones throughout the year.

Community Engagement, Partnerships & Talent Brand

• Build and sustain relationships with colleges and universities, educator preparation programs, alternative certification programs, community organizations, professional associations, and other talent partners.
• Represent Rocketship at career fairs, university events, conferences, community events, and other recruitment opportunities.
• Plan and execute Rocketship-hosted recruiting events, including open houses, networking events, virtual information sessions, and candidate engagement experiences.
• Partner with regional HR leadership and Marketing/Communications partners to strengthen Rocketship DC's employer brand and recruitment messaging.

Referrals & Internal Talent Pipelines

• Partner with regional HR leadership to develop and execute employee referral campaigns that generate qualified candidates.
• Maintain relationships with new and existing staff who can serve as talent ambassadors and referral sources.
• Identify internal employees and hourly staff who may have potential pathways into teaching or other instructional positions.
• Collaborate with HR, Talent Development, and regional leadership to connect prospective internal candidates with appropriate development, credentialing, or educational pathways.
• Maintain visibility into internal talent pools and incorporate qualified internal candidates into future hiring plans.

Offer Management, Preboarding & Early Retention

• Partner with Director of HR to move selected candidates efficiently from verbal offer through accepted offer and start date.
• Maintain meaningful candidate engagement between offer acceptance and day one to reduce pre-start attrition.
• Coordinate with appropriate HR and Talent operations partners regarding credentialing, background checks, employment eligibility, and other pre-employment requirements.
• Analyze new-hire feedback and provide recurring themes and recommendations to Director of HR.
• Partner with HR and school leaders to use recruiting and new-hire data to strengthen selection, realistic job previews, onboarding, and early retention strategies.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required.
• 5+ years of progressive full-cycle recruiting or Talent Acquisition experience, including significant responsibility for proactive sourcing and candidate cultivation.
• Demonstrated success recruiting for difficult-to-fill or specialized positions.
• Experience partnering directly with senior hiring managers and influencing hiring decisions and processes.
• Demonstrated ability to use recruiting data and funnel analytics to diagnose challenges and adjust strategy.
• Experience building talent pipelines through sourcing, partnerships, referrals, events, and other proactive channels.
• K–12 education, education-adjacent, nonprofit, or other mission-driven recruiting experience strongly preferred.
• Experience recruiting educators, special education professionals, or school leaders strongly preferred.
• Teaching, school leadership, or school-based experience highly valued.
• Experience with applicant tracking systems
• PHR, SHRM-CP, or other relevant professional certification a plus.

Skills & Competencies

• Advanced sourcing and talent-mapping skills, including Boolean search and proactive candidate identification.
• Strong consultative and relationship-management skills with the ability to influence school and regional leaders.
• Ability to translate workforce needs into actionable recruitment strategies.
• Strong analytical skills and comfort using recruiting data to evaluate pipeline health and make recommendations.
• Excellent candidate cultivation, communication, and closing skills.
• Strong judgment in assessing candidate quality and organizational alignment.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication.
• Strong project management, organization, and attention to detail.
• Ability to manage multiple searches and competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Bias toward action, proactive problem solving, and accountability for results.
• Commitment to providing an equitable, transparent, responsive, and high-quality candidate experience.

Measure of Success

• Success in this role will be measured by both hiring outcomes and the health of the DC talent pipeline, including:

  • Progress against regional early-hiring milestones and confirmed vacancy targets.
  • Growth in qualified proactively sourced candidates, particularly for ISE and other hard-to-fill roles.
  • Increased percentage of hires generated through proactive sourcing, referrals, partnerships, and internal pipelines.
  • Improved qualified-candidate-to-interview and interview-to-offer conversion.
  • Strong offer acceptance and candidate close rates.
  • Hiring-manager responsiveness and adherence to agreed selection timelines.
  • Reduction in time-to-fill for confirmed vacancies.
  • Increased pipeline development ahead of confirmed vacancies.
  • Strong candidate experience and communication throughout the hiring process.
  • New-hire start rates and 30-, 60-, and 90-day retention trends.
  • Accurate and timely recruitment data and actionable talent insights for regional leadership.

Physical Demands:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions. While performing the duties of this position, the employee is regularly required to talk, hear, and communicate with both adults and children. The employee frequently is required to use hands or fingers, handle or feel objects, tools, or controls. The employee is frequently required to stand; walk; sit; and reach with hands and arms. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds and occasionally climb ladders. Specific vision abilities required by this position include close vision, distance vision, and the ability to adjust focus. The noise level in the work environment is moderate to high.

Compensation:

Commensurate with qualifications and experience, plus excellent health and wellness benefits, 403b retirement plan, flexible spending account (FSA), and generous paid time off.

Rocketship Public Schools provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, amnesty, or status as a covered veteran in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws. Rocketship Public Schools complies with applicable state and local laws governing non-discrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

Rocketship Public Schools expressly prohibits any form of unlawful employee harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status. Improper interference with the ability of Rocketship Public Schools’ employees to perform their expected job duties is absolutely not tolerated. Click here for our Sexual Harassment Policy. For questions, concerns, or complaints, please contact Human Resources.