Talent Aquisition and Development Specialist

IMA is a creative agency that builds brands people want to be part of. We are looking for a self-starting and confident Talent Acquisition and Development Specialist to join our Talent team. You'll need to be completely at home when delivering end-to-end recruitment, and far from a one-trick pony. We are looking for someone with energy and drive, to join the dots across the Talent space, picking up parts of our culture and engagement strategy too.

What You’ll Get From Us

• Career Growth: Opportunities to develop your recruitment career within an award-winning, people-first creative agency.

• Recognition: A values-led culture where your contribution is recognised and supported.

• Autonomy & Support: Ownership of end-to-end hiring initiatives from day one, with the support of a collaborative People team.

• Real Impact: The chance to shape hiring strategies that directly influence live campaigns, retail activations and brand experiences.

• Our Culture: OWN IT, BUILD TRUST, STAY HUNGRY

The Role

As a Talent Acquisition and Development Specialist, you will be responsible for delivering an exceptional end-to-end recruitment service across our global offices. You will work closely with hiring managers and senior stakeholders to attract, assess and appoint diverse, high-calibre talent that aligns with our creative culture and business needs. This role combines hands-on sourcing with strategic recruitment practices to ensure we build talent pipelines that support both current and future growth.

You will manage the full lifecycle recruitment process—from role intake and job specification through to offer management and onboarding—ensuring a positive and consistent candidate experience. You will also contribute to culture, employer branding, talent mapping and development, and continuous improvement of recruitment tools and processes. This is a collaborative role where creativity, commercial awareness, excellent stakeholder management and a pragmatic approach to hiring are essential.

Key Responsibilities

Your daily focus will include:

• End-to-End Recruitment: Manage full lifecycle recruitment for a range of roles, including briefing, advertising, shortlisting, interviewing and offer negotiation.

• Sourcing & Attraction: Proactively source passive candidates through networking, LinkedIn, job boards and industry events; build and maintain talent pools for critical skill areas.

• Stakeholder Partnership: Build strong relationships with hiring managers to understand role requirements, advise on market availability, and shape selection processes that are fair and effective.

• Candidate Experience: Deliver a professional, timely and inclusive candidate journey from first contact to onboarding, ensuring consistent communication and feedback.

• Employer Brand & Diversity: Support employer branding initiatives and drive inclusive hiring practices to attract diverse talent aligned with our values.

• Data & Reporting: Maintain accurate recruitment data, produce regular hiring metrics and provide insight to improve time-to-hire and quality-of-hire.

• Process Improvement: Help refine recruitment workflows, sourcing strategies and hiring technology to increase efficiency and candidate quality.

• Compliance: Ensure hiring practices comply with relevant employment legislation and internal policies across jurisdictions.

What We Are Looking For

The Essentials (Must-Haves):

• Experience: Proven experience in a recruitment or talent acquisition role, ideally within an agency or fast-moving environment.

• Sourcing Skills: Strong capability in proactive candidate sourcing, including use of LinkedIn Recruiter, Boolean search and talent mapping techniques.

• Stakeholder Management: Excellent communication and relationship-building skills, with the ability to influence hiring decisions and coach hiring managers.

• Candidate Care: A commitment to delivering a high-quality, inclusive candidate experience and maintaining confidentiality at all times.

• Organisation: Strong attention to detail with the ability to manage multiple vacancies and competing priorities to tight deadlines.

• Tech-Savvy: Comfortable with applicant tracking systems, Google Suite, Microsoft Office and recruitment tools.

• Attitude: A proactive, solutions-focused approach with a collaborative and “can-do” mindset.

The Desirables (Nice-to-Haves):

• Experience recruiting across multiple markets or supporting cross-border hiring.

• Familiarity with employer brand campaigns and designing talent attraction initiatives.

• Previous creative agency recruitment experience or hiring for creative and digital roles.

Apply Now

We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. If this role sounds like a good fit, we’d love to hear from you.

This role can be based in either our Manchester or Leeds offices. However, if Manchester based, you will need to go to our Leeds office once a week.