Head of Talent Acquisition · Builder · Operator

Turn fragmented recruiting into a measurable operating system.

I help growing companies align workforce priorities, recruiting capacity, manager decisions, data, AI workflows, and hiring technology — primarily as a full-time TA leader, with advisory or fractional support available when the mandate is narrower.

Discuss a Head of TA role → See proof of work
Explore advisory support →
43
Hires per month at Optimal Care
92%
Offer Acceptance
38
Days to accept
2,400
Hires in 3 Weeks (COVID)
Best-fit roles

Where I'm focused: full-time TA leadership.

Actively targeting full-time roles where I can own the recruiting operating system end to end.

Head of Talent Acquisition Director of Talent Acquisition TA Operations / Programs Recruiting Transformation AI-enabled TA Systems
Selected in-house results

Proof from prior operating roles.

These are team-based results from in-house leadership work—not consulting-client outcomes. Each measure is labeled to preserve the operating context behind it.

Monthly hiring capacity · Optimal Care
43hires
Built the recruiting operating cadence and team capacity supporting approximately 75 open roles as the company scaled.
Offer Acceptance Rate
92%
38-day time-to-accept against a 40-day target — a function of comp benchmarking, structured interviews, and white-glove candidate experience.
Time to accept · Optimal Care
38days
Reached a 38-day time to accept while sustaining a 92% offer-acceptance rate.
COVID-19 Emergency Hiring Response · SpartanNash
2,400hires
Co-led the company's COVID-19 emergency hiring response. 2,400 employees in 3 weeks through agile resource redeployment under extreme ambiguity, enabling business continuity during a national crisis.
Global Tech Recruiting Operations
30%
Standardized technical recruiting workflows, interview scheduling, and operating procedures across regions, driving a 30% efficiency improvement hiring software engineering, DevOps, data engineering, infrastructure, and security teams.
Technical Job Catalog Rebuild · Teladoc
1,020+ roles
Led cross-functional team of six to rebuild the entire technical job description library with leveling alignment — streamlining req creation, comp governance, and hiring-manager training.
About Ryan

A recruiting operating-system builder.

Ryan is looking for his next full-time Head or Director of Talent Acquisition role — leading the recruiting operating system: workforce planning, recruiting operations, technology, employer brand, executive partnership, and carefully governed AI. He also takes on fractional, advisory, and consulting work selectively.

Independent Talent & Recruiting Advisor (Project-Based)

GLG (Gerson Lehrman Group)
Jan 2024 – Present Intermittent expert work Remote
  • Selected as a GLG Network expert for intermittent consultations on Talent Acquisition operating models, recruiting technology, and carefully governed AI adoption.

Director, Talent Management (Head of Talent Acquisition)

Optimal Care
Mar 2024 – May 2026 Growth-stage services organization Grand Rapids, MI · Hybrid
  • Built the Talent Acquisition function as the company grew from roughly 250 to more than 700 employees.
  • Implemented Greenhouse and Gem and established the recruiting operating cadence, reporting, and workflow standards.
  • Built and led the team supporting approximately 75 open roles across corporate and field hiring.
  • Partnered with the CEO, CFO, and business leaders on workforce priorities, capacity, and hiring decisions.
  • Increased monthly hiring capacity to 43 hires while sustaining a 92% offer-acceptance rate and 38-day time to accept.
  • Introduced practical AI workflows to reduce administrative work and improve recruiter leverage, with human review and operating controls.

Global Manager, TA Operations & Programs

Teladoc Health
Jun 2021 – Jan 2024 $8B Global Telehealth Leader Remote
  • Led global TA operations and programs supporting teams in the United States, Argentina, Spain, India, and Poland. Standardized workflows and operating procedures across regions, delivering a 30% efficiency improvement.
  • Led a cross-functional team of six to rebuild Teladoc's 1,020+ role technical job description library with leveling alignment.
  • Partnered with R&D and engineering leadership on headcount forecasting, capacity planning, and enterprise talent development programs.
  • As Senior Technical Recruiter (2021–2023): Top 5 of 22 global recruiters; exceeded hiring OKRs by 167% in 2022; recruited from Meta, Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft.

Manager, Talent Acquisition (Head of Recruiting)

SpartanNash
Nov 2019 – May 2021 $10B+ Fortune 400 Food Retailer Grand Rapids, MI
  • Directed a 13-person recruiting team across 195+ locations — established standardized processes, metrics, and career development frameworks driving 69.6% retail and 67.8% distribution efficiency improvements.
  • Architected and led Workday ATS design, testing, and implementation; managed a $3.1M annual recruitment budget with vendor negotiations and OFCCP compliance.
  • Co-led the COVID-19 emergency hiring response — 2,400 employees in 3 weeks through agile resource redeployment and structured decision-making under extreme ambiguity.

Senior Technical Recruiter / TA Project Manager

Meijer
May 2011 – Nov 2019 $20B+ Top 25 U.S. Retailer Grand Rapids, MI
  • Led the Workday ATS implementation for offices in the United States, Hong Kong, and Bangladesh, working remotely with local teams on vendor coordination, system integrations, and each location’s compliance requirements.
  • Spearheaded targeted recruitment strategies for software engineering and infrastructure roles during periods of rapid digital transformation — laying the technical-recruiting foundation later scaled at SpartanNash and Teladoc.
Selected in-house leadership case studies

Operating systems built inside the work.

This work was completed while Ryan was an employee of each organization. Results reflect the broader team's work and the operating context described here; they are not consulting-client outcomes.

In-house leadership case study · Optimal Care

Building a recruiting function from baseline during hypergrowth.

Joined a healthcare startup with limited recruiting infrastructure and manual processes. Owned everything from ATS migration and CRM launch to interview architecture, employer brand, comp benchmarking, and practical AI workflows with human review. Partnered with the CEO and CFO on forecasting, capacity, and hiring decisions while the company grew from roughly 250 to more than 700 employees.

Greenhouse and Gem · operating cadence · manager decisions · reporting · workflow standards
43
Hires per month · 92% offer acceptance · 38 days to accept
Teladoc Health · 2022–2024

Standardizing technical recruiting across regions and teams.

Led a six-person cross-functional team to rebuild Teladoc's entire technical job description library — a 1,020+ role catalog with leveling alignment — and standardize SOPs, scheduling, and intake across regions. The result was a 30% efficiency improvement and a single source of truth for compensation governance and hiring-manager training.

30% efficiency · 1,020+ roles cataloged
SpartanNash · March 2020

Hiring 2,400 frontline workers in three weeks.

Co-led the organization's COVID-19 emergency hiring response. Redeployed recruiting resources, compressed assessment cycles, and built structured decision-making frameworks for hiring managers operating under extreme ambiguity — enabling business continuity for a $10B+ food retailer during a national crisis.

2,400 hires · 21 days · 195+ locations
Practical AI · public build

Looking for the software? MarketSync TA is a public build, not an in-house engagement.

A labor market intelligence and workflow platform Ryan designed, engineered, and deployed himself. The case study covers the architecture, the data sources, and the limits of what a portfolio demonstration can claim.

Read the case study →
Practical AI

Tools support the system. They do not replace it.

Selected public demos and workflow tools Ryan designed and built for recruiting strategy, distribution, analytics, market intelligence, and sourcing. AI is used where it improves the work and can be governed responsibly.

Google Opal

TalentStrategist

End-to-end recruiting strategy generator. Converts any job description into a complete playbook: market calibration, comp benchmarking, interview plan, sourcing personas, competitor talent map, outreach sequences, and close plan.

Strategy · Planning Public demo
Google Opal

TalentAmplifier

Job-posting promotion engine. Turns a live req URL into platform-tailored content for LinkedIn, X, and AI video scripts — eliminating the bottleneck of recruiter content creation.

Brand · Distribution Public demo
Google Opal

Recruiter Insight

Recruiter performance analytics. Ingests team metrics and outputs individual 100-point scorecards, performance-tier diagnostics, and targeted coaching plans — the basis for objective performance management.

Analytics · Coaching Public demo
Google Opal

Market Map Pro

Labor market intelligence tool. Generates supply/demand analysis, comp ranges, competitor mapping, and hiring-difficulty scoring for any role in any geography. Used in capacity planning conversations with execs.

Market Intel Public demo
Custom GPT

Clinical Recruiter Scout

Sourcing agent for clinical roles. Returns ranked candidate profiles with LinkedIn links, Boolean strings, comp intel, and ready-to-send outreach templates.

Sourcing · Clinical Public demo
New case study
n8n workflow

Recruiting Capacity Decision Workflow

A synthetic, human-governed workflow that turns recruiting intake into capacity tradeoffs, named approvals, SLA ownership, and executive-ready visibility.

Workflow design · Governance · TA operations Case study
Recruiting Operating System Maturity Map

Eight dimensions. One decision system.

The assessment tests where hiring is actually breaking, who owns the decision, and which changes will materially improve the system.

Workforce priorities Capacity Process Manager decisions Candidate experience Data & measures Technology & AI Ownership & governance

ATS & HRIS

Greenhouse Workday UKG Ready Yello iCIMS Jobvite Taleo Paycor UltiPro SuccessFactors Hodes iQ
✓ = Led implementation

AI & Sourcing

Gem Eightfold Metaview Happenstance SeekOut Juicebox (PeopleGPT) Apollo LinkedIn Recruiter Cursor Claude Code Codex Antigravity n8n Custom GPTs Custom Web Apps
✓ = Led implementation

Analytics & Ops

Tableau Oracle BI Power BI Advanced Excel Predictive Index Criteria Corp Saville WAVE Jira Google Workspace Notion Slack

Core competencies.

Talent Strategy & Leadership
  • TA Strategy & Operating Model
  • Global TA Operations
  • Technical Recruiting (SWE, DevOps, Data, Security, Infra)
  • Workforce Planning & Capacity Modeling
  • Executive Partnership (C-Suite)
  • Recruiting Team Leadership & Coaching
Systems, Data & AI
  • ATS/HRIS Implementation (5+ systems)
  • Agentic AI Sourcing Workflows
  • Custom GPT & Web App Development
  • Recruiting Analytics & Executive Dashboards
  • Change Management
  • First-Principles Funnel Diagnosis
Brand & Experience
  • Employer Brand & EVP
  • Candidate Experience Design
  • Interview Infrastructure & Scorecards
  • Talent Marketing
  • DEI & Inclusive Hiring
  • Compensation Benchmarking
Also available: Recruiting Operating System Assessment

Find what is breaking—and decide what to fix first.

For companies not hiring full-time right now: a scoped, fixed-fee engagement. Starting at $7,500 · 3–4 weeks.

Hiring demand rarely breaks in one place. The visible symptom may be time to fill, recruiter workload, manager frustration, poor reporting, or an expensive tool that is not changing the work.

The underlying issue is usually that priorities, capacity, process, decisions, data, and systems no longer move together. The assessment gives leadership one evidence base, the material risks, and a sequenced 90-day plan.

Best fit: growing B2B SaaS/technology, HR/workforce technology, and multi-location services companies navigating growth, acquisition, reorganization, a hiring reset, or a systems change.

Start a fit conversation →

01 Diagnose

Executive decision questions, stakeholder interviews, and a current-state review across the operating system behind hiring.

02 Test the evidence

Review workforce priorities, recruiter capacity, process, manager decisions, data, technology, and ownership.

03 Prioritize

Translate findings into a material-risk map and an eight-dimension maturity assessment leadership can act on.

04 Leave with a roadmap

A prioritized 30/60/90 plan with owners, measures, dependencies, and the decisions leadership needs to make next.

Insights & Writing

Frameworks for better operating decisions.

I write The Recruiting Operator — practical frameworks for building, scaling, and responsibly enabling the recruiting function.

The Recruiting Operator Latest Issue

AI Recruiting Needs Permission Boundaries.

Before AI reads, writes, screenshots, summarizes, routes, or recommends inside recruiting work, decide what authority it has and where human review starts.

Read on Substack → Jul 27, 2026 AI Recruiting Needs Approval Rules. → Jul 20, 2026 AI Defaults Need Recruiting Controls. → Jul 13, 2026 AI Recruiting Needs Operating Records. → Jul 6, 2026 AI Agents Need Change Control. → Read every issue on Substack →
Contact

Looking for a Head or Director of TA who can build the system?

I’m prioritizing full-time Talent Acquisition leadership opportunities where the mandate includes team capacity, recruiting operations, technology, data, and executive decision support. Advisory support remains available selectively through the assessment path above.

Discuss a full-time TA leadership role
Email Ryan about the opportunity
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Grand Rapids, MI
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