Director Talent Acquisition (51679)

Gradian is an engineering-led, full-line thermal solutions partner serving data center and other mission-critical, commercial, and industrial markets. Headquartered in Maple Grove, MN, with additional facilities across North America, we design and manufacture liquid cooling systems, air handling equipment, heat rejection units, and modular, factory-assembled thermal management solutions.

Gradian was founded through the unification of four complementary, established brands: MAS HVAC, Daedex, DeepCoolAI, and EcoChillers. Together, we act as a single-source provider, deploying cooling technologies as scalable systems optimized for efficiency, spatial constraints, and overall performance. With a vertically integrated engineering and manufacturing model, we pair rapid design turnaround with precision fabrication, so customers can move faster on complex projects where reliability, timeline, and quality all matter.

Why work here

At Gradian, you'll work alongside others who get genuinely fired up by complex problems, see your work go from first sketch to job site in weeks, not years, and know that while we're developing the technologies critical for AI infrastructure to scale, our culture remains people-first by design.

It is core to our identity that we operate as one team — driving to win together, energizing others, and building lasting relationships that make the work fun and rewarding.

Position Summary:

We are hiring a Director of Talent Acquisition to build our recruiting function from the ground up and scale it as we grow. This leader will design the processes, tools and team that let us hire professional and manufacturing talent quickly, without sacrificing quality or candidate experience.

The ideal candidate has done both halves of the job: standing up TA in a start-up environment and running a mature, high-volume TA operation in an organization of 1,000+ employees. You will be a hands-on builder today and a strategic leader as we mature.

Essential Responsibilities

Build the TA function

• Design and implement end-to-end recruiting processes, from intake and sourcing through offer and onboarding handoff, that are scalable, compliant and consistent.
• Establish the TA operating model, including recruiter structure, hiring manager partnership, intake standards, interview guidelines and approval workflows.
• Build employer brand, sourcing channels and candidate experience standards that attract both professional and skilled-trades/manufacturing talent.

Scale hiring quickly

• Lead rapid ramp-up hiring across professional (engineering, operations, corporate functions) and manufacturing (production, technicians, supervisors, quality, maintenance) roles.
• Develop distinct strategies for each talent segment, including high-volume and hourly hiring, community and workforce partnerships, job fairs, referral programs, agency and RPO partners, and campus or early-career pipelines.
• Partner with business leaders on workforce planning, hiring forecasts and capacity so recruiting stays ahead of demand.

Lead and develop people

• Hire, coach and grow TA leaders and recruiters, with clear expectations, career paths and succession planning.
• Build a high-accountability, high-trust team culture that stays steady through rapid change.
• Manage agency, vendor and RPO relationships and budgets.

Leverage HRIS/ATS and data

• Select, configure and optimize the HRIS/ATS to automate workflows, reduce manual effort and create a clean, reliable data foundation.
• Define and report KPIs that matter to the business, such as time to fill, time to offer, offer acceptance rate, quality of hire, source effectiveness, cost per hire, pipeline health, hiring manager satisfaction and DEI funnel metrics.
• Use data to diagnose bottlenecks, forecast needs and make the case for investment.

Partner and govern

• Serve as a trusted advisor to executives, HR leadership and hiring managers.
• Ensure compliance with employment law and hiring regulations, including EEO, OFCCP where applicable, background check and I-9 requirements.
• Partner with HR, Finance, Legal and Operations on compensation, offers, onboarding and workforce planning.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of progressive talent acquisition experience, including 3+ years leading recruiters and recruiting leaders.
• Proven experience building TA from scratch or near-scratch in a start-up or high-growth environment, including process design, tooling and team build-out.
• Proven experience running TA in a steady-state, scaled organization, with experience leading or working within organizations of 1,000+ employees.
• Track record of hiring at speed across both professional and manufacturing/high-volume hourly roles.
• Demonstrated success developing and promoting TA leaders and recruiters.
• Hands-on expertise with HRIS and ATS platforms (e.g., Workday, UKG, SuccessFactors, iCIMS, Greenhouse, Lever), including configuration, workflow automation and reporting.
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to define, track and present KPIs that inform business decisions.
• Strong working knowledge of employment law and hiring compliance.
• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business or a related field, or equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience hiring for a new manufacturing site, plant launch or facility ramp-up.
• Master's degree in human resources, Business or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Experience in advanced manufacturing, technology hardware, energy, aerospace, automotive or a similar industry.
• Experience with RPO, agency and workforce-development partnerships, including community colleges and trade programs.
• Experience implementing or migrating an HRIS/ATS and integrating it with onboarding, background check and assessment tools.
• Familiarity with structured interviewing, skills-based assessment and quality-of-hire measurement.
• Experience with compensation, offer strategy and workforce planning alongside Finance.
• Professional certification (SHRM-CP/SCP, PHR/SPHR, or AIRS) is a plus.

Core Competencies

• Adaptable: Comfortable with ambiguity and shifting priorities. Moves between building from scratch and running at scale, and knows which mode the moment calls for.
• Resilient: Stays steady and solution-focused under pressure, through hiring surges, missed forecasts and competing demands.
• Critical thinker: Diagnoses root causes, challenges assumptions, weighs trade-offs between speed, quality and cost, and makes sound decisions with incomplete information.
• Builder of leaders: Coaches and develops others, delegates with clarity, and creates a bench of TA leaders ready to step up.
• Data-driven: Uses metrics to run the function, tell the story and influence executives.
• Systems and process minded: Sees how the HRIS, workflows and hiring practices fit together, and simplifies them so they scale.

Influential partner: Builds credibility with executives, hiring managers and plant leadership, and holds them accountable to the process

Measures of Success

First 90 days

• Assess current hiring needs, tools and processes, and meet key stakeholders across the business and manufacturing sites.
• Deliver a hiring plan and prioritized roadmap for the next 12 months.
• Stand up core intake, interview and offer processes, and begin staffing the TA team.

By 6 months

• HRIS/ATS configured, with core workflows automated and a first KPI dashboard live.
• Repeatable hiring playbooks in place for professional and manufacturing roles.
• Key TA leader and recruiter roles filled, and hiring plan milestones on track.

By 12 months

• Hiring targets met for both professional and manufacturing populations with agreed time-to-fill and offer-acceptance goals.
• A scalable, data-informed TA operating model, with a developing leadership bench.
• Hiring manager and candidate satisfaction measured and improving.

Benefits:

• Medical, vision, and dental plans
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Group term life insurance coverage
• HSA, FSA, and Dependent Care plans available
• 8 paid holidays, 4 floating holidays, and generous PTO policy
• 401k matching
• Company paid events
• Annual safety shoe allowance
• Education assistance program

EEO Statement:

Gradian Thermal Solutions is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace where all individuals are treated with respect and dignity. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, veteran status, political affiliation, or any other legally protected status.

Employment decisions at Gradian are based on merit, qualifications, and business needs. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind and actively promote a culture of fairness, equity, and opportunity.

We also provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs, practices, or observances, in accordance with applicable laws.