Retail Talent Acquisition Manager

PURPOSE In this role, you will be responsible for leading the entire recruitment process and closely partnering with Retail HR Business Partners to identify, qualify, and attract key talent for our retail stores. In this role you will focus on recruitment for Italy and Southeast Europe Retail Stores, in addition to driving strategic talent acquisition projects such as DEI recruitment, Onboarding, Employer Branding. As a TA Manager for Retail, you will be responsible for managing the entire recruitment process from sourcing, screening, interviewing, to offer stage. You will have a true passion for engaging with candidates and hiring teams and delivering exceptional hiring manager and candidate experience. Your business acumen, passion for recruiting, and genuine commitment to innovative talent strategies are essential for this role. Leveraging a Talent Pipeline approach, you will maintain an ‘always‑on’ mindset, proactively building and nurturing relationships with top retail talent. You will continuously utilize multiple channels to attract both active and passive candidates, ensuring a steady flow of qualified prospects for every search. By anticipating future talent needs and engaging candidates ahead of hiring demand, you will strengthen our ability to secure the best retail talent efficiently and strategically. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Lead the entire recruitment process including requisition approval, hiring manager briefing, job advertising, candidate sourcing, application review, candidate screening, interview strategy, and offer process and continuously work with the hiring teams to identify opportunities to improve the process. Leverage relevant advertising resources and apply other relevant candidate marketing strategies to create local, regional and global awareness (if needed) in order to attract qualified applications for key roles within your area of responsibility. Leverage candidate databases (internal and external) in addition to other sourcing channels (university, LinkedIn, job fairs, etc.) to identify prospective candidates to create awareness and invite them to apply for open positions including cold calling prospects. Screening resumes and conducting initial phone screens to assess qualifications as well as suitability for role, followed by in‑depth interviews evaluating skills, experience and culture add. Build, engage and maintain pre‑qualified as well as prospective candidate pools of strong former candidates and new candidates within the functional area that your support. Continuously identify new candidate pools and leverage existing resources and various channels, such as social media, job boards, referrals and networking, to proactively identify passive candidates to create awareness and proactively reach out to them. Advocating for and driving a diverse and inclusive recruitment strategy. Conduct weekly check‑ins with active candidates and hiring managers throughout the entire recruiting process for each role. Own responsibility for candidate and hiring manager experience results and drives standards to ensure a quality performance against all standards. Effectively utilize comprehensive knowledge of adidas brand and adidas Group offerings, benefits, comp strategies, and programs to market adidas and the adidas Group as an Employer of Choice. Lead additional TA initiatives such as onboarding program, Employer Branding, Employee Engagement Events. Plan and participate in strategic planning meetings with functional / market leadership and key business partners of all levels to understand current and upcoming requirements in order to build a strategy on effective recruitment activities for positions within your area of responsibility. Support retail teams with TA upskilling, trainings, best practices, hiring events, assessment centres, toolkits roll out. In partnership with HR and Legal, be an advocate for Retail leadership to ensure all interviewing and hiring practices are aligned with TA policies and local regulations. Drive strategic talent strategies with Retail Leadership in partnership with HR to help drive proactive building of candidate pipelines within retail stores and teams. Actively participate in retail events including the following but limited to : Retail Sales Meetings, Store Visits, Hiring Events, District and Regional market meetings. Participate in onboarding trainings for any new hires within Retail leadership to conduct training on TA topics. Utilize ATS effectively following key standards, documenting key actions, recommending improvements and ensuring all data is accurate for reporting purposes. Act as a key point of contact to support the implementation of regional initiatives within your designated function or market. QUALIFICATIONS Minimum of 4-6 years’ experience in international / retail recruiting, leading recruitment mandates for all level candidates through a broad range of sourcing channels (including proactive outreach). Specific expertise / experience recruiting for Retail business strongly preferred. Industry experience and deep knowledge of the sportswear, apparel and / or retail industry. Experience working with vendors and managing relationships and driving results through collaboration. Demonstrated track record of driving end‑to‐end, holistic recruitment mandates (including sourcing, assessing and hiring talent in volume roles and key TA initiatives (i.e. proactive recruiting, internal recruiting, diversity, etc.) to achieve hiring goals. Experienced in offer negotiation, awareness of local legislation and employment market / compensation trends. International experience, having worked on projects in multiple geographies is a plus. Knowledgeable about managing diversity & inclusion from talent acquisition perspective. Strong written and verbal communication skills in English and Italian. Why adidas? Employees are eligible to earn an annual bonus based on both company and personal performance. This position will follow a hybrid working environment, working 3 days in office or store and 2 days remote. The working location of this position is Milan, Italy. This position may require up to 25% travel for the market is supports. Though our teammates hail from all corners of the world, our working language is English. #J-18808-Ljbffr