Director, Talent Intelligence and Early Careers

Headway is looking for a Director of Talent Intelligence and Early Careers Recruiting to build and lead a first-of-its-kind function focused on Headway's long-term talent pipeline. This leader will own two interconnected pillars — Campus Recruiting and Talent Intelligence — and will be accountable for delivering a defined number of hires across the business through these channels. You'll build the team, the strategy, and the infrastructure from the ground up, working hand-in-hand with the Head of Recruiting, Recruiting Manager peers, and the HR and Recruiting Programs teams to make this a true competitive advantage for Headway.

Why this role, why now? Headway is scaling rapidly, and sustainable growth means building talent pipelines — not just filling reqs. This Director will shape how Headway thinks about talent for the next decade: from the campuses we invest in, to the internal moves we enable, to the market intelligence that keeps us ahead of the competition. It's a rare opportunity to build something consequential from the ground up, at a company where the mission — access to mental healthcare for everyone who needs it — gives every hire real stakes.

What you’ll own…

Talent & Market Intelligence Pillar

• Build and lead a recruiting and market intelligence team responsible for proactive talent mapping, competitive landscape analysis, and sourcing strategy across tech and business functions.

• Define the frameworks for market mapping — who we should know, where talent is moving, and which competitors, industries, or schools are underexplored.

• Serve as the organization's sourcing subject matter expert, setting the standard for sourcing craft and raising capability across the entire recruiting team through coaching, enablement, and shared best practices.

• Partner with recruiting manager peers and hiring managers to translate market intelligence into actionable sourcing and targeting strategies.

• Build the infrastructure and operating rhythm for long-term nurture of high-potential candidates, so relationships are cultivated well before a role opens and warm pipelines exist at the moment of need.

• Partner with Talent Brand to shape an events strategy that creates in-person and community touchpoints with the talent we've mapped, turning brand investment into pipeline.

• Own the data infrastructure and reporting that surfaces hiring trends, pipeline health, and market benchmarks to inform capacity planning conversations.

Campus Recruiting Pillar

• Define and own Headway's campus recruiting strategy end-to-end: target school selection, event programming, offer positioning, and conversion.

• Build and manage relationships with universities, career centers, and student organizations across both technical and business disciplines.

• Own the full event strategy — from info sessions and career fairs to hackathons and diversity-focused programming — and continuously assess ROI to double down on what works and cut what doesn't.

• Own the summer internship program end-to-end: intern hiring, project scoping with managers, onboarding, programming and community-building throughout the summer, performance evaluation, and return offer decisions.

• Partner with the HR and Recruiting Programs teams on the surrounding programmatic infrastructure — return offer processes, post-offer engagement, and start-date conversion — that turns campus hires into long-term Headwegians.

Cross-Functional Responsibilities

• Own a defined number of business-wide hires through your team's channels; hold yourself and your team accountable to that number quarter over quarter.

• Capacity plan alongside the Head of Recruiting and Recruiting Manager peers — bringing a data-backed point of view on where early careers investment will yield the highest return across functions and levels.

• Serve as the connective tissue between campus, sourcing, and programs, ensuring a seamless candidate experience from first touch through hire and onboarding.

You’ll be a great fit if…

• 10+ years of recruiting experience, with meaningful time spent leading campus, sourcing, or talent pipeline functions at a high-growth company.

• Demonstrated experience hiring across both technical (engineering, data, product) and business (sales, operations, G&A) functions — you understand what good looks like in both worlds.

• Track record of building teams and programs from scratch, not just inheriting them.

• Strong analytical orientation — you use data to set strategy, measure outcomes, and make the case for where to invest and where to pull back.

• Experience partnering with HR, People Programs, or Recruiting Operations teams to bring structure and scalability to programmatic work.

• Excellent stakeholder management — you can influence without authority and hold a credible point of view in a room with senior leaders.

• Comfort with ambiguity and a bias toward action; this role requires someone who can define the path while walking it.