Senior Strategic Talent Acquisition Specialist

Company Description

At AECOM, we're delivering a better world.

Whether it's improving water security, delivering critical infrastructure or helping communities thrive, our Water business is solving some of the most complex challenges across Australia and New Zealand.

We're looking for an experienced Talent Acquisition professional to partner with our Water leadership team and play a key role in shaping the future workforce that will deliver these projects.

This is more than recruitment. You'll act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders, providing market intelligence, workforce planning expertise and strategic hiring solutions that help our business attract, engage and hire exceptional talent.

This is a 12-month fixed-term contract opportunity supporting a period of parental leave, based from our Sydney or Melbourne offices. Given the continued growth of our Water business, there may be potential for extension beyond the initial term, subject to business needs.

Job Description

What will a day in this role look like?

As a Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist, you'll work closely with leaders across our Water business to develop and deliver talent strategies aligned to business growth, capability needs and long-term workforce planning.

You will:

- Partner with senior leaders to develop strategic hiring and workforce plans.
- Provide talent market insights, competitor intelligence and workforce recommendations.
- Lead end-to-end recruitment for critical and specialist Water industry positions.
- Build proactive talent pipelines across technical and leadership disciplines.
- Support international recruitment initiatives and provide guidance on visa pathways and talent mobility.
- Use data, analytics and market intelligence to influence hiring decisions and workforce strategy.
- Identify opportunities to improve recruitment processes, leveraging AI, automation and emerging technologies.
- Collaborate with employer branding and attraction teams to strengthen AECOM's position in the talent market.
- Deliver exceptional candidate and stakeholder experiences while driving quality hiring outcomes.
- Present talent insights and recommendations to senior stakeholders with confidence and credibility.

Qualifications

What you’ll bring:

We're looking for an experienced talent acquisition professional who enjoys building relationships, influencing hiring decisions and partnering with leaders to solve complex workforce challenges.

While not every candidate will tick every box, we'd love to hear from you if you bring a combination of the following skills, experience and capabilities:

- 8+ years' experience in recruitment or talent acquisition, ideally within engineering, consulting, construction or infrastructure environments.
- Experience partnering with senior business leaders on workforce planning and strategic hiring initiatives.
- Strong understanding of the Australian talent market and current attraction challenges.
- Experience recruiting internationally and working with skilled migration and visa pathways.
- Demonstrated capability using modern recruitment technology, sourcing platforms, AI tools and talent analytics.
- Strong influencing, stakeholder management and communication skills.
- A commercial mindset with the ability to translate workforce data into actionable business recommendations.
- Experience recruiting within the Water sector or broader infrastructure market will be highly regarded.

As mentioned, this is a 12-month fixed-term contract opportunity based in either our Melbourne or Sydney office. With continued growth across our business, there may be potential for extension beyond the initial term, as well as future career opportunities within AECOM.

Additional Information

Why You'll Enjoy Working With Us

At AECOM, you'll be part of a global organisation where your ideas, expertise and ambition are valued. We empower our people to grow their careers while maintaining the flexibility to thrive both professionally and personally.

You'll have the opportunity to partner with influential leaders, shape workforce strategies for one of our key growth sectors and contribute to projects that make a meaningful difference to communities across Australia and New Zealand.

What we offer

- Flexible and hybrid working arrangements to support work-life balance.
- The opportunity to influence strategic workforce decisions across a growing business.
- Access to industry-leading technology, AI tools and innovative recruitment practices.
- Career development opportunities across Australia, New Zealand and our global network.
- The ability to purchase up to six weeks of additional annual leave each year.
- Paid volunteer leave and opportunities to support community initiatives.
- Flexible public holiday options that allow you to recognise the days that matter most to you.
- A diverse and inclusive culture where everyone can bring their whole self to work.
- Industry-leading learning and development programs to support your long-term career growth.

Join us and help shape the future workforce delivering some of the most important water infrastructure projects across the region.

At AECOM, we are committed to maintaining a secure and trustworthy recruitment process and take any fraudulent hiring activity seriously. To support this commitment, all newly hired employees are required to attend an in-person Day 1 onboarding at an AECOM office location as a condition of employment.

AECOM acknowledges the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands on which we, our clients and our communities live and work around Australia. We pay our respects to their cultures and to their Elders — past, present, and emerging. We are committed to connecting to Country in our work through meaningful engagement with First Nations peoples and businesses.  Find out more about our Australian Reconciliation Action Plan here: https://aecom.com/au/our-vision-for-reconciliation/.

About AECOM

AECOM is the world’s trusted infrastructure consulting firm, delivering professional services throughout the project lifecycle – from advisory, planning, design and engineering to program and construction management. On projects spanning transportation, buildings, water, new energy and the environment, our public- and private-sector clients trust us to solve their most complex challenges. Our teams are driven by a common purpose to deliver a better world through our unrivaled technical and digital expertise, a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion, and a commitment to environmental, social and governance priorities. AECOM is a Fortune 500 firm and its Professional Services business had revenue of $16.1 billion in fiscal year 2025. See how we are delivering sustainable legacies for generations to come at aecom.com and @AECOM.

Freedom to Grow in a World of Opportunity

You will have the flexibility you need to do your best work with hybrid work options. Whether you’re working from an AECOM office, remote location or at a client site, you will be working in a dynamic environment where your integrity, entrepreneurial spirit and pioneering mindset are championed.

You will help us foster a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion – a safe and respectful workplace, where we invite everyone to bring their whole selves to work using their unique talents, backgrounds and expertise to create transformational outcomes for our clients.

AECOM provides a wide array of compensation and benefits programs to meet the diverse needs of our employees and their families. We also provide a robust global well-being program. We’re the world’s trusted global infrastructure firm, and we’re in this together – your growth and success are ours too.

Join us, and you’ll get all the benefits of being a part of a global, publicly traded firm – access to industry-leading technology and thinking and transformational work with big impact and work flexibility. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person’s potential, and we’ll help you reach yours.