Talent Acquisition Lead - Operations

Application Deadline: 18 November 2026

Department: People Experience

Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time

Location: Carma HQ

Reporting To: Rachel Russell

Description

At Carma, we're more than just a car company—we're on a mission to shake up the Australian automotive industry As a digital pre-owned car dealership, we're turning the car buying (and selling) experience into a hassle-free, seamless journey that customers can truly enjoy. With our diverse and collaborative team managing everything from engineering to marketing and buying to reconditioning in-house, we're powered by the best people—and we'd love for you to come along for the ride

As a Talent Acquisition Lead, you'll play a critical role in leading and delivering recruitment across Carma's high-pace operational environments. You'll work closely with stakeholders across our production facilities to understand workforce requirements and build practical recruitment strategies that attract and retain top talent.

This is a hands-on TA leadership role, with a solid focus on frontline, skilled trades, automotive and operational hiring. You'll balance high-volume recruitment with targeted sourcing for hard-to-find technical talent, while coaching the TA team, improving recruitment processes and helping Carma scale its operational workforce.

What you'll be doing:

- Lead recruitment across Carma’s operational workforce, partnering closely with production and operational leaders to understand workforce requirements and deliver against hiring plans.
- Build and execute practical sourcing strategies across high-volume frontline roles and hard-to-fill skilled positions, using direct sourcing, referrals, job boards,



agencies and non-traditional talent channels.
- Own high-volume recruitment campaigns when operational demand changes, quickly scaling attraction and selection activity to ensure critical vacancies are filled.
- Personally recruit key and difficult-to-fill positions, particularly across automotive, skilled trades, production, logistics and operational functions.
- Support and coach the TA team, setting priorities, allocating workloads, removing roadblocks and creating accountability for delivery, candidate experience and quality of hire.
- Partner with operational leaders on workforce planning, translating headcount requirements, turnover, productivity and operational demand into clear recruitment plans.
- Build strong talent pipelines for recurring and specialist roles, reducing reliance on reactive recruitment and creating sustainable talent pools for Carma’s growing operational workforce.
- Use recruitment data to drive decisions, tracking vacancy levels, time-to-fill, source effectiveness, conversion, offer acceptance, quality of hire and other key metrics to identify bottlenecks and improve outcomes.
- Improve the way Carma recruits, identifying opportunities to simplify processes, improve candidate experience, increase hiring manager capability and introduce greater consistency across sites.
- Leverage technology,



automation and AI to reduce recruitment administration, improve candidate engagement and make the TA team more efficient and data-driven.
- Act as a trusted recruitment partner to senior stakeholders, providing market insight, challenging assumptions where needed and ensuring hiring decisions balance speed, quality and operational requirements.
- Help shape Carma’s employer brand and attraction strategy for frontline and skilled talent, ensuring we stand out in competitive automotive and operational talent markets.
- Be hands-on when required—jumping into sourcing, screening, interviewing, stakeholder meetings and recruitment campaigns when priorities or hiring volumes demand it.

About you:

- Proven experience successfully delivering full-cycle recruitment in complex, fast-paced environments
- Demonstrated experience leading, managing, or mentoring a Talent Acquisition team, with a strong ability to coach and set direction
- Proven track record in high-volume recruitment as well as targeted sourcing for difficult-to-fill technical, skilled, and frontline roles
- Strong understanding of technical and operational talent markets, with the ability to quickly grasp specialist capabilities
- Experience partnering with executive stakeholders and business leaders to develop attraction strategies and workforce plans
- Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence at all levels
- Strong commercial awareness with a highly organized approach to managing competing priorities
- A continuous improvement mindset, comfortable working in fast-paced or ambiguous environments to build structure and better ways of working

📌 Talent Acquisition Lead (Sydney)
🏢 Carma
📍 Sydney