[Hiring] Manager, Partner Firm Recruiting @Ascend Partner Services

Role Description

Reporting to the Director of Partner Firm Recruiting, the Recruiting Manager, East will lead recruiting outcomes across our Northeast and Southeast partner firms. You will manage a team of high performing recruiters and sourcers, partner with firm CEOs, CGOs, and Heads of People across your region, and build the systems that allow recruiting to scale alongside Ascend's growth. Your impact will be measured by your team's performance, the strength of your firm partnerships, and the smooth onboarding of new firms joining the Ascend platform.

In this role, you will:

• Team Leadership & Development:
  • Lead and develop a team of recruiters and sourcers across the Northeast and Southeast.
  • Foster a high-performing team through clear expectations, consistent feedback, and meaningful coaching.
• Firm Partnership & Strategic Advisory:
  • Build trusted relationships with firm CEOs, CGOs, and Heads of People across your region.
  • Partner with firm leadership on workforce planning, market intelligence, and talent strategy.
  • Bring recruiting expertise and data into conversations that drive well-informed hiring decisions.
• Operational Excellence & Scale:
  • Own the operating rhythm for the team — weekly 1:1s, pipeline reviews, search calibration, and reporting cadences.
  • Build scalable processes and systems that improve quality, speed, and candidate experience as the team grows.
• Operating Backbone & Escalation (Platform-Wide):
  • Serve as the day-to-day operational anchor for the recruiting function.
  • Own the escalation path for questions from recruiters across the platform.
  • Own the team’s process documentation and playbook.
  • Handle tier-1 issues with our recruiting-product account managers.
• Hiring Outcomes & Execution:
  • Drive consistent delivery against hiring plans across every firm in your region.
  • Coach the team through complex senior searches, candidate negotiations, and search calibration moments.
  • Lead with a solutions-oriented mindset, turning challenges into clear paths forward.
• AI & Modern Recruiting:
  • Embed AI fluency into the team's operating model.
  • Identify high-leverage workflows and ensure the team stays at the leading edge of AI-enabled recruiting.
  • Use data and recruiting analytics to surface insights and continuously improve funnel health.
• Platform Partnership & Cross-Functional Influence:
  • Partner with the Director of Partner Firm Recruiting and platform peers on governance, tooling, reporting standards, and team-wide initiatives.
  • Represent your team and region with clarity, surfacing risks proactively.
• Integration & Growth:
  • Lead talent integration for new firms joining in your region.
  • Ensure a smooth transition and a strong start for firm leadership and their hiring needs.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of full-cycle experienced-hire recruiting experience, with at least 2-3 years managing a team of 3+ recruiters in a high-growth, PE-backed, or professional services environment.
• Experience building and developing high-performing recruiting teams, including coaching on assessment, stakeholder management, and closing.
• Deep, hands-on expertise in full cycle recruiting, with a track record of leading teams to deliver consistent hiring outcomes in high growth environments.
• Strong operator with a bias for action and follow-through; sets priorities, navigates ambiguity with sound judgment, and drives execution and results consistently.
• Active AI fluency in your own workflow and a track record of coaching your team on AI adoption.
• Experience running an operations or enablement layer for a recruiting team — escalation, documentation, process ownership, and vendor/tooling triage.
• Excellent communication and influence skills with the ability to build trusted partnerships at the senior level.
• East Coast based, with willingness to travel quarterly to partner firms across the Northeast and Southeast.

What You Can Count On

• We live by our values:
• Own it: We seize growth opportunities with the passion, speed and accountability of an entrepreneur.
• Serve whole-heartedly: We love our people and serve them with positivity and kindness.
• Be excellent: We set a high bar because our mission matters.
• Win together: We stay in sync, achieve as a team and celebrate each other.
• Bring the sunshine: We have fun and bring enthusiasm to make the journey joyful.