Talent acquisition & recruiter

What does a talent acquisition & recruiter do?

A talent acquisition specialist, often called a recruiter, finds and hires people for an organisation.

The work covers writing job ads, sourcing candidates, running interviews, making offers and handing new hires over to onboarding.

In Singapore, the role sits in the HR team of an employer or in a recruitment agency. In-house recruiters usually report to a talent acquisition manager or the head of HR. Larger organisations split sourcing, coordination and employer branding across several people.

You work daily with hiring managers, HR business partners, compensation and benefits staff, and candidates. When you hire foreign professionals, you also deal with work pass rules from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM).

What the work involves

• Agree the job requirements, headcount and budget with a hiring manager before a vacancy goes live.
• Write job ads and search for candidates on LinkedIn, job portals and referral channels.
• Screen applications, run phone screens and set up interviews with hiring managers.
• Track every candidate in the applicant tracking system and report on time to fill and cost per hire.
• Prepare offers, check work pass needs for foreign hires and pass new joiners to the onboarding team.
• Plan outreach and employer branding work, such as career pages, campus events and job fairs.

Pay in Singapore

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Skills a talent acquisition & recruiter needs

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Talent acquisition & recruiter job description

We are hiring a talent acquisition specialist to fill roles across our Singapore business.

You will work with hiring managers to define each role, find and assess candidates, and manage them through to offer and onboarding. You will use an applicant tracking system, follow fair employment practices and report on hiring results. Experience in full-cycle recruitment is an advantage.

Responsibilities

• Meet hiring managers to define role requirements, selection criteria and hiring timelines.
• Write clear job ads that follow fair employment guidelines.
• Source candidates through LinkedIn Recruiter, job portals, referrals and talent communities.
• Screen applicants and run structured, competency-based interviews.
• Coordinate interview panels, assessments and reference checks.
• Prepare offers and employment contracts with the compensation and benefits team.
• Check work pass requirements and support Employment Pass and other work pass applications for foreign hires.
• Keep candidate records accurate in the applicant tracking system and HRIS, and protect personal data.
• Track hiring metrics such as time to fill, cost per hire and offer acceptance, and report them to HR leaders.
• Support employer branding through career page content, campus events and recruitment campaigns.

Requirements

• A diploma or degree, often in human resource management, business or psychology; other fields are common.
• Typically 1 to 3 years of recruitment experience for an executive role, and more for senior or managerial roles.
• Working knowledge of Singapore employment practices, including fair hiring guidelines and work pass categories.
• Hands-on use of an applicant tracking system and a sourcing tool such as LinkedIn Recruiter.
• Familiarity with an HRIS such as Workday or SAP SuccessFactors is often preferred.
• Clear writing, good interviewing skills and comfort working with numbers.

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Talent acquisition & recruiter career path

Most recruiters start in coordination or junior recruiting roles and move up to run hiring for a function, then a team.

At the top, you set how the organisation attracts talent.

1. Recruitment coordinator

   Entry

   Schedules interviews, posts job ads, updates the applicant tracking system and supports candidates through the process.

2. Talent acquisition executive

   Mid

   Runs full-cycle hiring for assigned roles, from sourcing and screening to offer.

3. Senior talent acquisition partner

   Senior

   Owns hiring for a business unit, advises hiring managers and handles hard-to-fill or senior roles.

4. Manager, talent attraction

   Lead · SkillsFuture title

   Plans manpower sourcing, designs the employee value proposition, picks assessment tools and sets onboarding processes.

5. Head, talent attraction

   Head · SkillsFuture title

   Sets the organisation's talent attraction strategy, budget and employer brand, and leads the recruitment team.

Steps marked "SkillsFuture title" follow the career pathway in the SkillsFuture Skills Framework. The others are titles commonly used in Singapore.

Related jobs and their pay

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Talent acquisition & recruiter interview questions

We wrote these questions from the skills this job needs. They are not an official question bank.

1. How would you search LinkedIn Recruiter for a data engineer in Singapore when few candidates show up?

   What a good answer covers

   • Starts with job titles and skills, then widens to related titles
   • Uses Boolean strings and filters for location, years of experience and industry
   • Looks at candidates who recently changed roles or signalled they are open to work
   • Saves searches and tests which messages get replies
   • Checks results against the brief with the hiring manager

2. How do you design a structured interview for a role?

   What a good answer covers

   • Starts from the job requirements and the skills needed
   • Writes the same core questions for every candidate
   • Uses a scorecard with clear ratings for each competency
   • Includes behavioural and situational questions
   • Briefs the panel and collects scores before the group discussion

3. Which hiring metrics do you track, and what would you do if time to fill keeps rising?

   What a good answer covers

   • Names time to fill, cost per hire, offer acceptance rate and source of hire
   • Adds funnel pass-through rates and quality of hire after the probation period
   • Finds the stage where candidates are stuck, such as interview scheduling or approvals
   • Separates causes inside HR from causes on the manager side
   • Proposes a fix and a way to check that it worked

4. How do you set up a new job requisition and hiring workflow in an applicant tracking system?

   What a good answer covers

   • Captures role, headcount, budget approval and hiring manager
   • Defines pipeline stages and who moves candidates between them
   • Attaches scorecards and standard email templates
   • Sets access rights so only the right people see candidate data
   • Keeps a record of decisions for audit and reporting

5. A company is little known to job seekers. How would you build its employer brand for hiring engineers?

   What a good answer covers

   • Defines what the organisation actually offers, such as work, growth and flexibility
   • Checks the offer against what current staff say
   • Updates the career page and job ads to reflect it
   • Chooses channels engineers use, such as meetups, campus events and referrals
   • Measures results through applications, referral rates and offer acceptance

6. Explain the main differences between Employment Pass, S Pass and other work passes when advising a hiring manager.

   What a good answer covers

   • Explains that pass types differ by candidate level, salary expectations and eligibility rules
   • Says that criteria change, so you check the current rules with MOM before advising
   • Mentions the need to check candidate qualifications and the employer's obligations
   • Explains the impact on timelines and offer conditions
   • Leaves approval open when talking to the candidate

7. How do you use ChatGPT in recruitment, and where do you not use it?

   What a good answer covers

   • Uses it to draft job ad wording, interview question ideas and outreach messages
   • Edits all output for accuracy and tone
   • Keeps candidate personal data out of public tools
   • Watches for biased wording and never lets it rank or reject candidates alone
   • Follows company policy on AI tools

8. Hire data sits in your applicant tracking system and in Workday or SuccessFactors. How do you keep the two consistent?

   What a good answer covers

   • Maps fields between the systems, such as job title, grade and start date
   • Decides which system is the source of truth for each field
   • Checks hire records for gaps or duplicates before and after transfer
   • Works with the HRIS team to fix errors at the source
   • Limits who can edit records

1. A hiring manager asks you to write in the job ad that you want a young and energetic candidate. What do you do?

   What a good answer covers

   • Explains that age-based wording can breach fair employment guidelines
   • Asks what the manager actually needs, such as pace, energy or digital skills
   • Rewrites the ad around skills and job requirements
   • Keeps the tone respectful and offers to take the issue to HR leadership if needed
   • Documents the change

2. Your top candidate receives a counter offer from their current employer two days before the start date. What do you do?

   What a good answer covers

   • Asks the candidate what matters most to them beyond pay
   • Checks what you can offer within the approved budget and grade
   • Involves the hiring manager if a conversation would help
   • Keeps a second candidate warm and stays honest with both people
   • Records the reason to learn for future offers

3. A new office needs 10 hires in eight weeks and the recruitment budget is limited. How do you plan it?

   What a good answer covers

   • Splits roles by difficulty and urgency
   • Picks low-cost channels first, such as referrals, the career page and talent pool
   • Sets a weekly target for each pipeline stage
   • Books interview slots for hiring managers in advance
   • Reports progress weekly and flags risks early

1. Tell me about a time a hiring manager disagreed with your advice on a candidate or a plan.

   What a good answer covers

   • Describes the situation and the disagreement briefly
   • Shows how you used data or interview evidence
   • Stays respectful and listens to the manager's concerns
   • States the outcome and what you changed afterwards

2. Describe a hire that did not work out. What did you learn?

   What a good answer covers

   • Describes the hire honestly and takes ownership
   • Identifies what the process missed, such as weak reference checks or unclear role expectations
   • Explains the change made to screening, interviews or onboarding
   • Shows how you checked that the change helped

1. How does the Fair Consideration Framework affect how you hire when a role might go to a foreign professional?

   What a good answer covers

   • Explains in general terms that employers must treat local candidates fairly
   • Mentions advertising and fair assessment of applicants
   • Says you keep records of the hiring process and decisions
   • Says you check the latest MOM and TAFEP guidance because the rules can change
   • Gives an example, such as evaluating all applicants against the same criteria

2. A candidate asks you to delete their CV after an unsuccessful interview. How do you handle it under the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA)?

   What a good answer covers

   • Acknowledges the request and passes it to the data protection officer if needed
   • Explains that personal data should be used only for stated purposes
   • Checks the retention policy and any legal need to keep the data
   • Deletes the data from the applicant tracking system and shared files where required
   • Confirms the outcome with the candidate

Common questions about a talent acquisition & recruiter job

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