Senior Recruiter – 12 month FTC

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work–life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. We’re the first to say we do HR differently here. For a start, we work as business partners and specialists — whether that’s making sure nearly 150,000 colleagues are paid on time, or shaping a strategy that helps us attract the right people, put them in the right place, and unlock their potential. This is a fast-moving business, and our policies and rewards evolve with it. That’s why we’re as flexible as we can be about where and when you work. We’re also flexible about your future. There’s always room to move up or across, if that’s what you want. We really value different perspectives, so there’s no one opinion, no single path, and yours matters.

Why join us

At Sainsbury’s, we recognise that our people are our greatest asset. As a Senior Recruiter, you will have the opportunity to make a significant impact by attracting and selecting top talent for our Commercial functions, predominately our Retail, Digital and Channel Operations business units. We are passionate about providing an exceptional candidate experience, and we value collaboration and flexibility within our recruitment team. With a focus on diversity and inclusion, you will have the chance to develop strong partnerships with hiring managers, build talent pools, and contribute to our employer brand.

What you’ll do

Your primary responsibility will be the end-to-end recruitment for our Commercial functions. Your expertise from working as an in-house Recruiter will play a crucial role in ensuring the delivery of high-quality and diverse candidates. Putting the candidate experience at the forefront, you will collaborate with stakeholders, working flexibly as part of the wider recruitment team to meet business needs. Your ability to develop and share market insights and candidate pools through networking, research, and knowledge sharing will be valued. Coaching and sharing expert knowledge with others will contribute to the success of our team. Your proven track record in hiring talent, will enable you to effectively manage candidates through the recruitment process, strengthening our employer brand. Building strong partnerships with hiring managers, you will identify talent requirements and bring in high-quality candidates. Additionally, you’ll be involved in managing and delivering recruitment projects that may span multiple roles, functions or timelines. This could include building talent pipelines for future capability needs, supporting organisational change, or delivering recruitment activity at pace for business‑critical programmes. You’ll use data, market insight and candidate feedback to continuously improve outcomes. Overall, your blend of recruitment experience, technical hiring expertise, sourcing abilities, and passion for diversity and inclusion will make a difference in attracting top talent to our organisation.

Who you are

You’re an experienced in‑house recruiter who enjoys working in a fast‑moving, stakeholder‑driven environment and is confident managing multiple priorities at once. You’ll use your strong communication skills, enabling effective interaction with candidates and hiring managers. You’ll be proficient in using various recruitment tools and platforms, such as LinkedIn Recruiter and LinkedIn Insights, coupled with strong networking skills to helps build and maintain a robust talent pipeline. Experience in conducting robust pre screening and assessing candidate qualifications, along with the ability to use diverse assessment techniques, is vital. You’ll harness your knowledge of the market to analyse recruitment metrics and addressing challenges in attraction, and be able to showcase this to your stakeholders when needed. You’re also comfortable owning complex recruitment activity and projects, bringing structure, clarity and momentum even when requirements evolve.

Essential criteria

• Proven delivery of end‑to‑end in‑house recruitment across professional or retail roles
• Demonstratable experience of managing recruitment projects involving multiple roles, stakeholders or competing timelines
• Evidence of building effective partnerships with hiring managers to define requirements and deliver agreed outcomes
• Proven use of direct sourcing methods (e.g. LinkedIn Recruiter or equivalent tools) to build and maintain talent pipelines
• Demonstratable experience of using recruitment data or market insight to inform hiring decisions and improve outcomes

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 10% of salary, depending on how we perform. Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme.Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).