Talent Acquisition Lead (Remote - Based in Italy)
Talent Acquisition Lead (Remote - Based in Italy)
Talent Acquisition Lead – Italy
Italy | Competitive salary and benefits
TeamFeePay (TFP) is one of the biggest grassroots football club management platforms in the UK. Our ambition is a simple one: to be the number one platform supporting grassroots football in every market we operate in. We are a scale-up growing rapidly across the UK and Europe and the people we hire and develop are what will determine how far and how fast we go.
We launched in Italy in early 2026 and already have more than [X] clubs on the platform as customers and, just as importantly, advocates for what we do. Having proven the market, we are now ready to accelerate. We expect Italy to follow the growth trajectory we have seen in the UK, where the team is now more than 100 people. That gives you a clear sense of the scale we are building towards, and of the pace at which hiring will need to move to get us there.
We are looking for a Talent Acquisition Lead, based in Italy, to take ownership of hiring in what will become one of our most important markets. Reporting to the Chief People Officer and with support from the Talent Acquisition Lead in Belfast, you will run recruitment end to end for every role we hire in country and support hiring into our wider European territories. This is a hands-on, delivery-focused role. You will own your own requisitions, source and assess candidates directly, and guide hiring managers through the process from briefing to offer.
This is a pivotal role and you will join at the start of a hugely exciting stage of our evolution in Italy. Every hire you make will shape how quickly we grow here, how well we serve Italian clubs and the culture we build as the team expands. You will have considerable influence over our growth trajectory in Italy, direct access to leadership, and the chance to build a function from the ground up rather than inherit one already formed. Put simply, you will be integral to our success in this market.
As our first dedicated recruitment hire on the ground in Italy, you will be the local expert. You will bring the market knowledge, the language and the networks we need to build a credible employer brand in a market where we are not yet well known. You will not be doing it alone. Our Talent Acquisition Lead in the UK will help you get to grips with our hiring philosophy, our processes and our systems, and you will work closely with colleagues in Belfast so that our hiring standards are applied consistently wherever the role sits. You will be well supported to do the best work of your career here.
What’s in it for you
• Competitive salary and bonus
• Private medical insurance
• Professional development opportunities
Your day-to-day
End-to-End Recruitment Delivery
• Take full responsibility for all in-country hiring in Italy, across every function, from individual specialist appointments through to volume commercial recruitment.
• Own a portfolio of live vacancies across Italy and, where required, other European territories, managing each one from briefing through to signed offer.
• Take detailed role briefs from hiring managers, agreeing the candidate profile, assessment approach, timeline and success measures before the role goes live.
• Write and localise job advertisements that are accurate, inclusive and appealing to candidates in the Italian market.
• Screen applications, conduct first-stage interviews and provide clear, evidence-based shortlists with recommendations rather than long lists of CVs.
• Coordinate interviews and assessments across time zones, keeping the process moving and holding hiring managers to agreed timescales.
• Manage offer conversations, including salary discussions within agreed ranges and how packages are presented in RAL terms, and work with the People team to get contracts and pre-employment checks completed.
• Keep time to hire, cost per hire and offer acceptance within agreed targets, and flag early where a role is at risk of stalling.
Sales Hiring and Assessment Centres
• Lead recruitment for our Regional Football Representative (RFR) roles, which will make up much of the hiring plan through the initial phase of scaling in Italy.
• Plan and facilitate the assessment centres we hold in each region, covering candidate invitation and logistics, exercise delivery, scoring and calibration with hiring managers.
• Travel within Italy as required to run assessment centres and to be visible to candidates and hiring teams in the regions where we are growing.
• Build repeatable, high-quality selection processes for volume commercial hiring, so that quality of hire holds up as the pace of recruitment increases.
Direct Sourcing and Pipeline Building
• Proactively source passive candidates through LinkedIn, local job boards, professional networks, communities and referrals, reducing our reliance on agency supply.
• Build and maintain talent pipelines for recurring and business-critical roles so that we are not starting from zero each time a vacancy opens.
• Run targeted outreach campaigns in Italian, with messaging that reflects TFP rather than generic recruiter templates.
• Develop relationships with universities, bootcamps, sector groups and local networks to build early-career and specialist pipelines.
• Manage any agency or contractor relationships used in your market, holding suppliers to agreed terms, service levels and cost.
Candidate and Hiring Manager Experience
• Deliver a candidate experience that reflects our values, keeping every applicant informed and treating unsuccessful candidates as well as successful ones.
• Act as the main point of contact for candidates in your market, answering questions on the role, the company, the process and the practicalities of working for a UK-headquartered business.
• Coach hiring managers on interviewing, structured assessment, note-taking and fair selection, and challenge decisions that are not supported by evidence.
• Gather candidate and hiring manager feedback after each process and use it to improve how we hire.
Local Market Knowledge and Compliance
• Act as our source of local market intelligence, covering salary benchmarking, notice periods, hiring lead times, candidate expectations and competitor activity in Italy.
• Ensure hiring practice is compliant with Italian employment law, including the obligations of the applicable CCNL (national collective labour agreement) and the rules governing fixed-term and apprenticeship contracts, and with right to work requirements.
• Handle candidate data in line with EU and UK GDPR and the Italian Data Protection Code, observing the restrictions on pre-employment enquiries set out in the Workers’ Statute, and keeping records accurate, secure and retained only for as long as needed.
• Support safeguarding and pre-employment screening requirements relevant to the grassroots sport sector.
• Work with the Chief People Officer and external advisers on employment model questions, such as direct entity or employer of record arrangements, feeding in what you see in the market.
Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing
• Build TFP’s profile as an employer in Italy, adapting our employee value proposition so that it reads as locally credible rather than as a translated UK message.
• Create and localise careers content, employer profiles and candidate communications, working with Marketing to keep a consistent brand voice.
• Represent TFP at careers events, meet-ups and industry gatherings in your market.
Systems, Data and Reporting
• Keep the applicant tracking system accurate and up to date, so that pipeline data can be relied on for reporting and forecasting.
• Report on recruitment activity and outcomes for your market, including pipeline health, source effectiveness, conversion rates and diversity data where lawful to collect.
• Identify where process, tooling or templates could be improved for multi-country hiring and put forward practical suggestions.
• Embed equality, diversity and inclusion into day-to-day hiring practice, not just at the point of writing the advertisement.
About this role
You Should Apply If
• You have solid experience as an in-house or agency recruiter, with a track record of filling roles directly rather than relying on third parties.
• You are based in Italy and have recruited into the Italian market, with an understanding of local candidate expectations, salary levels and hiring norms.
• You have a high standard of written and spoken English. English is the working language across TFP, and you will work daily with colleagues, hiring managers and leadership in the UK and Ireland, so you must be able to communicate, write and present in English with confidence and accuracy.
• You are fluent in Italian, both written and spoken, and can source, advertise and interview credibly in the local market.
• You have experience in running assessment centres
• You are a genuinely strong sourcer who is comfortable building pipelines from scratch where the employer brand is not yet established.
• You have recruited across a range of functions, and are comfortable moving between commercial, operational and technical roles.
• You have recruited sales or commercial roles in the Italian market. Much of the early hiring plan will be Regional Football Representative (RFR) roles, so experience of sales hiring across Italy will be particularly valuable.
• You are confident designing and facilitating assessment centres, and are willing to travel within Italy to run them.
• You are confident working with hiring managers at all levels, including influencing and challenging where the brief or the decision needs to be tested.
• You are organised and can manage multiple live vacancies without losing momentum or letting candidates go quiet.
• You are comfortable using data to report on your pipeline and to make the case for how a role should be approached.
• You have a working knowledge of Italian employment and data protection requirements as they apply to recruitment, including how the applicable CCNL shapes contract types, notice periods and offer terms, and the judgement to know when to seek specialist advice.
• You are comfortable working remotely and independently as part of a distributed, multi-country team.
• You have a passion for the football industry and a genuine interest in grassroots sport.
Desirable
• Experience recruiting for a SaaS, technology or subscription business.
• Experience of being the first recruitment hire in a new market, or of supporting a market entry.
• Experience recruiting into other European markets, particularly Spain.
• Working knowledge of Spanish or another European language.
• Experience with applicant tracking systems and modern sourcing tooling.
• A relevant recruitment or HR qualification, or equivalent experience.
TeamFeePay is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from all suitably qualified candidates regardless of age, disability, gender, gender identity, marital or civil partnership status, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, or any other protected characteristic. If you require any reasonable adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process, please let us know and we will accommodate them.
What you will need
Desired criteria
- Experience recruiting for roles in other European territories.
- Experience with high-volume commercial recruitment.
- Ability to build and maintain talent pipelines for recurring and business-critical roles.
- Experience developing relationships with universities, bootcamps, sector groups, and local networks for talent acquisition.
- Experience in employer branding and recruitment marketing, specifically adapting employee value propositions for local markets.
- Knowledge of safeguarding and pre-employment screening requirements relevant to the grassroots sport sector.
- Experience representing an employer at careers events, meet-ups, and industry gatherings.
- A proactive approach to identifying and suggesting improvements for multi-country hiring processes, tools, or templates.
- Experience embedding equality, diversity, and inclusion into day-to-day hiring practices.
