Director of Recruiting

Director of Recruiting

Location: Chicago, IL — you will spend about 30% of your time traveling to our centers in Illinois and Texas Type : Full-Time, Exempt Compensation : $80,000 - $100,000 + bonus

Most recruiters cast a wide net and hope. We design an experience. Clinical talent is one of the most competitive markets there is, and the people worth hiring rarely apply anywhere, so the only way to reach them is to have something real to say and a creative, candidate-first way to say it. We have both: a model of care most companies only talk about, and a recruiting process where every touch is honest, specific, and worth the candidate's time. You don't need to come from this industry. You need to love a hard market and know how to make the right person feel the difference. We're looking for the person to lead it.

Why This Role Matters Here

• Recruiting is a top priority at Gracent, not a back-office function, and we resource it that way. You'll have direct access to leadership, fast decisions, and a real seat where strategy gets made, not a mandate handed down without the support to deliver it.
• It lives inside Marketing on purpose. We win clinicians the same way we win families: with a brand people trust and a true, specific story about who we are. The product is genuinely good, so the job isn't to dress up something thin. It's to get the right people to feel what's real about us before a competitor gets to them first.

How You'll Help Us Win In The Hard Market

• Hunt, not just post. The best clinicians aren't applying, so you'll build a proactive sourcing engine: direct outreach, referrals, licensure and alumni networks, professional communities, conferences, that reaches them before they're ever "on the market."
• Map the market cold. Know who the BCBAs, SLPs, and OTs are in every metro we serve, where they work now, what moves them, and where competitors are weak, and turn that intelligence into a live target list, not a guess.
• Build pipelines that compound. Nurture passive talent over months so Gracent is already in the conversation the day they're open to a move.
• Win on speed and substance. Out-pace better-funded competitors, compress time-to-offer so we never lose someone to a slow process, and have a real answer ready when a candidate gets a counteroffer.
• Own the numbers. Pipeline coverage, stage-by-stage conversion, time-to-fill, source-of-hire, offer-accept — you set the targets, watch them, and move resources to what's working. You manage to outcomes, not activity.
• Stand up new markets fast. As we grow across Illinois and Texas, you build the playbook for sourcing talent in a new metro from a standing start.

The Standard This Role Exists To Protect

When a BCBA, SLP, or OT hears from Gracent, it should feel different from every other recruiter in their inbox:

• No copy-paste flattery. No pitch that falls apart by the offer stage. No treating a clinician like a req to be filled.
• Recruit the way we deliver care: honestly, specifically, and with real respect for the person on the other end.
• Know the clinician is evaluating us as hard as we're evaluating them, and earn it.

The Job Has Two Sides (And You'll Love Both)

• Evergreen, high-volume: keep a steady pipeline of Behavior Therapists flowing into centers that run on them.
• Hard-to-fill, by hand: land the BCBAs, SLPs, OTs, and other licensed clinicians almost nobody can hire — more open roles than people holding the license, and the best ones aren't looking.
• Player-coach: you set the strategy and stay in the work — still sourcing, writing, and closing the searches that matter most, then coaching the team to do it even better.

How We Work

• We move fast and we try things. When the week changes, we pivot. We'd rather invent a smart solution than wait around for a perfect one, and we back the people who think that way.
• AI is how we work smarter — personalizing outreach with substance, mapping talent, and pulling busywork off recruiters so their time goes where it matters most: real conversations with real people.
• We want a leader energized by building , not someone running a playbook handed to them by someone else.

What You Bring

• Real depth in full-cycle recruiting, including time leading or mentoring others.
• Experience on both sides of this work: high-volume funnels and the patient, by-hand searches for talent that isn't applying anywhere.
• A genuine AI-forward practice you can show us.
• A builder's instinct, you make things happen with what's in front of you, and bring the people around you with you.
• Strong with data, fluent with ATS/CRM and sourcing tools, and steady when priorities move mid-week.
• Healthcare, ABA, allied-health, or licensed-professional recruiting experience is a real plus.

You'll Thrive Here If You Are

• A closer who lives for landing the person everyone said couldn't be hired.
• A two-speed operator who runs a volume funnel and a long passive search in the same week without confusing the two.
• Brand-minded: talent is an audience to be earned, not a list to be worked.
• An inventive builder: you'd rather create the solution than wait for the perfect one, and the people around you are the best part of the job.
• Honest by instinct: you'd rather pitch the real Gracent than a perfect fiction, because you know which one survives the offer.

Don't Meet Every Line Above?

We're honest about it: we're looking for a bit of a unicorn. So if you don't check every box but you've read this far and something in you is genuinely sure you can do this role, apply anyway. Tell us why. The right person for this might not look exactly like the list, and we'd rather hear from you than miss you.

Pressure Test Us.

Real strategy ownership, a team worth building, the room to try new things, and a company that treats recruiting as core, not overhead. That's what you'll actually decide on. If anything here sounds too good, or doesn't match what you're hearing elsewhere, ask us in the interview. We're genuinely open to talking it through.

Gracent is an equal opportunity employer. We believe diverse clinical teams build better programs for the diverse kids and families we serve. We hire, develop, and promote regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.

Base salary

$80,000 - $100,000 USD