Inside the Recruiting Executive Network: Where Heads of TA Shape the Future of the Function

If you lead Talent Acquisition today, you are running a function that has expanded faster than the systems, expectations, and infrastructure surrounding it. Hiring demand moves in extremes, AI evolves faster than governance structures, and the executive team increasingly looks to TA for clarity on workforce planning, skills, and strategy. Yet the resources built to support TA leaders have not kept pace with this shift.

At Veris Insights, we’ve spent years mapping the role in detail, conducting hundreds of interviews with Heads of Talent Acquisition. Across these conversations, we surfaced that the remit of a modern TA leader is actually 45 distinct workstreams, some familiar, and some completely new. You’re essentially responsible for steering a function that spans dozens of workstreams — from architecting a tech-enabled, data-driven recruiting operation to shaping workforce strategy, influencing executives, and navigating rapid shifts in policy, globalization, and AI. It is a role that now blends operational excellence with enterprise-level strategic leadership.

But even as the remit has grown in complexity and strategic weight, the infrastructure meant to support TA executives has lagged behind. This gap is exactly why we built the Recruiting Executive Network: a space designed specifically for Heads of TA who need high-caliber thought partnership, deeply practical intelligence, and access to peers navigating the same pressures.

The Talent Acquisition Sophistication Gap

When we started this work, I asked Heads of TA a simple question, “where do you actually go when you need real guidance on a hard decision?” 

Two types of answers surfaced again and again:

First: informal networks.
Former colleagues, trusted peers, and friends who can offer candid advice. These conversations are invaluable, but inconsistent. Leaders often described spending hours chasing the one person who might have solved the exact version of the problem they are facing. Others lacked anyone to call for the questions that matter most, such as, “how did you get legal comfortable with this AI tool?” or “what did you show your CHRO before you restructured your team?”

Second: broad HR institutions and conferences.
Think multi-function HR memberships or big annual events where Talent Acquisition is one track among many. Many leaders value those spaces, but they can begin to feel repetitive year over year. On top of this, sessions often mix TA with other disciplines like Learning or Talent Management, and leveling is often two to three tiers lower than your direct peers. You might learn something useful, yet it is rare to sit in a room where every person is a peer who carries the same responsibility, budget, and pressure that you do.

Across interviews, leaders expressed a similar frustration: the work keeps escalating, but the peer environments available to them do not.

This is the sophistication gap we set out to close.

Who is a Part of the Recruiting Executive Network?

The Recruiting Executive Network (the Network) is an invite-only, industry-specific community for the senior-most TA leaders. More than 140 Heads of TA participate across sectors, including software, retail, consulting, insurance, commercial banking, biopharma, and more.

Members are placed into curated industry cohorts—such as commercial banking, big tech, asset management, biotech, retail & hospitality, strategic tech, and others—each capped at ~15 leaders to ensure candid, high-trust dialogue.

Each cohort within the Network is designed so that participants can strategize with direct peers who own budgets, C-suite relationships, and global strategy at a similar scale. Every primary member holds the Head of TA remit for their company or a major global division. Because Veris Insights serves more than 280 recruiting leaders across both lateral and early careers recruiting, the Network also connects members to a broader research engine that operates year-round.

“I’d been looking for a space with real peers…this is the first one that feels correctly leveled.”

How the Network Works

The Recruiting Executive Network was intentionally designed around how senior TA leaders actually make decisions: through trusted peers, real examples, and rapid access to credible intelligence. The value of the Network comes from four interconnected components:

• Industry executive cohorts that bring together true peers in your industry for honest, detailed conversations on topics including operating models, KPIs, tech stacks, and strategic decisions.
• On-demand intel & advisory that gives you rapid, defensible analysis—benchmarks, peer comparisons, and executive-ready cases—you can take directly into CHRO, CFO, or legal conversations.
• Practical tech and vendor intelligence suite that cuts through noise with real examples of what tools peers are adopting, where implementations succeed or stall, and how leaders navigate governance and AI adoption.
• Cross-industry connection that helps you see around corners through targeted introductions and roundtables on themes like contingent labor, global recruiting, or AI enablement.

Together, these components create a decision-making ecosystem built for the realities of the modern TA leader.

The Problems that the Recruiting Executive Network is Built to Help You Solve

Across hundreds of conversations with senior Talent Acquisition leaders, four challenges consistently rise to the top. Together, they define why the role has become one of the most strategically complex positions inside today’s organizations.

1. Constructing a Leading-Edge TA Operation

The challenge:

TA leaders are reshaping their functions in real time. They are modernizing tech stacks, refining dashboards, elevating quality-of-hire methodologies, and navigating new DEI and compliance expectations. Yet most lack access to credible peer benchmarks or examples of what “good” looks like in comparable organizations.

How the Network helps:

Members gain insight into operating models, KPIs, tech configurations, and scorecards from true peers. This gives leaders practical intelligence they can immediately apply to strengthen systems, justify investments, and clarify the “why” behind operational decisions.

One member shared how this clarity helped them navigate internal pressure:

“I’m constantly being pushed to adopt an RPO…but because of the Network’s cohorts and roundtables, I can now point to what my peers are doing. It’s a far more compelling argument, and it’s helped us make smarter decisions.”

2. Running a High-Performing Team

The challenge:
Today’s recruiters must be tech-enabled, data-literate, and strong talent advisors, yet leaders often struggle to standardize expectations, upskill their teams, or operationalize performance in a consistent way. Topics like role design, recruiter upskilling, and performance expectations appear in nearly every conversation.

How the Network helps:
Through executive cohorts and topic-based forums, leaders see how other organizations structure their teams, coach recruiters, design incentives, and build capability. They leave with templates, examples, and approaches they can directly adapt to drive clarity and performance.

3. Responding to Competitive Shifts

The challenge:
AI is reshaping the recruiting workflow. Global hiring markets fluctuate quickly. DEI and other policy landscapes evolve constantly. TA leaders must adapt strategy in real time, often without a trusted space to calibrate against peers facing similar pressures.

How the Network helps:
​​Through cross-industry sessions, leaders compare KPIs, discuss tactics for new competitive pressures, and share how they respond to shifts in markets such as India and Europe. Members also work through the practical impact of AI on recruiter roles and candidate pipelines.

On-demand business cases help leaders track policy changes, understand peer responses, and prepare executive-ready material that outlines risks and options. This allows leaders to anticipate emerging pressures, validate decisions, and stay ahead of change instead of reacting to it.

4. Negotiating the Role of TA Inside the Enterprise

The challenge:
As expectations rise, TA leaders must influence CHROs, CFOs, and business leaders on hiring capacity, workforce planning, internal mobility, and skills strategy. Many lack the peer evidence or language needed to elevate TA’s strategic importance.

How the Network helps:
The Network provides executive-ready talking points, anonymized peer data, and competitive intelligence they can bring directly into C-suite conversations. Leaders gain clearer narratives, stronger resource justification, and greater credibility inside the enterprise.

One member described using the Network to strengthen conversations at the top table:

“I’ve taken information from this group straight to our CHRO as data to back decisions we’re making.”

Finding a Peer Group Worthy of Your Role

Every Head of TA we spoke with described some version of the same tension: the stakes keep rising, but the work is often carried alone. The Recruiting Executive Network was built to change that—by giving senior TA leaders a space that matches the scale, pace, and strategic weight of their role.

Cohorts are intentionally curated, and we continue welcoming leaders who want to learn from peers operating at the same level of complexity.