HR Consultant - Recruitment team

Help Sheffield City Council hire brilliant people. Join our Recruitment team to deliver expert, practical advice that improves the candidate experience and helps services recruit at pace and with confidence.

Why join us

Do work that matters, in a supportive team. You’ll get:

Supportive, inclusive culture with flexible working
Generous annual leave and a competitive pension
Strong focus on wellbeing, diversity and work–life balance

About the role

As an HR Consultant in our Recruitment team, you’ll deliver a risk-based, customer-focused consultancy service across the council. You’ll lead on senior and hard-to-fill recruitment, work with executive search partners, run high-impact campaigns, and use insight and research to continuously improve how we recruit. You’ll also undertake and resolve recruitment-related complaints and investigations, producing clear reports and recommendations.

What you’ll be doing

Partner with hiring managers to plan recruitment activity, choose routes to market and put in place robust selection approaches—providing clear advice on policy, process, equality and employment considerations.
Lead on senior and hard-to-fill vacancies, developing our employer brand and running targeted recruitment campaigns across web and social channels.
Source, brief and manage executive search partners, monitoring delivery, value for money and candidate experience.
Undertake and resolve recruitment-related complaints/investigations, producing clear reports, outcomes and learning.
Carry out research and analysis (e.g., market insight, attraction channels, equality outcomes) and turn it into practical recommendations to improve recruitment.

About you

Strong recruitment and selection experience in a busy, complex organisation (including senior or hard-to-fill roles).
A confident HR consultant—able to influence, challenge and coach managers with sound judgement.
Proven ability to handle recruitment-related complaints/investigations and produce clear, evidence-based reports.
Skilled in employer branding and attraction—creating connecting content and using digital channels to improve reach and engagement.
Able to build effective relationships and collaborate with external partners to deliver quality and value.

Working arrangements
Hybrid working with a base in Sheffield city centre. You’ll work closely with recruiting managers across the council, with flexibility to plan your workload around service needs.

Ready to apply?
Recruit great people into roles that shape Sheffield’s future—apply today.

Interview date: week commencing 8 June 2026

Location: Sheffield (flexible hybrid working options)

Contact: Kim Beckett, HR Service Manager Recruitment – for further information or an informal discussion: kim.beckett@sheffield.gov.uk

We are investing in our workforce and are promoting opportunities to our under-represented groups. We value equality, diversity and inclusion and are focused on increasing the diversity of our workforce, particularly the number of Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic, Disabled and LGBTQ+ people, so that our teams reflect the communities in the city we serve. We are also supporting staff with unpaid caring responsibilities to work flexibly.

It is a great time to join us and we welcome your application.

Under the Guaranteed Interview scheme, applicants who are disabled, care leavers, or armed forces veterans will be guaranteed an interview if they meet the essential criteria and indicate their eligibility on the application form. Sometimes, if lots of people apply, we might not be able to interview everyone who qualifies for the Guarantee. In these cases, we’ll interview the candidates who best meet the essential criteria for the job.

Full-time employees work 37 hours for 52 weeks of the year and we offer a generous holiday entitlement. We are open to discussions about a wide range of flexible working opportunities which benefit you and the Council, including reduced hour contracts, working part time or as a job share.

If you are appointed to this role, your starting salary will be at the bottom of the grade. If you provide payslip evidence that your basic pay is greater than the bottom of the grade, we will consider starting you at the point of minimum advantage within the grade.

Equality of pay is extremely important to us. All roles at Sheffield City Council are going through an evaluation process which may result in changes to some pay arrangements from 2026. Find out more on our Sheff news page.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all individuals, ensuring a safe and supportive environment for everyone and where appropriate to the role the successful applicant will be required to undertake relevant safeguarding checks.