About the Role

Ahead Group is seeking a hands-on Talent Acquisition Lead to drive hiring across our managed services and enterprise IT business in Japan.

This is a production-first role for someone who is strong at identifying, engaging, assessing, and moving high-quality candidates through the hiring process. While this person will help guide a small talent acquisition team and improve internal standards, the role is centered first on personal talent acquisition execution, not pure people management.

If you are strong at talent acquisition but ready to move beyond high-volume KPI culture and into a role where quality, judgment, and real hiring outcomes matter more than desk metrics, this may be the right move.

This is an opportunity to help shape a talent acquisition function from the ground up, in a business that values quality over volume and gives you real ownership over how that function evolves.

What You'll Do

·      Own hiring activity for priority roles across managed services and enterprise IT

·      Source, engage, assess, and progress strong candidates through the hiring process

·      Build and manage high-quality candidate pipelines for both current and upcoming hiring needs

·      Conduct effective screening conversations and evaluate candidate fit with depth and credibility

·      Maintain strong candidate communication, follow-up, and process ownership end to end

·      Prepare clear, high-quality candidate submissions and recommendations

·      Review and maintain team performance standards, ensuring the TA team is executing consistently and to the quality expected by Ahead without requiring direct oversight from leadership

·      Monitor team pipeline health, submission quality, and output across all active roles, and take direct responsibility for raising issues and corrective action before they escalate

·      Help improve internal talent acquisition standards, documentation, and onboarding materials

·      Support stronger consistency across the team through hands-on leadership and example-setting

·      Contribute to a more structured and effective talent acquisition process over time

Key Hiring Areas

·      Network engineering, infrastructure delivery, and implementation

·      Project management and business analysis in IT infrastructure environments

·      Higher-end enterprise, server-side, and systems-oriented software hiring

What We Are Looking For

·      3 to 5 years of experience in talent acquisition or recruitment, ideally within a respected agency or high-performance hiring environment in Tokyo

·      Strong experience sourcing and managing candidates for professional or technical roles

·      Proven ability to personally generate and move strong candidate pipelines

·      Strong candidate assessment skills and good judgment on fit, motivation, and alignment

·      High ownership mindset and strong follow-through

·      Strong communication skills and a professional, credible presence with candidates

·      Comfortable operating in a lean, in-house environment where quality matters more than volume

·      Interested in helping shape process, standards, and team quality while remaining highly hands-on

Ideal Background

We would be especially interested in candidates who have experience hiring into one or more of the following:

·      IT infrastructure and network-related positions

·      Technical project delivery and project management roles

·      Enterprise software, systems, or server-side engineering roles

Experience recruiting in bilingual or internationally oriented environments in Japan would also be valuable.

Working Model

We support a hybrid working model for strong performers, with flexibility earned through demonstrated quality and consistency.

What This Role Is Not

·      Not a purely administrative management role

·      Not a volume-driven agency-style 360 desk

·      Not a position focused mainly on client development or account ownership

·      Not a role for someone who prefers to delegate talent acquisition rather than personally drive hiring outcomes

This role is for someone who wants to be deeply involved in talent acquisition execution, while also helping raise the level of the team around them.

Why Join Ahead Group

This is an opportunity to play a central role in building a focused, high-quality talent acquisition function within a business that operates much more like an internal team than a traditional agency model.

You will have the chance to:

·      Own meaningful hiring activity directly

·      Work closely with leadership in a lean, high-trust environment

·      Contribute to the evolution of talent acquisition standards and process

·      Help shape a function that values quality, credibility, and long-term fit over pure volume

·      Move beyond desk metrics and into a role defined by real hiring quality and outcomes

Apply

If you are a strong, hands-on talent acquisition professional who wants to play a meaningful role in building and improving an in-house hiring function, we would welcome your application.

*Must currently reside in Japan with the appropriately valid visa*