Taylor Baird

Talent acquisition partner with 14 years of experience, 12 at Discover Financial Services/Capital One and 2 at Aerotek, including about ten years of full-cycle recruiting across multiple business units and sites. Closed 277 of 282 requested hires in 2017 and earned Exceeds Expectations ratings from 2017 through 2019. Advises hiring managers on workforce planning, interview structure, and offers, and built the structured interview guides, scoring, and decline reason checklist used across a recruiting organization of about 50 people.

Sources with Boolean search in LinkedIn Recruiter, Indeed, and CareerBuilder, and keeps Workday data accurate and reported monthly to VP and Director leaders on pipeline health, time to fill, and source effectiveness.

Talent Acquisition Operations Manager - Discover Financial Services / Capital One

(2022-08 - 2026-06)

• Directly managed 3 to 4 Lead Operations Specialists, with separate ownership areas for training, compliance audits, and change management. Used data to secure two additional headcount, and hired 26 recruiters and coordinators in 2022 and built the recruiter training program used to onboard them.
• Led sourcing, screening, and selection for an external Talent Acquisition Manager with senior leadership.
• Worked with HR Technology on Workday candidate grids, application questionnaires, interview guides, disposition codes, and the job posting template standard, and tested changes with recruiters before rollout.
• Built reporting for monthly VP and Director reviews on pipeline health, time to fill, source effectiveness, and 90-day attrition. The data informed a geographic hiring pivot and a pay-for-experience compensation change.
• Built the first SOP framework, workflow documentation, and compliance standards for a recruiting function of about 50 people across 5 business units and 5 locations. The work grew into a company-wide risk compliance requirement.
• Helped design and ran the compliance audit program for a company-wide initiative: 2,100+ audits across five audit types in 2024 and 2025, with a scoring model and feedback process built for it.
• Field TA's Workday Recruiting expert since the 2020 implementation, supporting recruiters and hiring managers on how the system worked day to day.
• During the Capital One acquisition, represented Discover's standard work to Capital One leadership, co-designed future-state processes in Capital One's Workday, and built and delivered the training and documentation.

Lead Recruiter - Discover Financial Services / Capital One

(2019-10 - 2022-08)

• Led a team of 15+ recruiters on an interim basis during a leadership transition, coaching them and keeping hiring goals on track.
• When work went remote in 2020, helped build the first SOP library, job aids, and process governance framework after a current-state assessment across 4 sites and 5 business units.
• Ran high-volume hiring classes while building process infrastructure. Closed 57 of 59 requested starts in 2021 and filled 6 of 8 classes within the 95% to 115% target range in 2020.
• Kept personal 90-day new-hire attrition at 18.9% in 2020 and 18.5% in 2021, under the 20% goal and well below the 27% to 33% in the CSE business unit.
• Helped coach and develop 11 recruiters, and led the hiring of 12 new TA recruiters in 2021.

Recruiter | Senior Recruiter - Discover Financial Services / Capital One

(2014-12 - 2019-10)

• Ran full-cycle recruiting across multiple business units in a high-volume, multi-site environment, recruiting for sites in Utah, Phoenix, Ohio, Illinois, and New Castle, Delaware, and working with hiring managers on workforce planning.
• As Senior Recruiter for a recruiting pod, ran regular pod meetings with recruiters and the business, trained new and contract recruiters, and supported recruiter training at other sites.
• Was one of the primary drivers of the 2018 interview guide revamp, creating the guide format, scoring, decline reason checklist, and final offer information, and helped roll out new recruiter interview guides in 2019.
• Promoted to Senior Recruiter in September 2017. Closed 277 of 282 requested hires (98%) that year and earned Exceeds Expectations ratings from 2017 through 2019.
• Used Boolean search in Indeed, CareerBuilder, and LinkedIn to source candidates, and ran high-volume outreach through Indeed and the state workforce services site, including 1,000+ emails in 2018 for a location short on candidates.

Recruiter - Aerotek

(2012-07 - 2014-10)

• Ran full-cycle recruiting across multiple industries in a metrics-driven agency environment, using Boolean search in Aerotek's ATS to source for pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing clients and CNC machinist and welder roles, and submitted candidates into client Beeline VMS programs to compete for preferred supplier status.

Bachelor of Science - Technical Sales - Weber State University