Global Talent Scout – Enabling

Job Title: Global Talent Scout - Enabling

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Introduction to the Role:

At AstraZeneca, we are committed to making a meaningful impact on patients’ lives by bringing together science, innovation, and exceptional talent. We are looking for a Global Talent Scout who combines deep expertise in niche and critical hiring with the strategic capability to shape external talent pipelines. 

This role sits within AstraZeneca’s forward-looking Talent Acquisition organisation and partners closely with HR Business Partners, senior business leaders, hiring managers, and global talent acquisition colleagues to deliver strategic hiring and pipelining plans. The successful candidate will act as both a trusted scout for active senior and business-critical vacancies and a strategic advisor on external talent trends, market mapping, succession insights, and long-term talent availability in key therapy, capability, and Enabling function. 

We are looking for a highly credible individual with strong experience in executive search, talent scouting, and strategic recruitment, ideally within the pharmaceutical, biotech, or adjacent commercial sectors. This person will be expected to build strong external networks, identify and engage high-calibre talent, support business-critical hiring, and contribute to broader TA priorities, including employer branding, social media strategy, process improvement, digital sourcing, and AI-enabled recruitment practices. 

Key Accountabilities 

• Strategic talent advisory: Serve as a strategic advisor to business leaders and HR on talent pipelining, external talent trends, succession intelligence, and long-term hiring strategies. 

• Senior recruitment delivery: Lead end-to-end recruitment for senior-level, niche, and business-critical roles, managing the full hiring lifecycle from briefing and talent strategy through sourcing, assessment, offer management, and hiring administration. 

• External talent strategy: Design and implement proactive short- and long-term sourcing strategies for critical roles using LinkedIn, social media, market mapping, job boards, networking, events, and targeted outreach. 

• Pipeline development and conversion: Build, maintain, and convert external talent pipelines for current and future business needs across the Enabling Business Function. 

• Workforce planning partnership: Partner with TAq Leads, senior leaders, and HR teams to understand talent gaps, forecast hiring demand over a 1–3 year period, and develop external talent pools in priority capability areas. 

• Candidate engagement and assessment: Conduct candidate assessment and engagement activity across phone, virtual, and face-to-face channels while ensuring a high-quality candidate and stakeholder experience. 

• Offer and hiring management: Manage the offer process in partnership with business and HR stakeholders to support timely, effective, and cost-conscious hiring outcomes. 

• Market intelligence: Share external talent insights, competitor mapping, candidate trends, and benchmarking to support talent planning and hiring decisions. 

• Succession alignment: Align external talent scouting with internal talent and succession practices to support objective benchmarking and robust talent discussions, including external succession planning where relevant. 

• Employer brand and external representation: Represent AstraZeneca through networking, industry engagement, and market outreach, and contribute to employer branding and recruitment marketing initiatives that strengthen AstraZeneca’s visibility with executive and specialist talent. 

• Channel and agency effectiveness: Analyse sourcing channel performance and work selectively with external search firms or recruitment agencies to ensure quality, efficiency, and value. 

• Capability building and projects: Coach less experienced colleagues within Talent Acquisition and lead or contribute to projects focused on process simplification, AI adoption, digital sourcing, and continuous improvement. 

Skills and Experience:

• Education and experience: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience, with significant Talent Acquisition experience gained in-house, in executive search, or both. 

• Executive search expertise: Strong experience in executive recruitment, internal talent scouting, or senior search, ideally within pharmaceutical, biotech, or related sectors. 

• Regional and sector knowledge: Strong understanding of the Enabling  landscape, broader pharmaceutical industry, business context, and commercial capability requirements. 

• Pipeline delivery: Demonstrated success in building, managing, and converting proactive external talent pipelines for senior, niche, and business-critical roles. 

• Stakeholder influence: Proven ability to partner with and influence senior business leaders, HR stakeholders, and hiring managers across a matrixed organisation. 

• Assessment and engagement: Excellent interview, candidate assessment, executive engagement, and stakeholder management skills. 

• Digital sourcing capability: Strong capability in LinkedIn and other digital sourcing and talent management tools. 

• Innovation and improvement mindset: Proven ability to apply AI, digital tools, and process improvements to simplify and enhance Talent Acquisition practices, in line with broader TA transformation priorities. 

• Project leadership: Evidence of leading or contributing to Talent Acquisition projects with measurable outcomes. 

• Communication and storytelling: Excellent communication skills in English, including the ability to present and storytelling market insights clearly and credibly. 

• Ways of working: Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, dynamic, and matrixed environment. 

• Customer focus: Strong service orientation and commitment to delivering a high-quality hiring experience. 

• Network strength: Established external networks within relevant therapy areas, commercial functions, or talent segments would be an advantage. 

• Systems and tools: Experience with Workday or other applicant tracking systems is desirable. 

• Commercial understanding: Understanding of drug development and commercialisation is desirable. 

• Succession planning support: Experience using external search strategies to support broader talent and succession planning is desirable. 

• Languages: Additional language capability would be an advantage. 

When we put unexpected teams in the same room, we unleash bold thinking with the power to inspire life-changing medicines. In-person working gives us the platform we need to connect, work at pace and challenge perceptions. That's why we work, on average, a minimum of three days per week from the office. But that doesn't mean we're not flexible. We balance the expectation of being in the office while respecting individual flexibility. Join us in our unique and ambitious world.

Why AstraZeneca:

Here you will influence the future of our company by uniting diverse disciplines to spark bold thinking and deliver the talent that moves science forward. We blend data-driven decision making with design thinking to reimagine how work gets done, applying new technology and digital innovation to solve complex hiring challenges at global scale. You will join a collaborative, high-performing community that values kindness alongside ambition, where your expertise shapes strategic workforce decisions and your impact reaches patients worldwide.

Ready to turn market insight into decisive hiring that accelerates science and builds the leaders of tomorrow—step forward and shape it with us today.