Talent Acquisition Specialist in Visual effects - 1 year contract

Company Description

Repeatedly voted one of Montreal’s Top Employers and Employer of the Year for the 2022 Mercuriades Awards, Rodeo FX is a high-end creative company offering services in visual effects, advertising, animation, and experiential.

Nominated for multiple Emmy® Awards for its work on the series Stranger Things season 4, The Witcher season 2, and The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power season 1, the independent, Oscar®-winning company boasts close to 900 artists crafting from studios in Montreal, Québec City, Toronto, Los Angeles and Paris.

Rodeo FX is a creative partner to the world’s best storytellers including Netflix, HBO, Disney, Marvel, Amazon Studios, Warner Bros., and Sony, and has collaborated on ads for YouTube, NBC, and Apple. Current projects include Blue Beetle, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon. Recently released projects include John Wick: Chapter 4, Black Adam, Disney's The Little Mermaid, and Love, Death and Robots Volume 3, for which the company won a 2023 VES award.

Job Description

The Talent Acquisition Specialist has a direct impact on our ability to deliver on our production commitments: identifying the right profiles, qualifying them with rigor, and moving decisions forward at the pace of our projects.

With several concurrent mandates spanning highly specialized creative and technical disciplines, this role demands both exemplary execution and sharp judgment. You work in close partnership with department heads and the TA team to build communities of qualified talent, contribute to clear and well-documented decisions, and lead negotiations through to signature; with tact, clarity, and a keen sense of what creates value.

Every interaction with a talent is an opportunity to leave a mark. The mark of an exchange where we showed up at every step, regardless of the outcome. This standard is not a policy: it’s a way of being at work, and it’s what we expect from you.

Main responsibilities:

Full-cycle recruitment

• Lead end-to-end recruitment mandates: intake and needs assessment, job posting, screening, interview coordination, reference checks, offer preparation, negotiation, and signature.
• Run structured intake meetings: clarify the true hiring need, calibrate the expected level, confirm success criteria, validate production constraints, and define an efficient interview process.
• Assess candidates: evaluate level, document key signals (positive and risk indicators), and provide clear recommendations.
• Support Department Heads as needed in interview preparation: targeted questions, consistent evaluation grids, smooth logistics, and well-framed debriefs.
• Maintain active momentum on each search: proactive follow-ups, regular pipeline movement, and continuous progress through decision.

Sourcing and talent community development

• Deploy targeted, differentiated sourcing strategies based on the profile: direct outreach, specialized networks, referrals, academic partnerships, and VFX/animation communities aligned with immediate needs.
• Build and maintain discipline-based passive talent communities: rigorous segmentation, planned follow-ups, relevant re-engagement, and up-to-date profiles.
• Write and publish job postings that accurately reflect the role and Rodeo FX culture in French and English as needed.
• Adapt messaging and approach to the context of each mandate: production urgency, talent scarcity, and seniority level.
• Provide actionable market insights to the team: talent availability, salary expectations, emerging trends, and anticipated risks.

Evaluation and selection quality

• Conduct structured screening interviews with a rigorous approach: relevant questions and validation of essential criteria.
• Produce complete, consistent, and immediately actionable interview assessments.
• Participate in final interviews when required and actively contribute to fast, well-framed, documented decisions made on time.
• Identify early gaps, grey areas, and risk signals, and escalate appropriately with context and options to act.
• Maintain high standards of judgment, confidentiality, and professionalism at all times.

Candidate experience and operational rigor

• Deliver a candidate experience worthy of Rodeo FX’s reputation: clear and timely communications, well-set expectations, and respectful follow-ups at every stage, including rejections.
• Maintain the ATS (SmartRecruiter) at a level that allows any team member to take over a file without loss of information: statuses, next steps, notes, documents, and decision traceability.
• Coordinate each step of the process with precision: invitations, confirmations, references, internal validations, and manager feedback.
• Prepare complete, well-structured offer approval requests: key information, availability, terms, and elements required for internal sign-off.
• Ensure follow-through through signature with a professional, inclusive, and candidate-centered approach.

Contributing to the evolution of the function

• Apply TA team standards, processes, and tools consistently, and actively support adoption and continuous improvement.
• Participate in team meetings with a solutions-oriented mindset: surface field friction points, propose concrete options, test simple adjustments, and share what works.
• Contribute to attraction initiatives based on priorities: school partnerships, event presence, and employer brand projects with local and international reach.
• Support special projects that move the function forward: training, tool optimization, process adjustments, and high-impact initiatives.
• Represent Rodeo FX with pride and professionalism within the VFX community and adjacent industries—locally in Montreal and internationally.

Qualifications

• Minimum 3 years of experience in Talent Acquisition or recruitment, ideally within a creative industry.
• Demonstrated, end-to-end experience managing the full recruitment cycle from A to Z.
• Proficiency with SmartRecruiter or a comparable ATS, and with LinkedIn Recruiter as a structured sourcing tool.
• Strong active sourcing skills: direct outreach, Boolean search, building and maintaining passive talent communities, and disciplined follow-up cadences.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to write rigorous evaluation notes; impeccable organization and strong prioritization under pressure.
• Sharp judgment, absolute discretion, genuine autonomy, and the ability to stay on course and maintain quality when timelines tighten.
• Professional-level bilingualism in French and English, both written and spoken.*

Distinctive assets

Knowledge of the VFX, animation, or video game industry, or a practical understanding of roles within a creative production pipeline. Experience using coordination tools (Monday, Flow, Ninety, or equivalent) to manage multi-stakeholder processes. Active involvement in attraction initiatives: academic partnerships, event participation, and employer branding efforts. Experience in international recruitment or talent mobility contexts.

*The person in this role will collaborate daily with our teams located outside of Quebec, including in Los Angeles and Toronto, where the primary working language is English. They will also be required to regularly communicate with international external stakeholders who do not speak French. Proficiency in English is therefore essential to ensure smooth and effective communication in an international work environment, and to represent Rodeo FX’s creative and technical capabilities on a global scale.

Additional Information

• One-year contract with the possibility of renewal.

Diversity : At Rodeo FX, diversity is a core value. We’re committed to creating an inclusive, equitable workplace where different perspectives are embraced. Every team member brings unique insight that strengthens our creativity, challenges our thinking, and helps us deliver better work.