Hybrid Founding Recruiter

at Nectar Group

• Job title: Founding Recruiter
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Mid level, Senior
• Salary: $150,000 - $180,000 per year
• Degree requirement: Bachelor's Degree
• Location requirements: Hybrid, Palo Alto, United States

About the role

• Founding Recruiter leading full-cycle recruitment for Nectar Social, an AI-native social commerce startup. Shaping hiring strategies and building a strong employer brand in Palo Alto.

Responsibilities

• Own the hiring plan: Partner with the founders and functional leaders to translate business goals into a clear headcount plan, role definitions, and hiring priorities.
• Build the recruiting engine: Design scalable recruiting processes including, structured interview loops, and decision-making processes that consistently raise our talent bar. Implement data-driven dashboards to track pipeline health, time-to-hire, and quality of hire.
• Source, engage, and close top talent: Own full-cycle searches across engineering, product, GTM, and operations. You bring a track record of generating strong pipelines and closing exceptional talent.
• Use creative, data-driven sourcing: Experiment with channels (outbound, communities, events, referrals, content) and use data to prioritize what works. Maintain a high-quality, high-velocity pipeline for priority roles.
• Elevate the hiring experience: Drive a best-in-class candidate experience from first touch through offer and onboarding.
• Build our talent brand: Partner with marketing and the founders to tell our story in the market—through content, events, communities, and candidate touchpoints. Turn our employees into magnetically attractive ambassadors for talent.
• Coach and enable hiring managers: Train the team on structured interviews, calibration, and closing; build playbooks and templates that make it easier for leaders to hire well.
• Be thoughtful about agencies: Own the strategy for when/if we use external partners and how to manage them when we do, with a bias toward strong in-house sourcing.

Requirements

• 5 - 7+ years of full-cycle recruiting, ideally with experience in early stage startups or a fast growing tech environment.
• Proven ability to identify, engage, and close exceptional candidates across technical and non-technical roles
• Track record of building recruiting processes that balance creativity, speed, and operational rigor.
• Strong prioritization skills and a bias toward action. You move quickly and deliver meaningful results.
• High talent bar with sharp judgment around culture add, role fit, and long-term potential.
• Energized by in-person collaboration with the team in Palo Alto.
• Startup DNA: resourceful, adaptable, low ego, and comfortable operating in ambiguity

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and early equity
• Health, vision, and dental benefits + 401(k) match
• A hybrid team based in Palo Alto with flexibility for in-office collaboration
• Deep exposure to cutting-edge AI tooling and the opportunity to shape its application inside brand teams
• A collaborative, ambitious team defining a new category of AI-native marketing infrastructure