Early Career & University Recruiter

Warmada; New York (NY); On-site; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Mercor is seeking an Early Career & University Recruiter to build university recruiting, early-career hiring, and internship programs from the ground up in our New York office. You’ll own strategy to identify, attract, and hire emerging talent across engineering, ML, and business functions, developing partnerships beyond traditional campus channels.

This hands-on, high-ownership role requires strategic thinking, independent execution, and the ability to scale programs, with travel to university

Qualifications

• 6+ years of recruiting experience with university/early-career focus.
• Proven ability to build or transform early-career programs with measurable results.
• Strong technical recruiting experience in engineering/ML talent.
• Data-driven approach to measuring effectiveness and prioritization.
• Willingness to travel for partnerships and events.

Responsibilities

• Develop Mercor's university recruiting strategy and internship programs.
• Identify and engage high-potential students through nontraditional sourcing.
• Own full-cycle recruiting for intern and new-grad roles.
• Scale internship programs with hiring managers and People.
• Create new talent pipelines via hackathons, partnerships, ambassador programs.
• Collaborate with leadership to align plans with business priorities.
• Measure outcomes and optimize candidate quality and conversion.

Skills

University recruiting

Early-career recruiting

Sourcing creativity

Stakeholder management

Data-driven recruiting

Travel willingness

Job description

ABOUT MERCOR

Mercor's mission is to organize human intelligence to power the AI economy. We're a leading AI data company, building the layer between human expertise and frontier models. Millions of domain experts on the platform are paid over $4 million per day to train frontier AI models. Mercor's APEX benchmark family measures AI's real-world impact on professional work. Mercor Enterprise brings this same infrastructure to Fortune 500 companies: helping companies capture how their best people actually work, translating that expertise directly back into agents.

Mercor is creating a new category of work where expertise powers AI advancement. Achieving this requires an ambitious, fast-paced and deeply committed team. You’ll work alongside researchers, operators, and AI companies at the forefront of shaping the systems that are redefining society. Mercor is a profitable Series C company valued at $10 billion. We work in-person five days a week in our San Francisco, NYC, or London offices.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We're looking for an Early Career & University Recruiter to build Mercor's university recruiting, early-career hiring, and internship programs from the ground up.

You’ll own the strategy for how we identify, attract, and hire exceptional emerging talent across engineering, machine learning, and business functions. From developing university partnerships to creating new ways of finding talent beyond traditional recruiting channels, you’ll help build the next generation of Mercor.

This is a hands‑on, high‑ownership role for someone who can think strategically, execute independently, and build programs that scale.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Build our early‑career recruiting strategy: Develop and execute Mercor's approach to university recruiting, new‑grad hiring, and internships, including target talent pools, recruiting calendars, and hiring plans.
• Find exceptional emerging talent: Identify and engage high‑potential students and early‑career professionals through creative sourcing strategies that go beyond traditional campus recruiting and established university pipelines.
• Own full‑cycle recruiting: Drive sourcing, assessment, candidate engagement, and closing for intern and new‑grad roles across engineering, ML, and business functions.
• Build and scale our internship program: Establish the recruiting framework, selection process, and return‑offer strategy, partnering with hiring managers and People to create a strong intern experience.
• Create new talent pipelines: Develop initiatives such as hackathons, fellowships, student partnerships, and ambassador programs where they can meaningfully improve our ability to attract exceptional talent.
• Partner with leadership: Work closely with hiring managers and functional leaders to define early‑career talent needs, establish hiring standards, and align recruiting plans with business priorities.
• Measure and improve outcomes: Establish the metrics and operating processes needed to evaluate program effectiveness, candidate quality, offer acceptance, and intern‑to‑full‑time conversion.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• 6+ years of recruiting experience, including meaningful ownership of university, early‑career, or internship recruiting.
• Demonstrated experience building or significantly transforming an early‑career recruiting program, with clear ownership and measurable results.
• Strong technical recruiting experience, particularly with engineering, computer science, or machine learning talent.
• Exceptional sourcing creativity and the ability to identify high‑potential candidates beyond traditional credentials, universities, and employer brands.
• Ability to develop a strategy and independently translate it into execution without relying on established infrastructure.
• Strong stakeholder management, including the ability to influence hiring managers, challenge assumptions, and drive accountability.
• A data‑driven approach to measuring recruiting effectiveness, improving processes, and making prioritization decisions.
• Willingness to travel for university partnerships, recruiting events, and other high‑impact opportunities.

NICE TO HAVES

• Experience building early‑career or university recruiting programs in a high‑growth startup environment.
• Experience developing nontraditional talent pipelines, technical student communities, hackathons, or fellowship programs.
• Experience designing internship recruiting programs that have delivered strong intern‑to‑full‑time conversion.

IDEAL QUALITIES

• Agility / Adaptability - ability to move fast, pivot with business shifts, and maintain best‑in‑class outcomes
• Operational Rigor - ability to bring order to an unstructured environment
• Growth Mindset - You don’t need to be an expert on AI, but you do need to have a strong desire to learn and continue learning in a rapidly evolving, frontier industry
• Commitment to the Outcome - Ownership mentality; will hold themselves accountable to an extremely high standard of work
• Love for the Craft - we are building a zero to one motion; this hire will bring a low ego attitude to the table with a genuine love for building a best‑in‑class talent acquisition organization