Head of Talent

Concourse; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Concourse seeks its first dedicated talent hire to build and lead the recruiting function from the ground up. You will partner with the CEO and hiring managers to define roles, manage end-to-end hiring for engineers, GTM, and ops, and design a fast, rigorous process that leaves strong impressions with candidates.

You will own sourcing, interviewing, and closing, creating repeatable systems and scorecards to scale as the company grows, using AI tools to enhance sourcing and screening and ensuring

Qualifications

• Several years of experience in recruiting, talent, or people roles
• Track record of closing exceptional candidates for hard-to-fill roles
• Ownership mindset: run an entire talent function

Responsibilities

• Build and lead the talent function as the first talent hire
• Partner with CEO and hiring managers to define role requirements
• Own full-cycle recruiting including sourcing, interviewing, and closing
• Design and run a fast, rigorous hiring process
• Create systems, scorecards, and playbooks for repeatable hiring
• Shape how Concourse tells its story to candidates
• Own candidate-to-employee handoff and onboarding readiness
• Track pipeline health and hiring metrics
• Leverage AI tools to scale sourcing, screening, scheduling, and reporting

Skills

Recruiting

End-to-end recruiting

Candidate closing

AI tools enthusiasm

Structured thinker

Strong communicator

Tools

Claude AI

Job description

What You\'ll Do

• Build and lead the talent function at Concourse as our first talent hire, owning recruiting end to end from pipeline to close

• Partner with the CEO and hiring managers to define what great looks like for every role, from engineers to go-to-market to operations

• Own full-cycle recruiting for our hardest searches: sourcing, selling, interviewing, and closing exceptional candidates in a competitive market

• Design and run a hiring process that is fast, rigorous, and gives every candidate a strong impression of Concourse

• Build the systems, scorecards, and playbooks that let the company hire repeatably as it scales

• Shape how Concourse tells its story to candidates, from job descriptions to outreach to the interview experience

• Own the candidate-to-employee handoff, making sure every new hire starts strong

• Track pipeline health and hiring metrics, and proactively address gaps before they slow the company down

• Use AI tools to scale your work, automating sourcing, screening, scheduling, and reporting

What We\'re Looking For

• Several years of experience in recruiting, talent, or people roles, ideally at a fast-growing startup or top search firm

• Track record of closing exceptional candidates for hard-to-fill roles, especially engineers and early startup hires

• Eagerness to work at a startup: you want ownership of an entire function, you\'re comfortable being the only talent person in the room, and you\'d rather build the machine than operate inside one

• Enthusiasm for AI: you\'re excited to use tools like Claude to 10x your output

• Strong judge of people: you can distinguish genuinely great from merely polished, and hiring managers trust your read

• Structured thinker who can turn ambiguous situations into a clear plan and next steps

• High agency: you find the work that needs doing and do it without being asked

• Strong communicator who can engage equally well with a senior engineering candidate and a government program director

• Based in or willing to relocate to NYC for in-office work, five days a week

Why This Role

• Build the Talent Function From Scratch – You\'re the first talent hire, defining how Concourse finds, evaluates, and closes the people who will build the company.

• Own the Company\'s Biggest Lever – At this stage, every hire meaningfully changes the trajectory; the team you help assemble is the company.

• Work Directly with the CEO – Partner with a repeat founder on the searches that matter most, with a direct line into every hiring decision.

• Ground Floor Opportunity – Join an early-stage startup led by a repeat founder with a successful exit.

About Concourse

Concourse is a fast-growing, AI-native startup building software for the public sector. This is the second venture for our CEO, after a successful exit.

We help governments provide better services to citizens at a lower cost by replacing inefficient legacy systems. We\'re building everything from Hawaii\'s online bail platform to a system that flags leaks in residents\' homes in Owosso, Michigan.

Technology and work have fundamentally changed. Join a team of superstars in a flat organizational structure, where being AI-native means every team member is empowered by a running fleet of long-horizon agents to own entire projects and client relationships end to end.

Based in Flatiron, NYC.