Recruiting Programs Manager

Vapi, Inc.; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Real stake in equity

Comprehensive health coverage

Flexible time off

Catered meals & gym access

Job summary

Vapi, Inc. in San Francisco is seeking a founder-like Talent Brand & Programs Lead to own our candidate experience end-to-end, including employer brand, careers content, and community-building efforts.

You will own the referral program, university and early-career pipeline, and our talent community, reporting to Head of Talent. Build programs fast, measure with recruiting metrics, and partner with Marketing without duplicating it.

Qualifications

• Built recruiting programs, employer brand, or talent community from scratch.
• Experienced events operator for hackathons, engineering meetups, or campus sessions.
• Knew recruiting metrics: cost-per-hire, referral %, sourced-hire %, time-to-fill, offer acceptance.
• Can partner with Marketing without duplicating it.
• Writes well for careers pages, newsletters, event copy, and team spotlights.
• Builder who starts from zero and ships working programs quickly.

Responsibilities

• Audit current hiring processes, careers site, and employer presence.
• Relaunch referral program with incentives and tracking to drive hires.
• Launch talent community and publish a 12-month program roadmap.

Skills

Recruiting programs

Events management

Recruiting metrics

Candidate marketing

Strong writing

Ownership mindset

Job description

Why We’re Hiring This Role:

• We're competing directly with Anthropic, OpenAI, and other high-profile AI companies for the same talent. At that level of competition, employer brand and a candidate-facing presence are part of how we win offers, not a nice-to-have.

• Today this work happens informally, absorbed by our Talent leaders on top of their day jobs. We're building the capability in-house with a dedicated owner instead of outsourcing it to an agency, or letting it not happen at all.

• You’ll own every candidate-facing program at Vapi: employer brand and careers content, technical events and community, the referral program, university and early-career pipeline, and our talent community. You’ll report directly to our Head of Talent.

What You’ll Do:

• 30 Day: Go deep on how we hire today. Meet hiring managers, Recruiting, and Marketing's events lead; audit our careers site, Glassdoor/Comparably presence, referral program, and event footprint; baseline the numbers (cost-per-hire, referral %, sourced-hire %, time-to-fill, offer acceptance).

• 60 Day: Ship the first wins. Relaunch the referral program with clear incentives, campaigns, and tracking toward 25–30% of hires via referral; stand up the shared event calendar with Marketing (and the monthly dedupe sync); publish your first wave of careers-site and “life at Vapi” content.

• 90 Day: Run your first programs end-to-end. Host a recruiting-focused technical event (hackathon, meetup, or campus session); launch the talent community and nurture motion (newsletter, team spotlights, silver-medalist re-engagement); present a 12-month program roadmap with targets against your baseline.

Who You Are:

• You’ve built recruiting programs, employer brand, or talent community from scratch, ideally at a fast-growing startup competing for technical talent.

• You’re an events operator: you can run a hackathon, engineering meetup, or campus info session end-to-end, on time and on budget.

• You think in recruiting metrics: cost-per-hire, referral %, sourced-hire %, time-to-fill, and offer acceptance are how you measure your own work.

• You know the difference between marketing to customers and marketing to candidates, and you can partner tightly with a Marketing team without duplicating it.

• You write well. Careers pages, newsletters, event copy, and team spotlights will all carry your voice.

• You’re a builder who’s comfortable being the first and only owner of this function, going from zero to working programs fast.

How We Work:

• Build something worthy of love

  • Craft matters. We aim to build products and experiences customers genuinely love, not just tolerate.

• Commit and follow through

  • We finish what we start and build trust by being people others can count on.

• Why not today?

  • We value urgency and momentum. The fastest path to customer value usually wins.

• Seek raw input

  • We go directly to customers, data, and teammates instead of relying on summaries or assumptions.

• It’s our problem

  • We operate as one team. We share credit, own mistakes together, and support each other when things get hard.

• Be direct and kind

  • We give feedback clearly, respectfully, and without delay.

Why Vapi:

• Generational impact: Build the human interface for every business

• Ownership culture: 70% of the company are previous founders

• Kind team: The founders, Jordan and Nikhil, are Canadians

• Tier-1 Investors: YC, KP seed, Bessemer Series A

What We Offer:

• Real stake: We offer a competitive salary and excellent equity ownership

• Comprehensive health coverage: medical, dental, and vision plans

• Team love: We love hanging out, and we do quarterly off-sites

• Flexible time off: take what you need

• More: catered meals, transportation, gym, and a $10k annual L&D budget