Lead Recruiter - US
Work type: Full time · Department: Recruiting · Workplace: On-Site
San Jose, California, United States
About the Role
At Avoma, we believe building an exceptional company starts with hiring exceptional people.
We're looking for a Lead Recruiter who is passionate about finding, attracting, assessing, and closing outstanding talent.
This is a recruiting-first role, with approximately 90% of your focus dedicated to talent acquisition. You will own end-to-end hiring across Sales, Customer Success, Marketing, Product, Design, Engineering, and other functions. You'll work directly with founders and hiring managers to understand what exceptional talent looks like, build strong candidate pipelines, and bring outstanding people into Avoma.
The remaining portion of your role will involve supporting essential People Operations activities as needed, including new-hire onboarding, employee documentation, and basic HR coordination.
This is not a traditional HR administration role or people management role. We're looking for a hands-on, experienced recruiter who excels at proactive sourcing, talent assessment, candidate engagement, and closing – and who takes personal ownership of hiring outcomes.
This is a high-impact opportunity for someone who takes pride in their recruiting craft, thrives in a fast-moving startup environment, and wants to help build an exceptional team at a growing AI company.
About Avoma
Avoma is an AI-powered meeting assistant and conversation and revenue intelligence solution built for customer-facing teams. We automatically capture, summarize, and analyze conversations to unlock insights that drive better decisions, faster execution, and stronger customer relationships.
We're a venture-backed, fast-growing startup with 1,200+ paying customers, building at the intersection of AI, productivity, and revenue intelligence.
What You'll Own (Outcomes & Impact)
1. Find, Attract & Hire Exceptional Talent
Own full-cycle recruiting across primary functions as Sales, Customer Success, and Marketing, and also across other functions such as – Product, Engineering, and Design.
Partner directly with founders and hiring managers to understand business priorities, define ideal candidate profiles, and develop effective hiring strategies.
Personally drive candidate sourcing, outreach, screening, interviewing, offer negotiation, and closing.
Proactively identify and engage passive candidates through LinkedIn Recruiter, professional networks, referrals, communities, and creative sourcing strategies.
Build and maintain strong talent pipelines instead of relying primarily on inbound applications or external recruiting agencies.
Develop compelling, personalized candidate outreach that communicates Avoma's mission, culture, and opportunities.
Manage multiple open positions simultaneously while maintaining hiring velocity, candidate quality, and a great candidate experience.
Take accountability for hiring results – not simply recruiting activity.
2. Raise the Hiring Bar
Partner with hiring managers to clearly define what exceptional performance looks like for every role.
Develop structured interview processes, competency-based assessments, and hiring scorecards.
Evaluate candidates for skills, ownership, problem-solving, execution, learning agility, and alignment with Avoma's values.
Help hiring managers distinguish between candidates who can perform the job and those who can truly excel.
Conduct thoughtful reference checks to validate candidates' experience, accomplishments, and demonstrated impact.
Bring independent judgment to hiring decisions and challenge assumptions when necessary.
Continuously improve hiring quality through better sourcing, assessment, interviewing, and decision-making.
Our goal isn't simply to fill positions. It's to consistently raise the talent bar across Avoma.
3. Build a Proactive, Predictable Recruiting Engine
Develop repeatable sourcing strategies, recruiting workflows, and candidate engagement processes.
Build talent pipelines for both immediate openings and anticipated future hiring needs.
Maintain accurate, organized candidate pipelines and recruiting data in our Applicant Tracking System (ATS).
Track and improve recruiting metrics, including time-to-hire, candidate conversion, sourcing effectiveness, offer acceptance, and quality of hire.
Identify bottlenecks in the recruiting process and proactively implement improvements.
Provide regular, data-driven hiring updates to founders and hiring managers.
Develop employee referral initiatives and build long-term relationships with potential candidates.
Continuously improve hiring efficiency while reducing dependency on recruiting agencies.
4. Leverage AI & Automation to Improve Recruiting
Use AI and modern recruiting tools to accelerate candidate research, sourcing, and personalized outreach.
Leverage automation for interview coordination, candidate follow-ups, recruiting workflows, and reporting.
Use AI to support interview preparation, candidate research, and structured evaluation.
Experiment with new sourcing channels, recruiting techniques, and AI-enabled workflows.
Continuously identify opportunities to eliminate repetitive administrative work.
Build a recruiting process that combines human judgment, strong relationships, and AI-driven efficiency.
5. Support Onboarding & Essential People Operations (As Needed)
While recruiting remains your primary responsibility, you'll also help ensure a smooth transition from candidate to employee and support basic People Operations activities when required.
Coordinate offer acceptance, preboarding, and new-hire onboarding with hiring managers and internal teams.
Ensure new hires have the necessary documentation, information, and resources before their start date.
Help maintain employee records, HRIS data, and employment-related documentation.
Support benefits enrollment, payroll coordination, and employee lifecycle administration as needed.
Assist with maintaining employee handbooks, HR policies, and internal guidelines.
Coordinate with external HR, payroll, benefits, or legal partners when necessary.
Help streamline and automate routine People Operations workflows.
This is a supporting responsibility, not the primary focus of the position. Your success will be measured predominantly by recruiting outcomes.
How You Work (Mindset & Craft)
You're a recruiter at heart. You genuinely enjoy discovering exceptional people, understanding their motivations, and connecting them with meaningful opportunities.
You're proactive and resourceful. You don't wait for applications to arrive. You actively source candidates and find creative ways to engage great talent.
You have a high talent bar. You care deeply about hiring quality and understand that every hire can materially impact a growing company.
You're a strong closer. You know how to build relationships, understand candidate motivations, navigate objections, and win competitive talent.
You combine speed with quality. You move quickly without compromising thoughtful evaluation or candidate experience.
You have exceptional attention to detail. Whether it's a candidate message, interview scorecard, offer letter, or recruiting workflow, you take pride in doing things well.
You act like an owner. You take responsibility for outcomes, identify problems early, and proactively drive solutions.
You're AI-native. You actively use AI and automation to improve your productivity and the quality of your work.
You enjoy building. You're comfortable creating processes from scratch and improving how things operate as the company grows.
What Success Looks Like in This Role
Avoma consistently attracts and hires high-quality candidates across critical functions.
Hiring managers have strong, qualified candidate pipelines and confidence in the recruiting process.
A meaningful share of hires comes from proactive sourcing and referrals, reducing dependency on external agencies.
Hiring velocity improves without compromising the quality of candidates.
Interview processes are structured, consistent, and effective.
Candidates have a positive, responsive, and professional experience throughout the hiring process.
Offer acceptance rates remain strong because candidates are excited about Avoma's mission and opportunities.
Recruiting metrics and hiring progress are visible, measurable, and actionable.
AI and automation meaningfully improve recruiting productivity and effectiveness.
New-hire onboarding and essential People Operations processes run smoothly without distracting from recruiting priorities.
What You Bring
Core Recruiting Experience
8+ years of hands-on recruiting experience, with 10+ years preferred.
Proven track record of full-cycle recruiting in technology, SaaS, or high-growth startup environments.
Experience recruiting across multiple functions, ideally including Sales, Customer Success, Marketing, Product, and Engineering.
Strong experience with proactive sourcing, passive candidate engagement, and outbound recruiting.
Demonstrated ability to independently manage recruiting processes from sourcing through offer acceptance.
Experience partnering directly with founders, executives, and hiring managers.
Strong understanding of the San Francisco Bay Area technology talent market.
Recruiting Craft & Candidate Assessment
Excellent candidate research, sourcing, and personalized outreach skills.
Strong interviewing, candidate evaluation, and reference-checking skills.
Experience designing structured interviews and competency-based assessments.
Strong offer negotiation and candidate closing capabilities.
Excellent written and verbal communication.
Ability to manage multiple hiring priorities while maintaining a high standard of execution.
AI-Native & Data-Driven Mindset
Comfortable using AI tools, recruiting automation, and modern ATS platforms.
Experience with LinkedIn, Kula, or similar tools.
Ability to analyze recruiting funnel metrics and use data to improve outcomes.
Interest in experimenting with AI-enabled sourcing, outreach, and recruiting workflows.
Comfortable building efficient processes rather than relying on repetitive manual work.
People Operations Familiarity
Basic understanding of employee onboarding and common People Operations processes.
Familiarity with Rippling, employee documentation, and benefits coordination.
Willingness to support essential People Operations tasks when needed.
What Sets You Apart
Experience as a founding recruiter or senior individual contributor at a high-growth startup.
Strong professional network within the Bay Area technology ecosystem.
Experience with employer branding, recruiting campaigns, and creative sourcing strategies.
Strong references from hiring managers and candidates that speak to your recruiting effectiveness and professionalism.
Compensation & Benefits
💰 Base Compensation: $135K–$155K based on experience and demonstrated recruiting capabilities.
📈 Equity: Meaningful early-stage equity grant.
🏥 Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, 401(k), and generous PTO.
⚙️ Tools: Modern AI, recruiting, HR, and productivity tools to amplify your impact.
📍 Location: This is an in-office role based in San Jose, CA (5 days/week).
Culture note: We value exceptional talent, ownership, craft, speed, and high-quality execution. We're building a high-performance team where every hire matters, and recruiting is viewed as a strategic driver of company success.
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