Overview
You're the internal recruiter responsible for hiring across Tremendous - likely focusing on sales, customer success, engineering, and product roles. You source candidates, manage interview pipelines, coordinate with hiring managers, and close candidates. At 176 employees in growth mode, you're hiring to scale, not just backfill.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Full-cycle internal recruiter |
| Focus Areas | Go-to-market (sales, CS, marketing) + potentially engineering/product |
| Hiring Volume | Likely 3-6 open roles at any time, 20-40 hires per year |
| Seniority Mix | Mid-level to senior (IC and some managers) |
| Team Structure | Likely small recruiting team (1-3 people total) |
| Quota/Metrics | Time-to-fill, candidate quality, offer acceptance rate, hiring manager satisfaction |
Company Context
Stage: Growth stage (176 employees)
Size: 176 employees
Growth: Actively hiring multiple roles simultaneously - indicates expansion mode
Market Position: Not a household name in tech recruiting, so you'll need to sell candidates on the opportunity
GTM Reality
Pipeline Sources:
- Outbound sourcing (60%): LinkedIn Recruiter, Boolean searches, poaching competitors, direct outreach to passive candidates
- Inbound applications (25%): Job board posts, company website, referrals
- Agency/Networks (15%): Occasional agency support for hard-to-fill roles, personal network
Reality Check:
- Tremendous isn't a brand-name company that gets inbound applicant flow
- You'll spend significant time selling candidates on why they should join
- Top candidates are likely interviewing at bigger names or better-funded startups
Competitive Landscape
Competing For Talent Against:
- Bigger fintech companies (Stripe, Square, Rippling) with more brand recognition
- Hot startups with recent funding announcements
- Established companies offering stability and better comp packages
Your Selling Points:
- Impact at 176-person company (bigger than tiny startup, smaller than bureaucratic big company)
- Growing category (payouts infrastructure has real tailwinds)
- Cross-functional exposure (candidates can wear multiple hats)
Common Candidate Objections:
- "Never heard of Tremendous"
- "Comp is below my current package"
- "I have offers from [bigger brand]"
- "What's your path to IPO/exit?"
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Sourcing (35%) | Interviews/Coordination (30%) | Hiring Manager Partnership (20%) | Admin/Offers (15%)
Key Activities
- Active Sourcing: 2-3 hours daily on LinkedIn Recruiter, sending InMails, building talent pools. Most people don't respond. You need to send 50+ messages to get 5 interested candidates.
- Candidate Screening: Phone screens to assess fit, sell the role, gauge comp expectations. You're qualifying out mismatches early to save hiring manager time.
- Interview Coordination: Scheduling 4-6 stage interview processes (recruiter screen → hiring manager → team interviews → exec interview). Calendar Tetris with busy people. Something always needs rescheduling.
- Hiring Manager Partnership: Weekly syncs on open roles, adjusting job descriptions, debriefing after interviews, recalibrating on must-haves vs nice-to-haves when the search isn't going well.
- Offer Negotiation: Getting comp approved by finance/leadership, extending offers, handling counteroffers, convincing candidates to sign when they're waffling.
- Pipeline Management: Updating ATS (likely Greenhouse or Lever), tracking metrics, reporting on funnel health, explaining why roles are taking longer than expected.
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- Limited brand recognition: You're competing against companies candidates have actually heard of. A lot of "let me do some research and get back to you" that turns into ghosting.
- Comp constraints: Growth-stage startups often can't match FAANG/unicorn total comp. You'll lose candidates to better offers.
- Hiring manager misalignment: They want a purple squirrel (senior engineer who's also a great culture fit and will take below-market comp). You need to manage expectations.
- Interview process inefficiency: Feedback is slow, hiring managers cancel interviews last-minute, candidates drop out because the process takes too long.
- Offer declines hurt: You invest weeks nurturing a candidate through the process, get them excited, extend an offer, and they take another job.
- Volume pressure: You're juggling multiple roles across different functions. When hiring managers are breathing down your neck about their open headcount, it's stressful.
What Success Looks Like
- Filling roles in 45-60 days on average (sourcing to offer acceptance)
- 70%+ offer acceptance rate
- High hiring manager satisfaction (you're sending quality candidates, not wasting their time)
- Building a referral engine - new hires bring in their networks
- Low early-stage attrition - people you hire actually work out
Who You're Recruiting
Primary Roles (Likely):
- Go-to-Market: AEs, CSMs, SDRs, Sales Engineers, Marketing roles
- Engineering: Full-stack engineers, backend engineers, potentially engineering managers
- Product/Ops: Product managers, rev ops, people ops
Candidate Profile:
- Mid-level to senior (3-8 years experience)
- Currently at other startups or tech companies
- Looking for growth opportunity or change of scenery
- Need to be sold on Tremendous since it's not a household name
Requirements
- 5+ years full-cycle recruiting experience, ideally in-house at a startup/scale-up
- Experience recruiting for go-to-market roles (sales, CS, marketing) and/or technical roles (engineering, product)
- Strong sourcing skills - can build pipelines from scratch, not just process inbound applicants
- Comfortable with ambiguity and fast-paced environment
- Track record of closing candidates against competing offers
- Experience with ATS (Greenhouse, Lever, etc.) and LinkedIn Recruiter
- Based in or willing to work closely with HQ timezone (likely SF/NYC area)