About the role

ContactVerse is about to go from a handful of people to twenty-plus across two countries, hiring through vendors as well as directly.

What you will do

• Own the hiring bar. A scorecard per role (three or four weighted signals agreed before anyone reads a CV) and the discipline of hiring against it rather than against an open seat.
• Run the hiring process centrally. So that no manager is hiring under deadline pressure, which is exactly when standards slip.
• Own onboarding before day one. NDA signed, access granted, machine provisioned, timesheet set up and a named first-week plan, all complete before someone starts.
• Own the contractor relationships. StarOps, Magath and any future vendor: rates, terms, replacements and the quality of who they put forward.
• Own retention and exits. Including the handover discipline that stops knowledge leaving with a contractor, and an exit conversation whose findings reach the people who can act on them.
• Own employment compliance. In the UK and India, including the differences between employment, direct contracting and vendor supply.
• Own compensation structure. Bands per level and per country, reviewed against market, so that offers are consistent and defensible.
• Build the internship pipeline deliberately. Some of our strongest delivery has come from interns; it is currently our most casual channel.
• Support the founders as managers. Most of the leadership team will be hiring for the first time at this scale.

Your first year

First 90 days. A hiring bar and a scorecard per role, agreed before CVs are read. Onboarding that works before day one.

By six months. The contractor relationships with StarOps, Magath and others on a clear footing. A retention picture based on evidence rather than impression.

By twelve months. A people function that scales ahead of the hiring rather than behind it.

What you will bring

• Ten years or more in people leadership, including hiring across more than one country.
• Has fixed a hiring process rather than administered one, and can describe what changed as a result.
• Has worked with contractor and vendor-supplied staff as well as employees.
• Understands UK employment law and the practical realities of engaging people in India.
• Has built compensation bands and defended them.
• Comfortable being the whole function, with no team beneath you at first.
• Will tell a founder their favourite candidate does not meet the bar.
• Writes well: offer letters, policies and rejections all leave a mark.

Nice to have

• Technology or AI company experience, where the talent market is tight and candidates are scarce.
• Experience designing an internship or graduate programme that converted.
• Exposure to Indian vendor and staffing arrangements specifically.
• Has introduced an applicant tracking system to a company that had none.
• Experience supporting a company through a funding round and the hiring surge after it.

What you will work with

You will inherit an employee records workbook, a contract and NDA library, agreements with two staffing vendors, and no applicant tracking system. The HR mailbox is career@contactverse.ai.

What this role is not

Not an administrator of payroll and holiday. This role exists to set the hiring bar and to hold it.

How we work

We are split between the UK and India, with most of the delivery organisation in India, four and a half hours ahead. Expect a working pattern with a genuine overlap into the late afternoon and early evening UK time. These hours are indicative and may change as the business changes. Everything is remote and nobody is in an office.

We are a small company and we write things down. Decisions are recorded, corrections are made to the source rather than to the output, and status is expected to be honest even when it is unwelcome.

Compensation and what we offer

• A long-term incentive, discussed at offer stage for senior appointments.
• Fully remote working, with company-provided equipment where the role requires it.
• A role with unusual scope for its level, because the organisation is being built rather than joined.
• Direct access to the founders. There are no layers between this role and the people making the decisions.

How we will assess you

We assess against three or four weighted signals agreed before we read a single CV, rather than against years of experience or a list of tools. Expect four stages:

• Introductory conversation with our People team. About 30 minutes, covering the role, your background and what you are looking for. This first conversation may be with an AI assistant; you will be told at the time and may ask to speak to a person instead.
• Conversation with the hiring manager. About 60 minutes, going deep on what you have done and how you think.
• A working session on a real ContactVerse problem. About 90 minutes. Not a whiteboard exercise and not a take-home test you do unpaid in your evenings.
• Final conversation with the founders. Covering fit, expectations and how we would work together.

We aim to complete the process within three weeks and to give you a decision, with reasons, within three working days of the final stage.

Equal opportunity

ContactVerse is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applications regardless of age, disability, gender identity or expression, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. We select against the published signals for the role and nothing else. If you need an adjustment at any stage of the process, tell us and we will make it. It will not count against you.

Research consistently shows that some candidates apply only when they meet every criterion. If this role interests you and you meet most of what is listed, please apply.

How to apply

Write to career@contactverse.ai quoting reference POS-005, with your CV and a short note (a few paragraphs is plenty) on the part of this role you would most want to get your hands on, and why.