Overview
We need a Head of Recruiting who can build and run our hiring function without hand-holding.
This is a hands-on role for someone who knows how to create order, impose structure, and drive a process all the way through. You will be responsible for turning hiring from a loose collection of conversations, recruiters, interviews, and follow-ups into a disciplined machine that produces strong candidates and clear outcomes.
We are a early-stage startup in Paris. We move fast, we care a lot about talent density, and we do not have patience for sloppy execution. If you need a large HR department, layers of process, or constant consensus to get things done, this is not the job.
Your job is simple to describe and hard to do: understand what great looks like, attract the right people, keep the pipeline under control, drive candidates through it with rigor, and make sure the founders only spend time with serious, high-quality candidates who have been properly vetted.
Over time, this should become more than a recruiting function. Done well, it becomes a strategic advantage for the company.
Key responsibilities
Own recruiting end to end across technical and non-technical roles
Build the recruiting function from scratch, including process, tooling, workflows, interview operations, and candidate communications
Create clear hiring pipelines with defined stages, owners, next actions, and decision points
Keep complete control over candidate flow, interview logistics, follow-ups, and status changes
Screen candidates for quality, motivation, communication, and role fit before they reach founder interviews
Work directly with founders to define roles, calibrate candidate quality, and tighten hiring standards over time
Run a process that is fast, organized, and high-signal
Eliminate ambiguity, dropped balls, ghosting, and process drift
Use external recruiters where useful, manage them tightly, and hold them to a high bar
Track pipeline health, conversion, bottlenecks, and throughput
Continuously improve the system so we hire better people with less wasted time
Qualifications
English fluency (≥C1)
Strong experience in recruiting operations, talent acquisition, or building hiring systems in demanding environments
Ideally experience in startups, finance, professional services, or adjacent high-performance environments
You are an operator, not a coordinator
You know how to run a process, enforce standards, and close loops
You have strong judgment and real taste for talent
You are obsessively organized and do not let important things slip
You take ownership naturally; when something is unclear, broken, or missing, you fix it
You are comfortable working directly with founders and handling sharp feedback
You do not need bureaucracy to function
You are based in Paris and willing to work on-site
What we offer
Real ownership from day one
Direct access to founders and direct influence on who joins the company
The chance to build the recruiting function properly instead of inheriting a bloated corporate process
A high-standards environment with people who care about performance
Market-competitive freelance compensation
Performance bonus and equity upside