Recruitment & Talent Operations Manager

Recruitment & Talent Operations Manager

Chicago, IL

Welcome to NextGen Growth Partners (NGP)! We are a Chicago-based private equity firm focused on lower middle market essential services businesses. Founded in 2016, NGP helps founders thoughtfully navigate growth, succession, and leadership transition.

Through our distinctive talent-first model, we pair exceptional CEOs-in-Residence with founder-owned companies where the next chapter is especially meaningful. For some owners, that means finding a partner to help grow the business. For others, it means preparing to hand the baton to a new leader who will protect the legacy, care for the team, and keep building with discipline.

Now investing from Fund III, NGP continues to combine a thoughtful succession model with a disciplined investment process, helping good companies become enduring ones with great leadership and partnership.

Our Core Values

Relationships: Care and communication over egos and siloes.

Rigor: Experimentation and feedback over hesitation and defensiveness.

Results: Value creation and winning outcomes over status quo and stagnation.

Position Overview

NGP is seeking a Recruitment & Talent Operations Manager to help run the talent engine behind our CEO-in-Residence program, broader firm team, and portfolio companies. This role is focused on the operating work that helps find strong CEO-in-Residence candidates and internal teammates, ramp them quickly, and keep the Talent function organized as the firm grows—part recruiting operations and part people systems.

The right person is organized, warm, detail-oriented, and comfortable managing a lot of moving pieces. They can keep candidate processes moving, support CIR onboarding and training, manage recurring programs, and help turn firm knowledge into simple systems the team can use more efficiently. You'll report to the Chief Talent Officer, Victor Saad, and partner regularly with NGP's Partners, CIRs, and Operations team.

The Role

1. Recruitment Operations

In this role, you'll help run the operating system behind NGP's recruiting across the firm. You'll support candidate flow, interview coordination, ATS management, pipeline reporting, candidate communication, and recruiting operations throughout the search lifecycle. This includes:

• Managing ATS stages, notes, scorecards, interview logistics, and follow-up tasks
• Supporting candidate sourcing and pipeline-building efforts for CIRs, FTE, and occasional PortCo hires
• Coordinating candidate communication and maintaining a strong candidate experience
• Preparing simple recruiting pipeline updates for the broader team
• Maintaining recruiting rubrics, interview materials, and evaluation tools
• Supporting talent marketing and recruiting-related projects by telling the story of the firm digitally and through events

2. Talent Operations

You'll also help support the recurring systems and rhythms that allow the broader Talent function to operate smoothly such as onboarding, internship coordination, reporting, and process documentation. This includes:

• Supporting CIR onboarding and training curriculum
• Coordinating the MBA internship program and related logistics
• Assisting with performance review processes, pulse checks, and team communication
• Maintaining Talent team systems, templates, trackers, and recurring reports
• Documenting and improving repeatable Talent processes
• Helping reduce operational friction across recruiting and people systems

More About You

• Experience : 3-7 years in talent operations, recruiting coordination, people operations, program management, and/or executive search
• Organization : Strong follow-through and attention to detail
• Systems & AI : Experience with ATS or CRM systems (Greenhouse preferred), fluency with Microsoft Office tools (Teams, Outlook, and the like), and openness to growing your AI fluency over time
• Communication : Strong written communication and good judgment with candidates and senior leaders
• Storytelling : Enjoys finding creative ways to tell the story of a team and the company behind it.
• Adaptability : Comfortable with a small, fast-moving team where priorities shift
• Curiosity : Interest in entrepreneurship, private equity, leadership development, and talent systems.
• Location : Chicago — In-office four days/week

Characteristics

At the heart of it, we're looking for someone organized, detail-oriented, and both sophisticated and warm in their communication with candidates and senior leaders alike. You bring professionalism and consistency, paired with a creative, upbeat attitude that makes people glad to work with you. You're comfortable operating inside talent systems and bring enough experience to explore improvements over time

Compensation

This role offers competitive base compensation, performance-based bonus opportunities, additional success-based upside, and a comprehensive benefits package. You'll also join a thoughtful team with a strong culture of genuine care for each other and the work—shaped by shared team experiences and a day-to-day rhythm that makes it all enjoyable.