Founding Recruiter

Job Description

Founding Recruiter

Arise | Founding Team | Nashville, TN / Remote

Believe Bigger. Rise Together.

Help Build the Recruiting Company You Wish Existed.

At Arise, we believe extraordinary companies are built by extraordinary people.

We're building a new kind of recruiting company designed for ambitious, venture-backed startups. Our mission is simple: Believe Bigger. Rise Together.

We partner with founders and executive teams who are building the next generation of great companies. Our job is to help them find the exceptional people who will make those ambitions possible.

We're also building an AI-native recruiting business where technology eliminates administrative work, automates repetitive processes, and allows great recruiters to focus on what they do best: building relationships, influencing decisions, and connecting exceptional people with extraordinary opportunities.

We're looking for a Founding Recruiter who wants more than a desk, a commission plan, and a list of open requisitions.

We want someone who wants to build.

You'll work directly with our founder to establish the recruiting foundation of Arise, shape our processes, develop our talent networks, and deliver world-class outcomes for our earliest customers.

This is an opportunity to be an owner of outcomes, not just a participant in the process.

What You'll Do

1. Hunt for Exceptional Talent

• Own full-cycle recruiting for high-growth, venture-backed startups, initially focused on technical and leadership roles.
• Identify, engage, and recruit high-performing talent who aren't actively looking for a new opportunity.
• Build creative sourcing strategies that go beyond LinkedIn searches and traditional recruiting methods.
• Develop deep talent networks across engineering, product, AI, and executive leadership.
• Build meaningful candidate relationships through curiosity, credibility, and consistent follow-through.
• Understand what motivates exceptional people and help them see opportunities they may not have considered.

2. Become a Trusted Partner to Founders

• Work directly with startup founders, hiring managers, and executive teams to understand their business, product, culture, and hiring needs.
• Challenge assumptions when necessary and help customers make better hiring decisions.
• Build recruiting strategies around business outcomes rather than simply filling positions.
• Deliver thoughtful market intelligence, candidate insights, and honest feedback.
• Create an exceptional client experience through proactive communication, ownership, and accountability.

We don't want order takers. We want recruiting partners who can sit across from a founder and earn their trust.

3. Help Build an AI-Native Recruiting Company

• Work alongside our founding team to experiment with AI-powered recruiting tools and agentic workflows.
• Identify repetitive tasks that should be automated rather than performed manually.
• Help design, test, and improve AI agents that support candidate engagement, interview coordination, communication, and recruiting operations.
• Provide real-world feedback that shapes our technology and recruiting infrastructure.
• Find ways to improve recruiter productivity without sacrificing candidate experience.

Our goal isn't to replace great recruiters with AI. It's to give great recruiters superpowers.

4. Build the Foundation of Arise

• Help establish the systems, recruiting playbooks, and operating standards that will define Arise.
• Create repeatable sourcing, screening, candidate management, and closing processes.
• Contribute ideas that make our recruiting organization faster, more effective, and more scalable.
• Take ownership of problems without waiting for someone to tell you what to do.
• Help shape the culture of a company where excellence, ambition, accountability, and collaboration are non-negotiable.

As a founding team member, your fingerprints will be all over what we build.

Who We're Looking For

We're looking for a hunter with an entrepreneurial mindset .

Someone who is resourceful, curious, competitive, independent, and genuinely excited about helping people achieve more than they thought possible.

You might be a great fit if:

• You have 3+ years of agency recruiting experience, ideally supporting venture-backed startups or high-growth technology companies.
• You have a demonstrated track record of consistently delivering successful placements.
• You know how to find and engage exceptional passive candidates.
• You're comfortable recruiting senior software engineers, AI/ML engineers, technical leaders, or other hard-to-fill positions.
• You understand how to manage a recruiting process from intake through offer acceptance.
• You're confident communicating with founders, executives, and highly technical candidates.
• You're comfortable using data to understand your pipeline and improve outcomes.
• You're excited about leveraging AI and automation to become more productive.
• You can operate independently without constant oversight or micromanagement.
• You care about delivering results, not just looking busy.

Bonus points if:

• You've been an early employee at a startup or recruiting agency.
• You've built a recruiting desk, practice, or business from scratch.
• You have an established network in the venture capital or startup ecosystem.
• You've experimented with AI sourcing, recruiting automation, or agentic tools.
• You've successfully recruited for seed through Series C startups.

We care less about your job titles and more about your ability to create outcomes.

Why Join Arise?

Get in early. This isn't an established company where you're employee number 150. You'll have a direct influence on what we become.

Work with ambitious founders. Our customers are building exciting businesses, solving difficult problems, and creating entirely new markets.

Recruit exceptional people. We're focused on high-impact talent who can fundamentally change the trajectory of a company.

Embrace technology. We're building an AI-native recruiting business that empowers recruiters rather than trapping them in administrative work.

Own your outcomes. We believe in accountability, independence, and rewarding people who consistently deliver.

Grow with the company. As Arise grows, there will be opportunities to take on greater responsibility, build teams, develop practices, and help shape the organization.

Who Won't Enjoy This Role

If you need someone to hand you a perfectly organized desk, give you a daily list of activities, or constantly tell you what to do next, Arise probably isn't the right fit.

We're building a company for people who take initiative, embrace accountability, and find solutions.

We value results over activity, creativity over conventional thinking, and ownership over excuses.

We're looking for people who see a challenge and think, "I can figure that out."

How to Apply

We want to hear about what you've accomplished, not just where you've worked.

Tell us about the most difficult search you've successfully completed, how you found the candidate, and what made the placement possible.

We'd also love to hear how you think AI will change recruiting over the next five years.

Arise

Believe Bigger. Rise Together.