Job Description

Senior / Principal Recruitment Partner - Startups

📍 Remote-First | Melbourne Required for Events & Ecosystem Presence
🚀 Build Your Reputation, Your Desk & The Future of Startup Recruitment

Kairos Recruitment is not a traditional recruitment agency.

We partner deeply with startups and scale-ups, acting as embedded hiring partners across their growth journey, from first hires through to leadership recruitment.

We sit inside a broader founder and startup ecosystem, giving us access to high-quality relationships, warm opportunities, and genuine community-led growth.

Now, we’re looking for a commercially driven recruiter to help build the next phase of Kairos.

What You’ll Do

As a Senior Recruitment Partner, you’ll own end-to-end recruitment delivery while helping grow your own desk, relationships, and visibility within the startup ecosystem.

You’ll:

• Headhunt and manage high-quality talent across startup and scale-up roles, backed by a strong founder and startup community cc Aussie Founders Club

• Build genuine founder and ecosystem relationships.

• Contribute to community-led pipeline growth and referrals.

• Create visibility through LinkedIn, events, and ecosystem participation.

• Experiment with AI tools, GPTs, workflows, and automation.

• Improve systems, processes, and recruitment execution over time.

• Work directly with the Founder in a high-trust, high-autonomy environment.

This is not a cold-calling recruitment environment.

We care about relationships, reputation, visibility, and doing genuinely great work.

What We’re Looking For

We want someone who creates momentum.

Someone who naturally takes ownership, moves quickly, and looks for ways to build rather than waiting to be told what to do.

You might come from:

• agency recruitment

• startup recruitment, internal or agency

• embedded/internal recruitment

• founder-led environments

• high-growth businesses

But you need to demonstrate:

• strong recruitment capability

• commercial hunger

• ownership and urgency

• confidence building relationships

• curiosity around AI and modern workflows

• initiative beyond your job description

• a genuine interest in startups and ecosystem building

You do not need to already have a huge personal brand.

But you do need to want to build one.

This Role Is Probably Not For You If…

• You need constant direction or heavy structure - we have process, but not heavy structure or handholding

• You dislike visibility, networking, or LinkedIn presence.

• You want purely execution-focused recruitment without ownership of your desk, relationships, and outcomes

• You’re uncomfortable building relationships or growing a pipeline over time.

• You’re slower-moving or hesitant to take initiative.

• You’re not genuinely curious about AI, experimentation, or better ways of working.

Why Join Kairos?

• Real ownership and autonomy - bring ideas to the role, let's build them!

• AI-enabled, future-focused recruitment environment

• Deep startup ecosystem access and founder relationships

• Real scope to shape your role, growth, and long-term trajectory within the business

• Space to experiment, improve systems, and shape how we operate

• A genuinely relationship-first recruitment business (we don't cold call or pop into inboxes with "I see you have a role on!")

For the right person, this is a rare opportunity to build something meaningful and become a major part of where we’re heading next.

Hiring Process

Send us your CV plus anything that helps us understand who you are beyond your resume - this could be a short video, a personalised cover letter, a bit more about you beyond your CV and why this role calls to you!

If there’s a fit, the process is:

1. Screening

2. Founder interview

3. Final presentation on how you’d approach your first 60-90 days

We hire this way because it reflects how we recruit for our clients too!

* Also! Our website and branding is currently getting an overhaul, watch this space!