HHMI is focused on supporting and moving science forward in a variety of different ways ranging from conducting basic biomedical research, empowering educators, inspiring students, developing the next generation of scientists – even stretching into film and media production. Our Headquarters is in the greater Washington, DC metro area and is home to over 300 employees with expertise in investments, communications, digital production, biomedical sciences, and everything in between. The work housed here supports and augments the groundbreaking research conducted in HHMI labs across the nation. As HHMI scientists continue to push boundaries in laboratories and classrooms, you can be sure that your contributions while working here are making a difference.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus is a pioneering research center in Ashburn, Virginia, where scientists pursue fundamental questions in the life sciences. Our integrated teams of biologists, computational scientists, and tool-builders innovate research practices and technologies to solve biology’s deepest mysteries. HHMI launched Janelia in 2006, establishing an intellectually enriching environment for scientists to do creative, collaborative, hands-on work. We share our methods, results, and tools with the scientific community.
This is a role for someone who treats candidate discovery as a craft, not a volume exercise. The ideal candidate moves fluidly between a search for a finance manager and a search for a molecular biologist, and does both well.
The People & Culture team at HHMI supports a genuinely varied hiring portfolio: corporate and administrative hiring at headquarters, highly specialized scientific and operational roles at Janelia Research Campus, and scientific hiring across HHMI's distributed Host Site network. HHMI funds science at the frontier, and the researchers and staff who make that work possible are not always easy to find.
For the next six months, this role will work across the full recruiting lifecycle, from sourcing passive candidates through offer stage. This includes building pipelines in channels most recruiters overlook, conducting initial screens, and carrying searches through to close. The portfolio is high-variety and fast-moving. A defensible sourcing methodology and a full-cycle track record are required.
This role sits on the People Strategies team and works closely with full-cycle recruiters and hiring managers across Janelia, HQ, and host sites. This person will be a visible contributor from day one.
What this role actually involves
Source across multiple talent segments simultaneously. This includes building active candidate pipelines for corporate, scientific, and operational roles at the same time, adapting methods to each. No two searches will look alike.
Go well beyond LinkedIn. This includes deploying research-specific channels such as preprint servers, publication databases, academic conference outreach, society member directories, lab alumni networks, GitHub, and niche boards relevant to each talent segment.
Find people who aren't looking. This includes identifying and engaging passive candidates before a need is formally open, building genuine pipeline interest and relationship before the clock starts.
Own searches end to end. This includes carrying selected requisitions through the full recruiting lifecycle: sourcing, outreach, screening, coordination, and offer stage, with no handing off and moving on.
Conduct initial screens. This includes assessing candidate interest, qualifications, and mission alignment before introducing candidates to the broader recruiting team and hiring managers.
Keep the pipeline clean and documented. This includes maintaining accurate stage tracking in Workday, documenting outreach and channel performance, and keeping hiring managers and recruiters current on pipeline status.
Deliver market intelligence in real time. This includes sharing real-time market observations as they emerge. That intelligence shapes search strategy for the whole team.
Manage a high-variety portfolio with discipline. Multiple simultaneous searches across different functions and talent segments, with clear communication when priorities shift.
What we are looking for
A sourcer's instinct applied to full-cycle work. This means knowing how to find candidates others can't find, and also knowing how to move them through a process. Both are required, not just one.
Range across talent segments. Experience should span at least two of the three categories: corporate and professional, scientific and research, and technical. Candidates whose background is limited to a single category will not be a fit.
Fluency in scientific hiring. This means understanding how researchers move, where they congregate online and in person, and how to earn their attention, along with experience sourcing lab-based and academic-adjacent roles and the ability to describe what worked.
Outreach that earns a response. This means writing candidate messages that passive candidates actually reply to, and being able to explain why they work.
A defensible methodology. This means being able to describe a sourcing process in meaningful detail, name non-obvious channels that have yielded results, and explain how to calibrate by search type.
Self-direction in an ambiguous environment. This means managing priorities without close supervision, communicating clearly when the picture changes, and not waiting to be told what to do next.
ATS proficiency. This means experience working in Workday Recruiting or a comparable ATS, with the ability to maintain accurate documentation throughout a search.
Nice to have
Experience sourcing within mission-driven, nonprofit, academic, or research institutions.
Familiarity with scientific communities including ABRCMS, SACNAS, Society for Neuroscience, or similar professional and affinity organizations.
Existing relationships with career services offices, research programs, or scientific professional communities relevant to HHMI's hiring portfolio.
Experience with LinkedIn Recruiter used as one tool among many, not as a primary sourcing strategy.
What this role is not
A pure sourcing role. Searches carry through the full lifecycle. This is not the right fit for someone most comfortable handing off at the screen stage.
A role for someone who sources primarily through LinkedIn Recruiter. That is one tool in the kit. The portfolio requires methods that go much further.
A narrow specialist role. This requires shifting comfortably between scientific, corporate, and operational searches. Depth in one segment is a baseline, not a substitute for range.
A role with a stable, predictable workload. Priorities shift. Searches evolves.
Practical details
This is a 6-month temporary contract position based at Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, VA, with a hybrid schedule (three days on-site, two days remote). Extension is possible but not guaranteed and will be determined based on business need. The role requires 5 or more years of sourcing and/or full-cycle recruiting experience across more than one talent segment. Proficiency with Workday Recruiting is preferred. This role reports to the Manager, Recruiting.
A note on the application
Please include a cover letter. We are not looking for a standard introduction. Candidates should describe one or two of the most complex or technically demanding searches they have conducted: what made them hard, how they approached them, what channels they used that others might not have tried, and what the outcome was. Scientific or research-adjacent searches are of particular interest, but any search that required genuine ingenuity is worth sharing.
Compensation and Benefits
Our employees are compensated from a total rewards perspective in many ways for their contributions to our mission, including competitive pay, exceptional health benefits, retirement plans, time off, and a range of recognition and wellness programs. Visit our Benefits at HHMI site to learn more.
Hiring Pay Range
$50.00 - $70.00
Pay Type:
Hourly
The posted range reflects HHMI’s good faith estimate of the anticipated hiring salary range for this role at the time of posting. Actual hiring compensation is determined by a candidate’s qualifications, experience, and internal equity.
Physical Requirements:
Remaining in a normal seated or standing position for extended periods of time; reaching and grasping by extending hand(s) or arm(s); dexterity to manipulate objects with fingers, for example using a keyboard; communication skills using the spoken word; ability to see and hear within normal parameters; ability to move about workspace. The position requires mobility, including the ability to move materials weighing up to several pounds (such as a laptop computer or tablet).
Persons with disabilities may be able to perform the essential duties of this position with reasonable accommodation. Requests for reasonable accommodation will be evaluated on an individual basis.
Please Note:
This job description sets forth the job’s principal duties, responsibilities, and requirements; it should not be construed as an exhaustive statement, however. Unless they begin with the word “may,” the Essential Duties and Responsibilities described above are “essential functions” of the job, as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
#LI-BG1
Compensation and Benefits
Our employees are compensated from a total rewards perspective in many ways for their contributions to our mission, including competitive pay, exceptional health benefits, retirement plans, time off, and a range of recognition and wellness programs. Visit our Benefits at HHMI site to learn more.
HHMI is an Equal Opportunity Employer
We use E-Verify to confirm the identity and employment eligibility of all new hires.
Founded in 1953, HHMI invests in scientists at all career stages who make discoveries that advance human health and our fundamental understanding of biology. The institution also supports innovative approaches to science education and public engagement to energize the next generation of scientists, and to foster public appreciation for science. HHMI advances pathbreaking science at more than 60 host institutions across the US and at our Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia, where — since its founding in 2006 — Janelia researchers have made discoveries and developed cutting-edge tools that have reimagined what's possible in science.
