Founding GTM Recruiter

About the role

Founders Connect is a startup recruiting agency. We place the hires that venture-backed companies are betting on, from pre-seed through Series C and beyond. The roles we work on are with clients that are backed by a16z, Sequoia, Lightspeed, Kleiner Perkins, Khosla, Union Square Ventures, and Y Combinator. This is the first GTM recruiting seat here, so how the function runs is something we'll build together. You'll run four to five go-to-market searches at a time, end to end, for clients we already have — GTM Engineers, founding AEs, first sales hires, BDRs and SDRs, growth marketers, RevOps leaders, and sales leadership. There's no business development and no book to build: the searches are live and waiting, and your first submission can go out week one. Every search carries a high bar — deep research and passive candidates who weren't looking until you found them.

Responsibilities

• Own full-cycle searches from kickoff to close: sourcing, outreach, screening, submitting, prepping candidates, and supporting the offer.
• Write the sourcing plan for each search — target company lists, boolean strings, an ICP brief, and a multi-step outreach sequence across email and LinkedIn.
• Prepare candidate submissions that hiring managers actually read: a sharp summary, evidence behind every claim, no filler.
• Own the candidate relationship as their primary point of contact, from first message to signed offer.

Requirements

• You've run full-cycle GTM, sales, or growth marketing searches at venture-backed startups.
• You understand the nuances between key startup roles—such as a Founding AE vs. a fifth AE hire, a Growth Marketer vs. a Brand Marketer, and an ABM Marketer vs. a Demand Generation Marketer.
• You've worked contingent or retained roles with early stage startup clients.
• You're fluent in modern sourcing tools — LinkedIn Recruiter, Noon AI, Wrangle, Juicebox, Pin, or whatever you've found works better.
• You use Claude in your day-to-day recruiting, not as a novelty — you've built processes around it, automated the parts of the job that don't need you, and can point to specific work that got faster or better because of it.
• You're comfortable partnering directly with founders and executive-level hiring managers.

Nice to haves

• President's Club, top-performer, or comparable agency-side recognition.
• In-house GTM recruiting experience at a Series A–C startups.
• Experience on contingent search marketplaces.

Compensation & Benefits

We cover everything you need to run a desk — you never pay for infrastructure: Found, our in-house ATS, LinkedIn Recruiter Lite, Additional AI sourcing platforms, Email sequencing tools and warmed sending domains, Claude and a shared prompt library, Slack and Google Workspace.

Commission structure

• 50% Split Closes 1-5
• 60% Split Closes 6-10
• 75% Split Closes 11+

Potential earnings

• Years 1-4:
• Year 1: $95K–$150K
• Year 2: $140K–$225K
• Year 3: $200K–$280K
• Year 4: $250K–$350K+

Logistics

• Remote within the US.
• This is a 1099 independent contractor engagement, and we're not able to sponsor work authorization.
• Not every strong recruiter will check every box above. If the work sounds like yours, apply. We'd rather read your application than have you screen yourself out.
• We hire on demonstrated ability, and if you need an accommodation at any point, tell us.