Talent Operations Lead 

Location: Greater Cleveland Area (Onsite with clients and hybrid flexibility)

About Kintara

Kintara helps industrial, manufacturing, and hard-technology companies grow by solving one of their hardest problems: hiring, training, and retaining great people. Our mission is simple: turning people into a company's greatest competitive advantage.

Rooted in Cleveland and inspired by the Great Lakes region's industrial legacy, we embed with our clients, roll up our sleeves, and help them hire the right people and build durable talent systems that actually work, from the shop floor to the executive team.

We believe America's industrial future depends on the quality of the people and teams building it. That's not a tagline. It's why this work matters and why we show up the way we do.

About the Role

Kintara is hiring a Talent Operations Lead, our first full-time hire.

This is an execution role. At least 60% of your time will be spent supporting client work, this includes being onsite and working in person with client leadership and teams. The remaining 40% will be spent helping define Kintara's internal systems and contributing to business growth. These percentages may shift as client and business demands evolve.

The core of this role is executing client deliverables: running searches, managing candidates, owning the hiring process end to end, and supporting broader people operations, onboarding, training, and workforce systems as client needs evolve.

You will work directly with the Founder & CEO and be trusted with meaningful responsibility early.

What You'll Do

• Own full-cycle recruiting across multiple roles and clients simultaneously; from intake and sourcing through offer, close, and everything in between, including scheduling, coordination, and follow-through
• Partner with hiring managers to set clear role expectations, build structured interview guides, and prepare candidate scorecards
• Translate candidate conversations into clear, decision-ready summaries for client leadership
• Maintain disciplined ATS and pipeline hygiene across all active searches; clean data, current statuses, no gaps
• Build and execute onboarding and role-based training plans so new hires ramp quickly and consistently
• Support client engagement work, including survey administration, data analysis, summarizing findings, and preparing presentations.
• Identify friction in client systems and processes and replace it with simple, repeatable solutions
• Support ad-hoc client projects as needs emerge; this work evolves with each engagement
• Contribute to building Kintara's internal systems, processes, and content as the firm grows

What Success Looks Like

• Open roles are filled with strong, aligned hires in a predictable and timely manner
• Candidates move through the process quickly and leave with a clear, honest picture of the role, regardless of outcome
• Hiring decisions are structured, documented, and defensible, not improvised
• New hires ramp faster because onboarding plans are clear and consistently executed
• Client leaders feel organized, informed, and confident in their people systems
• The Founder spends materially less time on recruiting execution and more time on strategy and growth
• You close loops, follow through, and raise issues before they become problems

Who You Are 

You don't need to come from a traditional recruiting and HR background, but you need the skills, the drive, and a genuine desire to do this work. What matters is that you can do the work, you want to do the work, and you take pride in doing it well.

• Motivated by the mission: you care about strengthening industrial companies and the people who build real things
• Relentlessly organized: pipeline hygiene, data accuracy, and follow-through are non-negotiable
• Calm under pressure: when things get chaotic, you find focus and keep executing
• Picks up the phone: you engage directly with candidates and clients and don't hide behind email
• Operates with integrity: you set honest expectations with candidates and clients, communicate directly, and don't overpromise to make things easier in the short term
• Accountable to outcomes, not just effort
• Technologically fluent: comfortable across ATS platforms and eager to adopt new tools, including AI, responsibly
• Energized by real stakes and building something from the ground up

This Role Is NOT for You If:

• You prefer a corporate HR environment or the stability of a large, established organization
• You're most comfortable working within established processes rather than building them
• Messy data and disorganized pipelines don't bother you
• You want a role with clear boundaries and a team behind you
• You're not comfortable being in front of clients regularly
• You're looking for a stepping stone, not a place to build something

Why Kintara

This is Kintara's first full-time hire. We are an early-stage, founder-led firm, lean by design, with real clients, real work, and a clear point of view on where we're going. 

This is not a role with a lot of hand-holding or a large team behind you. It's a role where your work is visible, your contributions matter immediately, and the upside, in responsibility, growth, and impact, is real.

If you're motivated by mission, energized by ownership, and want to be part of building something from the ground up in a space that matters, this is the right opportunity.

You will gain exposure to executive search, skilled trades recruiting, workforce systems, and business building. As Kintara grows, this role can expand into larger search ownership, multi-client responsibility, or leadership within the firm.

Kintara is committed to providing competitive compensation and benefits. As we bring on our first hire, we will establish a benefits package that includes health, dental, vision, and a 401(k).

Visit our website at www.kintara.co to learn more.