This role is for one of Weekday’s clients
Salary range: Rs 1800000 - Rs 3000000 (ie INR 18 - 30 LPA)

Min Experience: 5+ years
Location: Gurgaon
JobType: full-time

We are looking for a People & Talent Head to build and lead the organization's talent and people function from the ground up.

This is not a traditional HR leadership role focused primarily on managing established processes. This is a foundational builder role for someone who can create the talent engine, people systems, hiring standards, and culture required to scale a high-growth organization.

As the company enters its next phase of growth, talent quality will become one of its most important competitive advantages. The People & Talent Head will play a critical role in determining who joins, who grows, who stays, and how the organization's culture evolves at scale.

You will work closely with the founders and leadership team to build high-quality, scalable, and practical people systems while remaining deeply hands-on during the early stages.

Requirements

Key Responsibilities

1. Talent Acquisition & Hiring Excellence

• Own end-to-end hiring across leadership, mid-level, and high-impact entry-level roles.
• Build and implement scalable hiring strategies and playbooks.
• Develop sourcing strategies across referrals, top campuses, lateral hiring, and other relevant talent channels.
• Personally source, screen, interview, and close high-quality candidates.
• Continuously raise the hiring bar as the organization scales.
• Build structured and effective interview processes that evaluate ownership, problem-solving ability, judgment, and cultural alignment.

2. Founder-Aligned Hiring & Culture Building

• Work closely with founders to translate organizational values and expectations into clear hiring signals and evaluation frameworks.
• Build systems that ensure strong alignment between candidates and the organization's culture.
• Protect the quality of talent and culture by making thoughtful hiring decisions, even under aggressive growth timelines.
• Establish clear standards around ownership, accountability, execution, and performance.

3. Performance, Growth & Retention

• Build performance management frameworks focused on outcomes and impact rather than activity alone.
• Design career and growth frameworks that reward ownership, capability, and performance.
• Identify high-potential employees and create opportunities to accelerate their development.
• Develop effective feedback and performance review mechanisms.
• Improve employee retention by creating clarity, fairness, growth opportunities, and strong manager relationships.
• Monitor attrition and identify opportunities to reduce regrettable employee turnover.

4. People Operations & HR Infrastructure

• Establish scalable and efficient people operations processes.
• Oversee payroll, employment documentation, contracts, compliance, EPF, ESIC, and other HR processes.
• Build simple, effective systems that support growth without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Ensure strong HR hygiene, documentation, and operational discipline.
• Identify when additional HR operations or administrative support is required and build the function accordingly.

5. Leadership & Manager Enablement

• Partner with managers and leaders on hiring, performance management, feedback, and people decisions.
• Act as a trusted advisor for complex employee and organizational matters.
• Coach managers to become stronger people leaders.
• Support leadership in making thoughtful and effective talent decisions.
• Help the organization scale while preserving its speed, ownership culture, and entrepreneurial mindset.

A Hands-On Builder Role

This role begins as a deeply hands-on individual contributor position.

Initially, you will personally drive key activities, including:

• Candidate sourcing
• Job description creation
• Resume screening
• Initial candidate conversations
• Interview coordination
• Candidate assessment
• Talent closing
• Hiring process design
• People operations setup

There may not be a large HR team in the early stages. Success in this role will come from strong judgment, execution, ownership, and the ability to build systems from scratch.

As the organization grows, you will have the opportunity to design scalable processes and build a high-performing People & Talent team.

This role is ideal for someone who is comfortable building first and delegating later.

What We're Looking For

• Proven experience in Talent Acquisition, People Operations, HR Leadership, or building people functions within high-growth organizations.
• Experience owning end-to-end recruitment across multiple functions and seniority levels.
• Strong ability to identify and assess high-quality talent.
• Experience working directly with founders and senior leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to build HR and talent processes from scratch.
• Strong understanding of performance management, employee development, and retention.
• Working knowledge of HR operations, payroll, employment documentation, and statutory compliance.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and negotiation skills.
• Strong judgment and the confidence to make difficult people decisions.
• A highly hands-on and execution-oriented mindset.

Key Competencies

• Talent Acquisition
• People Strategy
• HR Operations
• Performance Management
• Employee Engagement & Retention
• Leadership Hiring
• Stakeholder Management
• Culture Building
• Strategic Thinking
• Execution & Ownership
• Problem Solving
• Team Building
• Entrepreneurial Mindset

Why This Role Is Unique

This is a rare opportunity to become a foundational People & Talent leader and build the organization's talent engine from the ground up.

You will have significant ownership over the systems, standards, and decisions that shape the future workforce. Your work will directly influence the quality of hiring, organizational culture, leadership capability, employee growth, and the company's ability to scale successfully.

You will not simply support growth.

You will help determine the people who make that growth possible.

Ideal Candidate

We are looking for a talent builder and people leader who combines strategic thinking with a strong willingness to execute.

The ideal candidate understands that great organizations are built through exceptional people. They have strong judgment, high standards, and the ability to build practical systems without introducing unnecessary complexity.

Most importantly, they are comfortable working in an entrepreneurial environment where ownership matters, ambiguity is common, and building from zero is part of the opportunity.