The First Move.
The people and capital behind the AI race.
A First Move report · September 2026
The State of Recruiting in AI 2026
Three years of recruiting demand, what recruiters and people teams earn at AI companies, the questions labs ask, the AI workflows that help, and how to get in.
Written by Jack Leyden | Data checked September 29, 2026
Together with Accelera Growth Partners, helping AI founders learn, build, and scale.
558open tech recruiter roles at AI companies, more than any other sector
$295Ktop of posted base pay for research recruiters at Anthropic
40% vs 3%interview rate for referred vs inbound candidates
This is the full report, laid out for the web. If you would rather read it as a 31-page PDF, with every posting and all 156 linked sources, download it here.
Contents
·Executive summarySix findings at a glance1Three years of recruiting demandPostings, layoffs, where the openings are2How the job has changedVolume, workload, AI and fraud3Inside the AI companiesHiring plans, talent teams, new players4Pay by level, and how it's changed28 postings, Levels.fyi, BLS5How to land a roleThe ladder, the questions, the process6For recruiters moving into AISix skills and a 90-day plan7AI workflows for recruitersTools, results, starter workflows, rules8ResourcesGuides, courses and communities925 people to followTalent leaders creating value for recruitersAAppendix: all postingsEvery role and posted range10Method and sourcesHow to read these numbers
Executive summary
+14.7%
Recruiting reset, now recovering
US HR and recruiting postings fell 66% from the March 2022 peak to a May 2025 low. They are up 14.7% over the past year.
Indeed Hiring Lab
558
AI is the top employer of tech recruiters
More open recruiter roles at AI companies than consumer tech (427) or B2B SaaS (333).
TrueUp, July 2026
121 → 319
Each recruiter carries more
Applications per hire peaked at 319 in late 2024. Teams shrank from 31 people to 24.
Ashby; Gem
$295K
Labs pay above market
Posted research recruiter bases reach $295K, against a $150K US recruiter median.
Job boards; Levels.fyi
Closing
The work is moving up
Labs want research recruiting, senior closing, leveling and pay advice, and AI fluency.
Lab job postings
40% vs 3%
Referrals win
Referred candidates reach interviews 40% of the time. Inbound applicants: 3%.
Ashby
Section 1
1Three years of recruiting demand
Recruiting was the function tech cut first in 2022 and 2023. The recovery is real, uneven and increasingly driven by AI companies.
−66%HR and recruiting postings, March 2022 peak to May 2025 low
+14.7%Postings growth over the past year
558Open recruiter roles at AI companies, the largest sector
Figure 1
US job postings for HR and recruiting vs software development
Indeed Job Postings Index, monthly average, seasonally adjusted. February 1, 2020 = 100. Indeed's HR category includes recruiters.
Source: Indeed Hiring Lab, job postings by sector, data through Sept 25, 2026. Monthly averages computed by The First Move. Daily low for HR: 82.9 on May 30, 2025; peak 243.3 on Mar 2, 2022. Yearly averages for HR: 117.5 (2023), 96.8 (2024), 86.7 (2025), 92.1 (2026 so far). Software development is still 22% below its 2020 baseline.
Figure 2
Cut first, rebuilt first
Average share of staff cut at tech companies that ran layoffs in 2022, and open tech recruiter roles by sector in July 2026.
Share of staff cut, by function, 2022
Recruiting
50%
Product and design
12%
Software engineering
10%
Open tech recruiter roles, by sector, July 2026
AI
558
Consumer
427
B2B SaaS
333
Sources: interviewing.io analysis of LinkedIn and layoffs.fyi data, via Recruiting News Network, Nov 30, 2022; TrueUp Tech Recruiter Job Report, July 2026 (2,391 open roles in total, up 253.7% from a low of 676).
Takeaway
Recruiting lost half its people in the 2022 cuts. AI companies are now leading the rebuild.
Section 2
2How the job has changed
Fewer recruiters, far more applications, and a new set of tools and threats.
319Applications per hire at the late-2024 peak, up from 121
13.4Open reqs per recruiter; headcount down 14% vs 2021
91%Recruiters who have spotted candidate deception
Figure 3
Applications per hire
Average number of applications for each hire, across Ashby customers.
Q1 2021Early
121
Q4 2024Peak
319
Q1 2026Latest
291
Source: Ashby, Recruiter Productivity Trends, Apr 28, 2026. 109M applications, January 2021 to March 2026. The 2021 value is from Ashby's chart; its text says roughly 100. Interviews per technical hire rose to 17.6 from about 11, and technical roles take about 15 days longer to fill (Ashby, 2026).
Figure 4
AI is already in the workflow
How recruiters are using generative AI.
37%
of organizations use or test generative AI in hiring, up from 27%
20%
of the work week saved by generative AI users
93%
of recruiters plan to use more AI in 2026
~1 in 3
recruiting teams call themselves AI power users
Sources: LinkedIn Future of Recruiting 2025; LinkedIn survey of 6,554 HR professionals, Nov 2025, via Staffing Industry Analysts; LinkedIn via Recruiting News Network, Oct 2025.
Figure 5
The fraud problem
AI also makes it easier to fake a candidate.
Share of recruiters who…
Spend up to half their week filtering spam or junk applications
34%
Have spotted candidate deception
91%
By 2028, Gartner predicts…
1 in 4
candidate profiles worldwide will be fake.
Sources: Greenhouse AI in Hiring report, Nov 19, 2025; Gartner, via Staffing Industry Analysts, Aug 6, 2025.
Takeaway
Screening volume is no longer the scarce skill. Judgment on quality, relationships with people who don't apply, advising on level and pay, and closing are. That is what AI labs hire for.
Section 3
3Inside the AI companies
The labs are hiring at a pace few companies have attempted, and the recruiting function around them is changing shape.
~8,000OpenAI's reported headcount target for end of 2026, up from about 4,500
22 : 1Anthropic hires for every departure. Google DeepMind: 2 : 1
~50People Zuckerberg reportedly set out to recruit personally in 2025
Research recruiting is founder and executive work
The most senior hires are closed by founders and executives. Recruiters run the search, market mapping and offer process around them, often alongside executive search firms.
“…to define priority talent targets” and cultivate exceptional people “before there is a formal or standard hiring process attached.”
OpenAI, Principal Recruiter, Strategic AI Talent posting, 2026People teams are being professionalized
OpenAI hired Arvind KC, previously at Roblox, Google, Palantir and Meta, as Chief People Officer in February 2026.
Global HR is being built out
Anthropic has built international HR business partner teams, including a London people partner role posted at £175K to £220K.
Figure 6
New players around the labs
Recruiting companies built around AI.
Sep 25, 2025
Juicebox raises $30M Series A
Led by Sequoia, for AI recruiting agents.
Oct 1, 2025
Workday completes Paradox deal
Conversational AI with 189M+ candidate conversations.
Oct 27, 2025
Mercor raises $350M at $10B
Pays contract experts over $1.5M a day, many training AI models.
Jun 24, 2026
Riviera Partners buys Lateral Labs
AI recruiting firm serving Cursor, ElevenLabs, Runway and Scale AI.
Sources: TechCrunch; Workday; Staffing Industry Analysts; The Next Web.
Stat sources: Financial Times via Staffing Industry Analysts, Mar 2026; Zeki Data via Fortune, Aug 2026; WSJ via TechRepublic, Jun 2025.
Section 4
4Pay by level, and how it's changed
What recruiters and people teams earn across the market, at big tech, and at the AI companies competing for them.
$150KUS median recruiter package, 709 submissions
$536KGoogle L7 recruiter average, $247K of it stock
+42%Rise in the floor of OpenAI's research recruiter band, 2024 to 2026
Figure 7
Recruiter pay across the US market
Total yearly compensation for recruiters, all companies, US. 709 submissions.
$115K
25th percentile
$150K
Median
$190K
75th percentile
$240K
90th percentile
Source: Levels.fyi, Recruiter, US, checked Sept 29, 2026. The Levels.fyi 2025 End of Year report also put the recruiter median at $150K, with a median of 9 years' experience.
Figure 8
Recruiter pay by level at Google and Meta
Average yearly pay by level, split into base, stock and bonus. Same scale in both panels.
Google · Recruiter
L3
$144K
L4
$198K
L5
$248K
L6
$304K
L7
$536K
Meta · Recruiter
IC3
$112K
IC4
$152K
IC5
$162K
IC6
$272K
IC7
$381K
BaseStock per yearBonus
Source: Levels.fyi, US, checked Sept 29, 2026. Google: 262 submissions, median $194K; stock is first-year and bonus includes sign-on. Meta: 526 submissions, median $169K. At AI companies data is thin: Scale AI shows $147K at L3 and $174K at L4; OpenAI's $580K median comes from only 12 submissions.
Figure 9
Posted base pay for recruiting and people roles at AI companies
Range as posted, US, by role. Scale runs from $50K to $350K.
Recruiting coordinatorFigure
$70K–$95K
Recruiting coordinatorxAI (SpaceXAI)
$80K–$100K
Recruiting coordinatorThinking Machines Lab
$140K–$200K
Technical sourcerOpenAI, Research
$136.8K–$240K
Technical sourcerThinking Machines Lab
$250K–$300K
RecruiterScale AI, Technical
$134.4K–$168K
RecruiterxAI, Technical
$130K–$210K
RecruiterPerplexity, Technical
$160K–$200K
RecruiterAnthropic, Applied AI or G&A
$170K–$230K
Research recruiterOpenAI, AI/ML Research
$216K–$240K
Research recruiterAnthropic, AI Research
$175K–$295K
Senior technical recruiterOpenAI, Eng. Leadership
$172K–$295K
Executive recruiterScale AI, Technical
$160K–$225K
People partnerAnthropic, closed Sep 2026
$255K–$310K
Compensation partnerOpenAI, GTM
$180K–$260K
Frontier and new labsOther AI companiesPeople and compensation roles
Sources: company job boards and portfolio copies, checked Sept 29, 2026. Base only; several OpenAI and Scale roles also offer equity. The Anthropic people partner posting closed in September 2026. All roles in Appendix A.
1
Research recruiting pays most
Tops of $240K to $295K at OpenAI and Anthropic.
2
Thinking Machines pays above market
$140K to $200K for coordinators and $250K to $300K for sourcers.
3
People roles match recruiters
People partner and pay roles sit at or above senior recruiter pay.
Figure 10
Same role, then and now
Posted pay for comparable OpenAI roles.
OpenAI · Recruiter, Research (Aug 2024 vs Sep 2026)
Then
$152K–$240K
Now
$216K–$240K
OpenAI · Contract recruiting coordinator, per hour (Aug 2023 vs Sep 2026)
Then
$41
Now
$57–$70
Sources: OpenAI postings via startup.jobs (Aug 19, 2023) and Swooped (Aug 19, 2024); OpenAI careers, Sept 29, 2026.
Figure 11
The wider market moves slower
US median pay, all industries, May 2023 to May 2025.
HR specialistsIncludes recruiters
$67.7K–$75.9K
HR managers
$136.4K–$149.3K
Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS. HR specialists up 12.3%, HR managers up 9.5%. May 2025 median for HR specialists in the San Francisco metro: $103,140.
Section 5
5How to land a role at an AI company
What the postings ask for, what the labs ask in interviews, and why referrals matter more than ever.
5Distinct recruiting and people tracks at the labs
17Reported interview questions in this section
40% vs 3%Interview rate, referred vs inbound
Figure 12
The ladder
What postings ask for at each level. Drawn from current and recent postings at OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, xAI, Thinking Machines, Scale AI, Perplexity, Harvey and Cursor.
Recruiting coordinator
1 to 4 yrs
Scheduling at volume, ATS fluency, AI tools used daily
Technical recruiter
3 to 5+ yrs
Full-cycle hiring in hyper-growth teams, funnel metrics
Research recruiter
5+ yrs
Research networks and high-stakes negotiations
Principal recruiter
Senior
Talent targets set with research leaders, pay strategy, search firms
People partner
6 to 10+ yrs
HR partnering in high-growth companies
Source: job postings read Sept 29, 2026. Anthropic asks people partners for 6+ years in San Francisco and 10+ years plus local employment law in London.
Takeaway
Two themes run through almost every posting: real interest in the mission, and enough technical judgment to assess research and engineering talent and hold their attention.
Questions the labs ask recruiters
Questions candidates for recruiting roles report being asked, mostly from Glassdoor reviews. The culture question comes from Anthropic President Daniela Amodei, as reported by Bloomberg Businessweek. Wording is as posted; paraphrases carry no quote marks.
Mission and values
“Why OpenAI and this role?”
OpenAI · Recruiter · Feb 2024“What do you want to see from AI in the future?”
OpenAI · Recruiter · UndatedWhy Anthropic, and what could happen if AI wasn't monitored or safe.
Anthropic · Recruiter · May 2025“How would you define a good person?”
Anthropic · Recruiting Coordinator · Mar 2023“What are some unusual beliefs that you hold and how have you defended those beliefs” in uncomfortable situations?
Anthropic · culture interview (nearly all roles) · May 2026Candidates and judgment
“How would you handle a candidate who was told they were a ‘no’ but then got angry and wanted specific feedback?”
Anthropic · Technical Recruiter · Sep 2023“Tell me about a mistake you made on the job and what did you learn from it?”
Anthropic · Recruiting Coordinator · Mar 2023Recruiting metrics from past roles, and how you would handle different candidate scenarios.
Google DeepMind · Recruiter · May 2026Volume and operations
“How would you handle an unusually large number of applicants?”
Anthropic · Recruiting Coordinator · Mar 2023“How many interviews or interview loops do you typically schedule in a week?” The interviewer pushed for a number.
OpenAI · Recruiting Coordinator · Aug 2025Closing and compensation
“How would you close an offer from someone who has a competing role at Databricks?”
Scale AI · Recruiter · Aug 2023“How would you position an engineering opportunity at Scale AI versus OpenAI, specifically regarding RSUs and stock options?”
Scale AI · Technical Recruiter · Sep 2024“Talk about a difficult hire.”
Scale AI · Technical Recruiter · Sep 2024Sourcing and strategy (big tech)
“How do you hire 100 engineers?”
Google · Technical Sourcer · Sep 2023“What is your sourcing strategy?” and “How do you qualify a candidate?”
Google · Technical Sourcer · Apr 2022“How do you create a specific sourcing boolean?”
Meta · Technical Sourcer · UndatedPitching your current company against the competition.
Databricks · Technical Recruiter · Apr 2021Sources: Glassdoor interview pages for each company and role, read Sept 29, 2026; Bloomberg Businessweek, May 28, 2026, via implicator.ai. Glassdoor reviews are self-reported and unverified.
What the interview looks like
Take-homes
Anthropic technical recruiters: two screens and a take-home, 4 to 5 hours total (2023). Scale AI uses one too.
Live exercises
OpenAI coordinators: a Loom video, then a live scheduling exercise (2026). Anthropic: a skills evaluation.
Panels
Scale AI: a panel of five opening with a company overview (2024), or one day with four interviewers.
Culture round
Nearly every Anthropic candidate has one. Prep platforms say most candidates fail here.
Practice these too
No candidate reported a question that tests research fluency, yet postings require it. Our suggested practice questions, not reported ones:
- What is the difference between a research scientist and a research engineer at a frontier lab?
- Who are the 20 people you would approach first for a post-training role, and why?
- How do you use AI in your sourcing, and how do you check its output?
- How would you close a senior researcher weighing your offer against raising money for their own lab?
How the labs hire
OpenAI
Résumé review, intro call, skills assessment, then a final round of 4 to 6 hours with 4 to 6 people over 1 to 2 days. A decision usually follows within a week.
Anthropic
Non-technical interviews look for “clarity, judgment, and a genuine interest in the mission.” AI may refine your materials, but not live interviews unless you're told otherwise.
Figure 13
Why referrals matter
Conversion rates by candidate source.
Application to interview
Referrals
40%
Inbound
3%
Interview to offer
Referrals
16%
Sourced and inbound
6%
Source: Ashby, Referrals report, May 16, 2025 (2021 to 2024 data). Ashby's May 2026 benchmarks also show 84% offer acceptance for referred technical candidates against 76% for sourced.
A playbook for candidates
1
Pick a lane
Coordinator, sourcer, technical, research, GTM or people. Generalist applications stand out less.
2
Show the numbers
Hires closed, time to fill, offer acceptance, and the seniority of people you closed.
3
Prove technical judgment
Explain what a research engineer does, how you assess one, and a recent paper you followed.
4
Get referred
Referred candidates are over ten times as likely to reach an interview.
5
Use AI within the rules
Follow each company's candidate AI guidance. Some postings require AI fluency.
6
Consider contract routes
Google DeepMind, Scale AI, Harvey, Cursor and OpenAI all post contract or fixed-term roles.
Section 6
6For recruiters moving into AI
What to learn, where the talent is, and how to spend your first 90 days.
65%+AI engineers based in the San Francisco and New York metros
26,382NeurIPS 2025 registrants
~1 in 3Recruiting teams that are AI power users
Six things to focus on
1
Research fluency
Pre-training, post-training, RL, inference, evals, safety. Read the papers your candidates wrote.
2
Pay and equity
Levels, vesting, tenders and valuations. See our Q3 2026 Pay Report and Offer Playbook.
3
Closing senior talent
Labs want recruiters who can run “high-stakes negotiations” and competing offers.
4
AI tools, used well
Be in the third of teams that are power users. See Sections 7 and 8.
5
Data and operations
Ashby and Greenhouse fluency, funnel metrics and forecasting.
6
Candidate verification
Spotting fraud and verifying identity and work history is now part of the job.
Figure 14
Where research talent gathers
Attendance at NeurIPS, the largest AI research conference.
2023New Orleans
16,382
2024Vancouver
19,756
2025San Diego + Mexico City
26,382
Source: NeurIPS 2025 fact sheet. 2025 figure is registrants across San Diego, Mexico City and virtual attendance. NeurIPS 2025 received 21,575 paper submissions and accepted 5,290. SignalFire, State of Talent 2025, for the 65% figure.
Figure 15
A 90-day plan
Suggested plan. Guidance, not data.
Days 1 to 30
Learn the landscape
• Map 20 target labs and their research areas
• Read the postings in Appendix A
• Pick your lane
• Read the postings in Appendix A
• Pick your lane
Days 31 to 60
Build proof
• Write a market map of one research area: top 50 people
• Rebuild your résumé around metrics and senior closes
• Rebuild your résumé around metrics and senior closes
Days 61 to 90
Get in the room
• Ask for referrals
• Apply to specific roles
• Consider contract or fixed-term routes
• Apply to specific roles
• Consider contract or fixed-term routes
The First Move.
The labs don't need more people to screen résumés. They need people who understand research, pay and people well enough to change someone's mind. That's the job, and it pays accordingly.
Section 7
7AI workflows for recruiters and people teams
Where AI already does real work in hiring, what the tools report, and how to build your own workflows safely.
4+ hrsSaved per role by early LinkedIn Hiring Assistant users
20 minSaved per interview on notes and scorecards (Metaview)
1,500Résumés reviewed in 6 hours with Ashby's AI review
Figure 16
Where AI fits in the recruiting process
Workflows in use today at each stage, with example tools. Examples, not endorsements.
Sources: vendor product pages and announcements, checked Sept 29, 2026.
Figure 17
What the tools report
Results as reported by each vendor or customer. Not independently verified.
HR questions answered without a personIBM AskHR
94%
Interview admin tasks automatedGoodTime customers
90%
Better InMail acceptanceLinkedIn Hiring Assistant
69%
Fewer profiles to reviewLinkedIn Hiring Assistant
62%
Faster performance reviewsLattice review drafts
47%
Higher outreach reply rateAshby
46%
Lower HR operating costs, 4 yearsIBM AskHR
40%
Better InMail acceptance vs manual filtersLinkedIn AI-assisted search
18%
Sources: IBM AskHR case study; GoodTime, May 2025; LinkedIn, Sep 2025; Lattice, Jul 2026; Ashby. The Ashby review ran with no scoring or ranking; Lattice's agent cannot pick ratings.
Anthropic is hiring a Recruiting Solutions Engineer to help “recruiters build with Claude as we transform how Anthropic hires.”
Anthropic job posting, July 2026. Its candidate guidance says Claude does not make hiring decisions. OpenAI is a listed customer of Juicebox.Figure 18
Build your own: three starter workflows
Our suggestions, drawn from the practitioner resources in Section 8. Use only tools your company approves for candidate data.
Intake to search kit
1. Record the intake meeting
2. Draft JD, scorecard, 3 search strings
3. Edit and add target teams
4. Hiring manager signs off
Research talent map
1. Pull papers from arXiv, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR
2. Group authors by lab and topic
3. Verify every name yourself
4. Outreach that cites their work
Debrief pack
1. Collect interview notes
2. Summarize against the scorecard
3. Flag disagreements
4. Hiring team decides
AI stepHuman step
The First Move.
Figure 19
The rules on AI in hiring
When each rule applies. Summary only; not legal advice.
Jul 2023 · In effect
NYC Local Law 144
Bias audit, published results, candidate notice
Jan 2026 · In effect
Illinois HB 3773
No discriminatory AI, notice, no zip-code proxies
Jan 2027 · Coming
Colorado SB 26-189
Notice, 30-day explanation, correction, human review
Dec 2027 · Coming
EU AI Act (high-risk)
Recruiting AI obligations after the Digital Omnibus
Sources: NYC Local Law 144; Morgan Lewis on Illinois HB 3773; McDonald Hopkins on Colorado SB 26-189; Lewis Silkin on the EU Digital Omnibus.
Takeaway
Check what the tools tell you. AIHR found an AI HR plugin's pay benchmarks off by as much as 83%, with senior roles underestimated by 50% to 80%. Verify AI pay data before it reaches a candidate.
Section 8
8Resources for building AI workflows
Guides, courses, communities and tools, most made by working recruiters and people leaders.
23Resources checked Sept 29, 2026
12Made by working recruiters and people leaders
17Free to use
Takeaway
Start with Jan Tegze's agent walkthrough and the Hacking HR guide for hands-on building, Glen Cathey's courses for sourcing, and AIHR's test report for what can go wrong.
Built by recruiters and people leaders
Weekly newsletter
The most-read digest of recruiting and HR news, with regular AI coverage.
FreePanel, on demand (Metaview)
Hung Lee with Glen Cathey, Jane Curran, Mike Wolford, Marcus Köhnlein
How TA leaders at Randstad, JLL and WilsonHCG put AI into real workflows.
FreeWebinar (ERE), Oct 6, 2026
A TA leader walks through the sourcing agent he built and how he checks its output.
FreePodcast
Jan Tegze on Offer Accepted (Ashby)
Practical steps for recruiters learning to work with AI.
FreeLinkedIn Learning course, 2023
How generative AI changes each recruiting stage and how to judge vendors.
PaidSocialTalent course
Generative AI for market analysis, engagement, interviews and offers.
PaidArticle, Nov 2024
A clear primer on agents versus older automation, for TA teams.
FreeGuide, Aug 2026
Enrique Rubio, Hacking HR
Building an HR operating system with Claude projects, skills and team examples.
FreeWebinar (ERE), Sep 2026
Research on 350+ HR leaders and 12 AI interviewing platforms. The replay may have expired.
FreeArticle, May 2023
Denys Dinkevych
A prompt framework for outreach, employer brand and sourcing.
FreeCourse, six sessions
Mike Pritula Academy
AI sourcing, candidate messaging automation and interview analysis.
PaidTraining and research bodies
Course, 33 hours
AIHR
Prompting, custom GPTs, Claude and building HR agents.
PaidTest report, Mar 2026
AIHR
An independent test of an AI HR plugin, including where it got pay wrong.
FreeCourse and assistant
The Josh Bersin Company
Self-paced field manuals on AI across the HR function.
PaidLab and vendor guides
Open-source plugin, GitHub
Anthropic
Claude commands for pay analysis, offers, onboarding, reviews and policy lookup.
FreeGuide, Sep 2026
OpenAI Academy
How to roll out AI across a team, including HR's role.
FreePrompt templates
Gem
Prompts for outreach, job descriptions, sourcing and interview prep.
FreePrompt guide
Google Workspace
Prompts for job descriptions, interview questions, offers and metrics.
FreeWalkthrough, Oct 2025
Microsoft Copilot Scenario Library
Copilot and agents from candidate screening to headcount data.
FreeCommunities and open source
Slack community
Ashby
1,000+ recruiting ops practitioners, with a dedicated AI channel. Application required.
FreeGitHub repo, MIT license
HackerRank (interviewstreet)
An open-source example of LLM resume evaluation against a published rubric. Read the bias discussion first.
FreeTitles link to each resource. Creator names link to LinkedIn where we could verify a profile. Listing is not an endorsement. Paid items were not reviewed in full. Kyle Lagunas's webinar replay may have expired.
Section 9
925 people recruiters should follow
Talent leaders, founding recruiters, VC talent teams and creators who publish playbooks, data and tools that make other recruiters better at hiring in AI.
25People, all with a public record of sharing
10Inside AI labs and AI startups
3Recruiters building their own AI tools
How we chose
Each person publishes something other recruiters can use: a playbook, data, a tool, a show or a community. Roles checked against 2025 and 2026 sources. Listing is not an endorsement.
a16z speedrun Alpha, Talent Track
a16z's early-career technical talent program: a 4-week San Francisco residency matching technical grads and dropouts with portfolio companies. a16z's hiring ad for it cited 20,000+ inbound applications per cohort.
Inside AI labs and startups · 10
Talent, SpaceXAI (formerly Head of Talent, Cursor)
The fullest public playbook in AI hiring: scope, map, pursue; running every hire like an executive search.
Patrick Circelli
Head of Talent, Cognition
Founder-led recruiting at scale: an 8-person team hiring 10 to 20 people a week. Ex-Scale AI.
Head of GTM Talent, Decagon
Runs talent like a revenue team: weekly hiring forecasts and pipeline reviews modeled on sales ops.
Talent, SpaceXAI (ex-Cursor; former Head of Talent, Hebbia)
New recruiter competency models for the AI era, and testing tools yourself instead of trusting demos.
VP of Talent, Harvey
Values-based hiring beyond prestige brands, and blending law-firm and startup talent.
Selena Ma
Head of Recruiter Programs, OpenAI
How OpenAI thinks about candidates using ChatGPT to get hired.
Head of People, Anthropic (per Transform 2025)
Anthropic's culture and how it builds talent pipelines at scale.
Heather Samaras
Senior Director, Talent Acquisition, Scale AI
What it takes to compete on pay for top AI talent.
Talent Acquisition Lead, Hugging Face
Hiring from open source: 30% to 40% of hires come from contributors.
Tanner Skenderian
Talent team, ElevenLabs
Using AI voice agents in candidate experience, after 31,000+ applications in a single month.
Recruiters building with AI · 3
Talent Partner, Craft Ventures
Went from non-technical to building her own recruiting tools with Claude Code.
Viet Nguyen
Ex-Head of Recruiting Ops, Vercel
“Selfish software”: live benchmark databases and network maps built for one recruiter.
Riviera Partners (founder, Lateral Labs)
An ex-OpenAI and AWS recruiter who built an AI research search firm, acquired by Riviera in 2026.
VC talent teams and programs · 4
Head of Research, SignalFire
Co-author of SignalFire's State of Tech Talent report, the most-cited data on AI lab talent flows.
Senior Director of Talent, SignalFire
Practical guides on how AI is rewriting the talent playbook and headcount planning.
Operating Partner, a16z Talent Network
Hiring playbooks, from first principles of executive hiring to the hiring process.
Jordan Mazer
Talent lead, a16z speedrun
The a16z speedrun talent network, plus a weekly jobs newsletter.
Creators, data and community · 8
Founder, Recruiting Brainfood
The weekly digest the industry reads, with heavy coverage of AI in hiring.
Founder and CEO, interviewing.io
Original technical hiring data, including how often interviewers catch AI use.
Host, 10x Recruiting; co-host, HR Heretics
Ex-DoorDash Head of Talent and Carta CPO. “The 2026 Recruiting Reckoning.”
Co-founder and CEO, Metaview
AI interview notes and screening, and the 10x Recruiting show his company produces.
RecOps Collective; writes RecOps Roundup
Recruiting ops and rolling out AI across a TA team.
Director of Talent Acquisition, Tricentis
Builds his own sourcing agent and teaches others how.
Alina Kolesnikova
Levels.fyi
AI engineer pay data by level, the numbers candidates bring to your offer call.
SVP, Talent Advisory and Digital Strategy, Randstad
The best-known sourcing educator, now teaching generative AI for recruiting.
Each card links to the source behind it. LinkedIn links appear for 18 of the 25; we left the rest out rather than guess.
Takeaway
The labs themselves publish little. Most useful AI recruiting content comes from AI startups and from three shows: Metaview's 10x Recruiting, Paradigm's Below the Surface, and Noon's Talent 100 list.
Appendix A
All recruiting and people postings in this report
| Role and location | Posted pay |
|---|---|
| Anthropic | |
| Recruiter, AI Research SF, Seattle | $175K–$295K |
| Recruiter, Mergers & Acquisitions SF | $240K–$295K |
| Recruiter, Applied AI SF | $170K–$230K |
| Recruiter, G&A SF | $170K–$230K |
| GTM Recruiter, EMEA Dublin | €125K–€170K |
| People Partner, Engineering SF, Seattle | $255K–$310K Closed; posted Sep 3, 2026 |
| Technical Recruiter, Infrastructure SF | $240K–$295K Closed; posted Jul 26, 2026 |
| OpenAI | |
| Recruiter, AI/ML Research SF | $216K–$240K Plus equity |
| Senior Technical Recruiter, Engineering Leadership Remote US, Seattle, SF | $172K–$295K Plus equity |
| Technical Sourcer, Research SF, NYC, Seattle, remote | $136.8K–$240K Plus equity; multiple ranges |
| Senior Technical Sourcer, Applications Eng. SF, NYC, Seattle | $172K–$240K Plus equity |
| Recruiting Coordinator, contract SF, NY, Seattle | $57–$70 per hour |
| Employer Brand Manager SF, NY, remote US | $190K–$240K Plus equity |
| Compensation Business Partner, GTM SF, NYC | $180K–$260K Plus equity |
| Senior Employee Relations Partner SF | $234K–$260K Plus equity |
| xAI (SpaceXAI) | |
| Technical Recruiter Palo Alto | $130K–$210K |
| University Recruiter, Early Careers SF, Palo Alto | $130K–$210K |
| Recruiting Coordinator Palo Alto | $80K–$100K |
| Google DeepMind | |
| Talent Acquisition Partner, 12-month contract Mountain View | $131K–$192K Plus bonus; posted as "$131 - $192,000" |
| Thinking Machines Lab | |
| Technical Sourcer SF | $250K–$300K |
| Recruiting Coordinator, Research SF | $140K–$200K |
| Recruiting Coordination and Operations Specialist SF | $140K–$200K |
| Scale AI | |
| Technical Recruiter SF, NY, Seattle | $134.4K–$168K Plus equity |
| Executive Recruiter, Technical SF band | $160K–$225K |
| Technical Sourcer, contract SF | $60–$70 per hour |
| Perplexity | |
| Technical Recruiter (Full Cycle) SF | $160K–$200K Cash |
| Figure | |
| Technical Recruiter San Jose | $120K–$200K |
| Recruiting Coordinator San Jose | $70K–$95K |
Posted pay as written, checked Sept 29, 2026. Closed postings show their posting date. Head of Talent, Head of People and Total Rewards leader roles were not posted with ranges at any company we checked.
Section 10
Method and sources
How this report was built, and what it cannot tell you.
Demand data
Indeed's HR category includes recruiters and HR managers, so it tracks the function, not recruiters alone. TrueUp and Gem cover tech companies and their own customers.
Pay data
Posted ranges are base pay as written, for the location named. Levels.fyi is self-reported and thin for recruiters at AI labs. BLS covers all industries.
Change over time
Few AI companies posted pay before 2023, so historical comparisons rely on a small number of dated postings.
Interviews and tools
Interview questions are self-reported on Glassdoor. Tool results are vendor-reported. No lab publishes the size of its recruiting or people team.
Sources are named under each figure. The PDF edition lists all 156 with links in Section 10.
Nothing in this report is legal, tax or investment advice. © 2026 The First Move, together with Accelera Growth Partners.
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