Vinod Khosla once said: “A company becomes the people it hires.”

Blackbird is looking for a People Lead to help the portfolio companies we serve to hire the best people. By virtue of Blackbird’s place in the startup landscape, we have a unique chance to act as a honeypot for the best people. Your job is to give each of our portfolio companies an unfair superpower in the people it hires by directing that talent their way. 

About the Role

Reporting to Blackbird's Head of Community, we are looking for someone passionate about unlocking Australia's best talent across the corporate sector, startups and universities, creating pathways into the world of startups and helping them find their dream jobs. You will do this all at scale so that 100s or 1,000s of people can benefit from your work.

You will also support our founders as they scale — connecting them to other members of the portfolio and relevant leaders globally.

Here is a brief overview of some examples of work you will do:

Talent matching into our portfolios - You will have a pulse on our portfolio's hiring plans and will make daily introductions to relevant talent who have come into our orbit. In doing this, you'll create a talent pool and track those people through to placement via a CRM.

Chauffeur executive talent - We're frequently introduced to exceptional ANZ and international executive talent searching for the next project to inspire them. Part of this role will be providing a white-glove experience for these people to help them find exactly what they are looking for.

Special programs and events - We're looking for someone to bring their creativity and ideas to conceptualise and deliver on programs that will attract talent into Blackbird portfolio companies, especially the brightest university students.

Building our Operators Network- You'll own our Operator's Network; a new initiative to connect Blackbird and ecosystem operators and provide them with workshops, resources and networking opportunities.

Portfolio relationship building- A big part of this role is understanding each portfolio company's hiring roadmap, culture and recruiting processes. You will keep up-to-date with our founders and their teams and provide them with relevant content and helpful introductions to advisors throughout the year.

Position Requirements

Background is less important than the key skills, which include:

• Talent. You will have a unique curiosity for identifying the best talent before they are successful and how the great companies build great cultures

• Project management. An ability to juggle a number of different projects in many different domains at the same time.

• Hospitality mindset. We have a sense of ‘Enlightened Hospitality’, which simply means that the whole team has a focus on helping each other and collectively has an obsession for customer service to our founders and underlying investors. You should too.

• Exceptional communication skills. Great at communicating both internally and externally. 

• Founder empathy. Creating a company is a very different mindset to optimising a company. Experience in either creating a company yourself, even if it was not successful or working with founders at the earliest stages is a plus.

We're looking for someone who is as obsessed as we are about building an iconic investment firm. You must have a high ownership mentality and the ability to take responsibility for goals and outcomes.

As important as what the role is, is what this role is not. The biggest constraint for the role is that we don't want to do anything that the company can do or a normal recruiter can do. We are looking for a community-driven person who approaches talent funnels with a creative and scalable approach. That means no posting to job boards and filtering candidates. We will greenlight initiatives that attract people only Blackbird is uniquely placed to meet.

This is a full-time role or as part of a job share, and the candidate can be based at our Melbourne, Auckland or Sydney office. If you wish to work remotely, clear communication and ownership is key. Blackbird also offers flexible working, whether it’s working from home or leaving early to pick up the kids from daycare or school.

Working at Blackbird

We believe that building a diverse and inclusive team is critical to Blackbird’s success. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, or marital, veteran, or disability status. We use Applied to ensure every applicant gets an equal chance of success.

We offer:

• Flexible working: Whether it’s working from home or leaving early to pick up the kids from daycare or school.

• Generous parental leave: We know family comes first and we are proud to offer generous parental leave - 16 weeks for primary carer and 6 weeks for a secondary carer, subject to a 12 month minimum tenure.  This includes a continuation of super payments while on unpaid parental leave and a supportive return-to-work policy

• Learning & Development Budget: Our team is hungry to continuously learn and you’ll receive a budget to spend on whatever you’d like to learn - from coding courses to meditation.annual budget for your learning & self-development

• Unplugged weekends: We work hard without letting work get in the way of life. We’ve implemented no Slack or emails on weekends, so you can switch off and enjoy yourself.

• A share of Blackbird’s success: We think it is important to share successes with the whole team. All Blackbird employees receive carry in our funds and are owners in the management company.

Blackbird is a Pledge 1% member — we pledge 1% of our time, equity and profits to help not-for-profit causes in our community, with a focus on greater gender diversity in STEM education.

About Blackbird

Blackbird is a venture capital firm whose mission is to supercharge Australia and New Zealand’s most ambitious founders. We do this by raising venture capital funds, investing into the best startup companies and helping them succeed. We have more than a billion dollars under management and a portfolio of 68 companies including some of the most successful Australian startups such as Canva, Zoox, SafetyCulture and Culture Amp.

Like the companies we back, we want to build a business that lasts for decades and produces excellent returns for our investors.

We’ve written a lot about what we love at Blackbird, so check out our blog if you want some more information about us. In particular, you should read about our mission and values, our master plan, and what we look for in founders.