Compensation Lead - Contractor
About The Position
Exude Human Capital partners with small to mid-sized organizations across both nonprofit and for-profit sectors to design equitable, forward-thinking compensation strategies. They go beyond traditional compensation consulting to build sustainable, strategic pay structures that drive business growth and talent success. This role involves adding Consultants (1099 Contractor) to their compensation bench who bring creativity, structure, and strategic insight to projects. The ideal candidate has experience delivering compensation consulting services to external clients as part of a consulting firm.
Requirements
- 7- 10 + years working in a lead role for compensation projects.
- 3+ years working as an external consultant around compensation / HR strategies.
- Strategic mindset—you go beyond market data and help organizations design pay structures that support business goals.
- Experience designing compensation frameworks, job architecture, salary bands and documented pay practices—not just benchmarking.
- Expertise working with organizations under 500 employees, across nonprofit and for-profit sectors.
- Strong understanding of compensation benchmarking tools and databases (i.e. PayScale, ERI, etc.)
- A creative, analytical approach to compensation—balancing market trends, equity, and organizational priorities.
- Strong client engagement skills—able to lead conversations, educate stakeholders, and guide decision-making.
- An educational approach – identifying organizational behaviors that may impact client objectives, and helping clients understand how to consistently make pay decisions across a variety of scenarios
- Knowledge of compliance, pay equity laws, and compensation best practices.
- Ability to work on a project basis with flexible hours; ability to work with other consultants on projects of scale
Nice To Haves
- Experience in staffing, recruiting, or internal corporate compensation is valuable, but does not provide the consulting experience required for this position.
- Experience working with unionized environments and collectively bargained compensation structures is preferred.
Responsibilities
- Guide clients through job analysis and skill inventory processes, identifying and quantifying the factors that influence the internal value of their jobs; laying the foundation for job leveling.
- Design job architectures that create clarity in career progression, salary structures, and workforce planning.
- Develop, refine, and implement pay structures that support organizational growth and evolving talent strategies.
- Advise organizations on pay philosophies, market competitiveness, and internal equity strategies.
- Develop innovative compensation models beyond traditional benchmarking to help organizations attract, retain, and engage talent.
- Work across diverse client industries, particularly nonprofits and mission-driven businesses, to build sustainable total rewards programs.
- Walk clients through compensation strategy development and implementation, ensuring educational clarity and alignment with business priorities.
- Provide expertise on pay transparency, compliance, and evolving compensation regulations.
- Collaborate with HR, finance, and leadership teams to connect pay strategy with management behaviors, to ensure alignment with intended objectives.
- Ability to project manage a client engagement including timelines, project scope and defined deliverables.
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What This Job Offers
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
