Strategy & Operations Associate - Talent
About The Position
Inspira Education Group is a rapidly growing edtech startup focused on democratizing access to high-quality coaching. As the world's leading network of admissions coaches, they are disrupting application processes with innovative products and services. Backed by prominent venture capital firms, Inspira Education is seeking a Strategy & Operations Associate to build and lead their internal talent acquisition engine. This role is crucial for competing for top talent against larger organizations by operating like a data-driven sales engine. The position requires a builder mentality, analytical skills, exceptional written communication, and resilience. The role blends strategy design with high-leverage execution, focusing on outbound outreach, market intelligence, and conversion optimization. The associate will work directly with founders and leadership to establish talent acquisition as a competitive advantage.
Requirements
- 1-3 years in management consulting (MBB strongly preferred), strategy consulting, or top-tier strategy & operations
- Builder mentality: You're energized by creating something from scratch, even if it means doing unglamorous work initially
- Analytical + scrappy: You think in frameworks and optimize based on data, but you're also willing to hustle and do what it takes
- Exceptional written communication: You can write dozens of compelling, personalized messages daily that actually get responses
- Intellectual honesty: You're clear-eyed about trading some prestige for ownership, impact, and accelerated learning
- Resilience: Low response rates don't discourage you - they make you curious about how to improve
Nice To Haves
- Experience with high-volume outbound work (sales development, growth marketing, bizdev) - you've done the grind before
- Natural curiosity about people, what motivates them, and how to craft compelling narratives
- Competitive drive - you want to win talent away from top companies
- Systems thinking - you document and systematize as you go, building toward scale
- Genuine interest in how great companies are built, organizational design, or talent strategy
- Traditional recruiting background (fresh perspective is valuable)
- Expertise in education/EdTech (we'll teach you)
- Prior LinkedIn Recruiter mastery (we'll train you on Boolean search)
Responsibilities
- Build & Execute the Talent Acquisition Engine
- Run sophisticated Boolean searches in tools such LinkedIn Recruiter to identify high-potential candidates across different functions
- Review hundreds of profiles daily, assess fit against strategic Ideal Candidate Profiles you've built
- Manage multi-touch outreach sequences across dozens of candidates simultaneously
- Conduct quick screening calls with interested candidates to assess fit and maintain pipeline velocity
- Experiment with creative sourcing beyond LinkedIn - targeted email, Twitter/X, Slack communities, Reddit, conference lists
- Design role-specific acquisition strategies: who's the target market, where do they congregate, what motivates them to move?
- Build and continuously refine Ideal Candidate Profiles based on what patterns emerge in your best hires
- Create messaging frameworks optimized for different personas - test hooks, value props, personalization approaches
- Run structured experiments: A/B test subject lines, try different outreach sequences, measure everything
- Optimize & Scale
- Build dashboards tracking the metrics that matter: response rates by message type, conversion through each funnel stage, time-to-engagement, source effectiveness
- Analyze what's working and what's not - which companies yield the best candidates? Which messages get responses? Where are bottlenecks?
- Document winning strategies into repeatable playbooks that can eventually scale beyond you
- Conduct market intelligence: where does top talent congregate? What are competitive comp packages? Who's hiring and who's laying off?
- Present insights and recommendations to leadership on talent market dynamics and acquisition strategy
- Optimize workflows and build automation where it makes sense (but know when personal touch matters more)
- Partner & Collaborate
- Work closely with the founders to understand what they need and ensure seamless candidate handoffs
- Collaborate with hiring managers to truly understand roles beyond the job description
- Train and leverage offshore sourcing support for high-volume, lower-touch searches
- Share learnings across the team and continuously raise the bar on candidate quality
Benefits
- Health, dental, and vision insurance, base plans 100% employer paid
- Pre-tax benefits (FSA, DCFSA, HSA, Commuter)
- Flexible paid time off (PTO) and paid holidays
- 401(k) with company match
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Entry Level
Education Level
No Education Listed
