Head of ARC (Activation, Research & Community)

Recruiting is an interesting space to be in these days. Ripe for automation and AI application, but at the same time, it's more important than ever to have a very human-centered approach to the work. There are more sourcing platforms available than ever, but referrals are a top hiring source. At Clay, we're responding to this moment by building out a new team we're calling ARC - Activation, Research and Community.

As the Head of ARC, you'll build and lead the team who will figure out who the world's best people are before we have an open role, turn that intelligence into precision sourcing, and extend Clay's talent reach into a thriving external customer community.

The mandate behind the mandate, though, is to redefine what a modern talent function looks like when it's built on the same product and principles we sell to the world.

You'll need to know when to build the system and when to work the room, when to automate a signal and when finding signal just means picking up the phone and catching up. The systems you build will matter just as much as the personal touches you insist on (meeting the candidate at the airport, surprise picking up their tab at dinner, remembering their coffee order years after your first meeting).

What You'll Do

Map the Constellation: Activation & Talent Intelligence

• Build and own Clay's talent intelligence infrastructure: market mapping, exec-level relationship programming, and always-on signal monitoring across our highest-priority talent segments
• Design the touchpoints, rituals, and outreach sequences that keep Clay's talent radar warm. When a role opens, we already know exactly who we'd want in it
• Develop proactive, exec search-style engagement strategies at scale.
• Own the system of record for Clay's talent constellation - who they are, where they are, and what would make them move (or at least pick up the phone!)

Bring Intelligence to Every Search: Research & Sourcing

• Translate talent intelligence into activation: take what we know about the market and turn it into a sourcing motion that's faster and more precise than any other sourcing motion out there.
• Build Clay-native sourcing workflows using our own product - enrichment, signal tracking, network activation, personalized outreach, and make Clay for Recruiting a lived practice.
• Own and evolve our Referral Jam program, turning warm networks into a structured, repeatable, and genuinely fun sourcing channel.
• Build a team of sourcers/researchers to support our scaling.

Build the Network - Community & Talent Matching

• Design and run an external talent community that serves both Clay's pipeline and our customers' hiring (especially for the GTME space)
• Build the matchmaking layer: how we connect the right people to the right opportunities inside and outside of Clay, at the right time
• Partner with GTM and customer-facing teams to make the talent community a product-quality experience
• Define what community means in a recruiting context and bring it to life: events, programming, communication, and the connective tissue that holds it together

What You'll Bring

Experience & Expertise

• 10+ years in talent acquisition, executive search, venture capital, or a senior recruiting function with meaningful ownership of sourcing strategy (hopefully you have a combination of these experiences!)
• Demonstrated experience building proactive talent programs - market mapping, exec relationship management, talent networks
• Fluency with modern sourcing tooling and data enrichment; hands-on experience with Clay or similar platforms is a plus!
• Experience designing referral programs, talent communities, or network-based sourcing at scale
• Prior experience building a function or team from scratch

Core Competencies

• Systems thinker who can hold the strategic vision and the operational detail at the same time
• Genuinely curious about the intersection of product, data, and the craft of finding exceptional people
• Wonderful, empathetic, and inspiring people leader
• Exceptional relationship builder: as comfortable with a quiet one-on-one with a passive exec as you are running large events and speaking on panels
• Comfortable with ambiguity. What we're building really doesn't exist yet!
• Bias toward experimentation: you'd rather run a test and learn than wait for certainty