JELLYVISION NEEDS A SOURCING RECRUITER (WITH EXPERIENCE IN TECH AND/OR SALES)

Founded by the creator of the YOU DON'T KNOW JACK® game series, The Jellyvision Lab, Inc. creates virtual teachers, advisors, and salespeople who make online learning and decision making delightful.  In all that we do, our goal is to make complex topics simple and boring material interesting, using a combination of great design, unexpectedly funny content, and serious technology.  

 Of all the virtual people Jellyvision has created, the tallest and least afraid of bears is ALEX (www.meetalex.com). ALEX helps companies talk their employees through the tricky choices they’ll have to make, like picking a health insurance plan, deciding how much to put in the 401(k), or whether they might want extra life insurance. Our customers love ALEX because he helps their employees figure out what’s best for their personal situations, which, in turn, saves our customers a boat-load of time and money. As we sell more and more of ALEX, we need more and more non-virtual (i.e., real life) people to keep the virtual ones amazing. That’s where you come in.

THAT’S LOVELY… BUT WHAT’S THE JOB?
We’re looking to add a top notch Recruiter to our talent team, which currently consists of two recruiters and three operations folks, reporting in to the SVP of People. We’re looking for someone with experience sourcing, engaging and closing the deal with amazing candidates – a relationship builder who uses multiple channels to identify, contact, and woo top talent.  Jellyvision’s pretty lucky with inbound applications for the majority of our hiring, but there are two big exceptions:  tech and sales. To create the pipeline of tech and sales candidates we need, we’ve partnered with outside recruiting firms and developed some great relationships – but it’s time that we add sourcing capabilities in house.  Our ideal candidate will have specific sourcing experience in both tech and sales – but we’d also be happy to find someone with experience in only one but with brilliant ideas for how to dive into the other.

As our new Sourcing Recruiter, you will run some of the searches that  you’re sourcing for – working closely with hiring managers to define the role, source the candidates, and help candidates progress through the hiring process (which includes a manager interview, an audition, final round interviews with interdepartmental teams, reference checking, offer paperwork and kicking off the onboarding process).  For other searches, you’ll hand sourced candidates off to another recruiter – or coach and support other recruiters on their own sourcing efforts.  We’re looking for someone who is whip-smart, well-networked, an amazing judge of character, super organized, diplomatic, quick-witted, and great with people.  More specifically, the gig entails…

• Maintaining and elevating the Jellyvision recruiting brand.  Recruiting at Jellyvision is a high-touch, in depth process – we know we ask a lot of talented, sought after candidates so we want to treat them with the utmost respect and make the process as fun as it can be.  As we add sourcing capabilities to our team, we want to do so with the same level of caring and respect for candidates, and the same spirit of fun, warm, human interaction that we strive for in our recruiting practices every day.
• Working with hiring managers to understand our hiring needs. The better you understand the need, the better you can identify candidates who will be a good fit, so you’ll need to be good at asking the right questions of hiring managers to figure out the skills and characteristics we’re looking for in candidates, and where and why we’re struggling in recruiting those folks.
• Sourcing. Identify where future Jellyvision employees are hanging out and figure out how to introduce them to Jellyvision.  We’ll look to you to help manage the tactics and relationships we have in place to reach candidates, and help us identify new tactics and relationships that we should be pursuing.  So you’ll work with the whole team on our on-campus and bootcamp recruiting efforts, the marketing team on how we market roles and Jellyvision as a place to work, and departments throughout the company on events we should attend and host to attract amazing, diverse candidates.
• Interviewing.  You won’t just be sourcing candidates, you’ll also be the first step in evaluating them - so need to be really great at asking meaningful interview questions, listening closely to the answers, and following up until you’ve learned what you need to know to advise hiring managers on whether someone should move forward in the recruiting process.

WHAT KIND OF PERSON ARE WE LOOKING FOR?  To be a great fit for this role, we’re looking for someone who is:

• A true people person.  And we don’t just mean someone who can talk to anyone - being a great listener is actually more important in this role.  You need to love learning by Q&A – asking the right questions and then listening carefully to the responses in order to understand what a hiring manager needs, how to work best with a potential recruiting partner, or what a candidate is all about.

• There isn’t a playbook for this position.  You will be the first recruiter on our team devoted to sourcing talent (outside of our campus recruiting efforts).  You’ll have the support of the team and our hiring managers, but you need to be very self-motivated, self-managed and creative in your sourcing as you’ll be bringing a new skill set onto our team.

• Creative and flexible in your approach to recruiting.  Jellyvision’s approach to recruiting is different than many companies - and it’s served us well.  We don’t manage strictly to standard recruiting metrics like time to fill – because somethings the best thing a recruiter can do is counsel a hiring manager not to make the wrong hire – so we need someone with a flexible approach who focuses on not just hiring, but on always making the right hire.

• An amazing communicator.  In person, on the phone, and in writing.  You will be responsible for communicating both internally and externally with so many different folks in so many different roles that your communication skills really need to be excellent, and on brand for Jellyvision (which we think about as warm, kind, with a touch of charm).  No recruiting speak, please.  (What does “works cross-functionally with internal teams to execute against objectives as assigned” actually tell anyone about a job?) Jellyvision has a specific, honest, jargon-free voice that you’ll be responsible for getting out in the marketplace for talent – and you’ll need great communication skills to do it right.

• A master of project and time management.  There are a lot of moving parts in recruiting, so we need a “git-r-done” person who won’t be overwhelmed by the volume of candidates and activity that needs to be managed on a daily basis.  There will be lots of people and projects vying for your attention, so if you aren’t an efficiency-minded person with a well-developed system for managing your time and candidate contacts you may not enjoy the position.

• With charm galore.  We’re not talking sickly sweet or smarmy charm…we’re talking sincere, honest-to-goodness, we appreciate that you’re spending time with us charm.  Recruiting is an extension of our brand.  We think charm is part of that.  And diplomacy.  And wit, to be used liberally, when appropriate.

• Last but not least, a sense of humor is a must.  It just makes you more fun to work with.

 
WHAT KINDS OF EXPERIENCE SHOULD YOU HAVE?
Ordinarily on the talent team, we look for DNA more than a specific background; but in this case, we’re looking for someone to bring expertise to the team that we don’t already have in house.  As a result, we really need someone with experience doing what we need to learn to do.  Specifically we’re looking for someone with:

• Experience sourcing candidates in the tech and/or sales space.  Both are tough spaces to work in, with unique challenges.  If you’ve only got experience in one, we’d love to hear your thoughts on how you’d quickly get up to speed working in the other. 
• Experience with and ideas for diversity recruiting.  As we move to a more active model of sourcing candidates, it opens up myriad opportunities to source more diverse talent.  We’re looking for someone familiar with strategies and tactics to find the best talent by increasing diversity in the talent pipeline.
• Insight into how small companies recruit. We’re still a fairly small company, so we try to be flexible and scrappy in the way we do things.  We don’t have a ton of structure, which could be either freeing or frustrating to folks who are used to a big company or agency atmosphere.  The ideal candidate is someone who has either internally recruited for a small company before, partnered with small companies from the agency side, or has been involved in recruiting in a big company and genuinely wants the opportunity to be a part of a more personalized, less bureaucratic, process.  And also someone who knows that small companies strive to be effective without simply throwing money at problems.  You’ve heard of guerilla marketing?  We’re looking for guerilla recruiting.

 
ANYTHING ELSE?  Yes. We share a commitment to excellence and a desire to work in a comfortable, friendly atmosphere, so we only hire nice, bright, funny people who are willing to work hard.  Our credo is a simple one: be helpful. And we think we can be most helpful if our workforce is as diverse in thought, perspective, and culture as the people who use our products. We are looking to add amazing folks to our team who will bring diversity across many lines, including race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender identity, sex, and country of origin.

ARE THERE ANY PERKS? Yes, we love perks.

• Competitive pay, 401(k) with matching, stock options and benefits. We pay 100% of the cost of premiums for medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance for our employees (as long as you qualify for our tobacco-free discount; if you’re a tobacco user, your medical premiums will be higher than $0). We also cover a really nice chunk of the cost of premiums for spouse/dependent medical, dental and vision insurance.
• Casual dress and a flexible schedule. Come in a sweatshirt, jeans, whatever, like everyone else here.
• Creative work environment. We are lucky to work in a place that is full of intelligent, talented and innovative folks. Although most hours the place is deathly quiet (we're a focused bunch), this is punctuated with hilarious outbursts and general merriment, which makes a nice way to spend the day.
• Free food. Every week, we stock our kitchen with free healthy snack foods, and we have a catered lunch every other week to give people a reason to hang out and eat together.
• Easy transportation and lots of love for folks who bike to work. We’re really close to the North/Clybourn red line stop and the Halsted (#8) bus (right by the Apple Store and Mega Whole Foods too), and we have a transit FSA that allows you to dedicate pre-tax dollars to public transportation expenses. A number of our employees like to bike to work, so we also have bike storage, showers and lockers in the office. And for those without their own bike in the city, we offer free divvy memberships – complete with Jellyvision bike helmets you can borrow from the office.
• Did we mention our yoga and meditation classes? We bring a pro instructor right to the office. Fully subsidized by Jellyvision and fully optional, btw.
• Oh! And we have a massage chair. Not just any massage chair, my friend. It’s the HumanTouch HT 5320 WholeBody™ Massage Chair. Feeling a little stiff? Sit down. Relax. Feel better? Good. Okay, back to work.

AND HOW DO I APPLY?

We look forward to hearing about you and what you do. Make sure your application includes:

• A cover letter that highlights three reasons you think you’d be great for the gig, focusing on how your past experience has prepared you for this kind of position. Writing is key to all we do, and we weigh cover letters heavily.  We love a cover letter that really shows us your personality (check out our company bios to see the wide range of personalities we’ve already got in house), but don’t stress if you’re not a comedian. You don’t have to be funny. Just be yourself. We’re mostly interested in learning who you are, what you love to do, and why you’d love to do it here with us.
• Your resume

You will receive an auto-reply confirming that we've received your application.

If you decide to apply, please know that every complete application will be carefully reviewed. Seriously! We know it is a time commitment to prepare an application. And we respect that effort by thoughtfully reviewing every complete application and responding one way or the other. But that kind of thoughtful review means that it sometimes takes us awhile to get back to applicants, so please NO PHONE CALLS. The time we spend responding to phone calls and emails inquiring about where we are in the process is time that we could be spending actually moving the process along, so please be patient with us.

Thanks for your interest in Jellyvision!