Talent Partner

Overview

Zen Educate is seeking a Talent Partner to join the People team. You will work with senior leaders to scale rapidly, often hiring up to 30 roles at once. This role goes beyond filling roles; it requires urgency, experience in high-volume hiring, and a partner mindset for strategic, business-critical hires. You will manage the full talent lifecycle from early screening and references through to offers, closing cohorts, and everything in between.

About Zen

Zen Educate is a technology company that matches schools with temporary educator staff. Our mission is to change the world of education recruitment. We aim to help schools pay less while educators earn more, and to coach incredible educators who deeply care about their students. We are a high-growth, UK- and US-focused startup with a collaborative culture and strong emphasis on learning and development.

What you’ll own

• Run and own the Talent function at Zen, managing the recruitment lifecycle for UK and South Africa roles from job description to offer stage.
• Lead cohort and high-volume hiring, especially for educator/school-facing and internal roles that grow in waves.
• Partner with hiring managers and senior leadership to ensure fast, focused hiring and adapt to market insights.
• Proactively source, network, and maintain strong candidate pools.
• Communicate with candidates in a responsive, clear, and empathetic manner at every stage.
• Own and manage our Glassdoor presence to reflect the candidate and employee experience.
• Identify gaps, flag inefficiencies, and suggest improvements to hiring processes.

Why you’ll love this role

You’ll make an impact from day one by delivering an outstanding candidate and employee experience in the UK. You’ll help shape the people we hire and contribute to Zen’s culture while growing in a high-trust team that values initiative and ownership. This role supports a mission-driven effort to help schools and educators thrive, within a fast-scaling company.

What Were Looking For

• Experience in fast-moving, high-volume environments with multiple roles; agency recruitment is a plus but not essential.
• Partnership with senior leaders, providing market insights, spotting hiring patterns, challenging assumptions, and influencing decisions.
• Full talent lifecycle ownership: crafting job descriptions, sourcing, interviewing, and offer negotiation.
• Experience using tools like LinkedIn Recruiter to proactively source and build talent pipelines.
• Ability to track recruitment metrics, analyze patterns, and provide actionable insights to improve efficiency and quality.

The interview process

• Initial Screen (30 mins) – with Sandy Vo, People Lead at Zen, to discuss your experience and interest.
• Meet the Team interview (1 hour) – meet the People team and discuss collaboration style, priorities, and ways of working.
• Meet the Hiring Managers (1 hour) – two hiring managers assess skillset and stakeholder management.

If you have questions before applying, you can contact me directly here: emailprotected

Location: London

Job Type: Full-time on site

Salary: 35,000 – 45,000; share options available