Talent Ops Lead

Overview

Talent Ops at Octopus is a key function that protects candidate love, keeps our hiring machine moving globally, and ensures our systems, data, reporting and processes are useful and impactful.

Talent Ops is the engine room of Talent. When it works well, candidates, recruiters, hiring managers and the business all benefit. We are looking for someone to improve how we work and build a global talent experience that feels fast, smart, human and full of Octopus magic. This role is a 12 month fixed term contract.

Responsibilities

• Champion candidate love by ensuring fast, kind, clear and human responses throughout the hiring process, tracking response times, ghosting, feedback themes, Lever CX, Glassdoor and escalation trends.
• Improve the talent tech stack - evaluate existing tools (Lever, LinkedIn Recruiter, Notion, Slack, Metaview, Glassdoor, job boards) and recommend simplifications or new tools that enhance speed, quality or candidate experience.
• Build and improve reporting across Talent tech stack, especially Lever and Lightdash, to provide the Head of TA and business with actionable insights into candidate love, response times, requisitions, headcount, source quality and other key metrics.
• Continuously understand the user experience of the hiring process, speak to candidates, review feedback, spot trends and identify pain points.
• Improve processes and AI across the workflow, ensuring technology frees recruiters to focus on humans and does not compromise candidate experience.
• Maintain a clean, consistent and trusted Lever system, correct data errors promptly, and develop reporting that demonstrates Lever's effectiveness.
• Support the Talent team by working with recruiters, hiring managers, Talent leaders, Ops, Marketing, Finance and data teams to simplify hiring workflows, improve tools, provide clearer reporting and facilitate better collaboration.

Qualifications

• Deep care for candidates and candidate experience.
• Recruitment ops experience, ideally in a fast moving, high volume or global business.
• Strong understanding of ATS systems, especially Lever or similar talent tooling.
• Reporting and data skills; ability to turn messy information into useful insight and clear action.
• Continuous improvement mindset; identify friction, ask why, and implement better solutions.
• Attention to detail; accurate and thorough execution.
• Curiosity about AI, automation and talent technology, with a focus on human experience first.
• Clear, concise communication style to explain complex workflows.
• Collaborative mindset; work across teams to change energy globally.
• Proactive, driven and willing to act without waiting for perfection.
• Belief that simplicity beats complexity; avoid overly complex solutions.
• Alignment with Octopus values: fast, human, kind and without corporate sludge.

Equal Opportunity Statement

As an equal opportunity employer, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected attribute. We are committed to providing equal opportunities, an inclusive work environment, and fairness for all applicants.