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Hire a People Operations Specialist

Hire a people operations specialist without paying $70K+ a year. Get pre-vetted, AI-fluent people operations specialists starting at $2.5K per month. We handle sourcing, vetting, payroll, and compliance so you can give every new hire a real onboarding, keep engagement programs running, and stop losing employee lifecycle tasks between founders and managers.

People Operations Specialist ยท At a Glance
Starting pricefrom $2.5K/mo
Typical local cost$5.5Kโ€“$7.5K/mo
Overhead reductionup to 70%
Embedded within30 days
Experience level3โ€“7+ years
โœ“ Skills-tested for the role โœ“ AI-fluency assessed โœ“ Remote Readiness Score

Trusted by 100+ companies

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A Better Way to Hire a People Operations Specialist

People ops is usually everyone's second job. A founder runs onboarding from a checklist, a manager owns the engagement survey nobody sends, and offboarding is improvised every time someone leaves. By the time you try to hire locally, you face a slow search and a salary that is hard to justify for work that has been invisible until it breaks. Our model closes that gap with a dedicated people operations specialist who owns the employee lifecycle end to end.

We run structured skills-based testing on lifecycle program design, real-world scenario evaluation like building a 30-60-90 onboarding plan for a new department, and hands-on AI fluency assessment so routine people work gets automated where it should be. When you hire a people operations specialist through us, they are embedded in your HRIS, docs, and workflows within 30 days, with no employment admin on your side.

What does a People Operations Specialist do?

A people operations specialist owns the programs that shape how employees join, grow, and leave your company. That takes recurring lifecycle work off your managers so it actually happens every time.

  • Run onboarding end to end, from preboarding comms and equipment coordination to 30-60-90 check-ins that surface problems early
  • Own engagement and pulse surveys in tools like Culture Amp, turning results into concrete follow-up actions with managers
  • Keep your HRIS, org chart, and people docs accurate as the team changes, so reporting and audits never start from scratch
  • Roll out policies and manager programs, from PTO changes to performance review cycles, with comms people actually read

When is it time to Hire a People Operations Specialist?

You usually feel the need when the team passes the size where informal people processes stop working.

New hires have wildly different first weeks depending on who happened to onboard them

You ran one engagement survey a year ago, shared nothing back, and morale questions now go unanswered

Performance reviews keep slipping each cycle because nobody owns the timeline, templates, or reminders

Your founders still personally handle offboarding, leave requests, and policy questions at 60+ employees

Ready to Hire a People Operations Specialist? Make every hire's first 90 days actually work.

Hire a People Operations Specialist

When we say the best, we mean it

We only work with the top 5% of candidates when companies hire people operations specialist through us. Every candidate is skills-tested on the exact work this role does, assessed for AI fluency on real tasks, and scored with our proprietary Remote Readiness Score โ€” built from 1,000+ successful remote hires โ€” before they reach your team.

Designs processes people follow voluntarily, because they are lighter than the chaos they replace

Closes the loop on surveys and feedback, so employees see action instead of another form

Balances employee experience with business reality rather than defaulting to whichever is louder

Documents everything as they go, so programs survive personnel changes instead of living in one person's head

Tested to get in. Trained to stay ahead.

Testing

Three tests, then a human interview

1
Role skills150+ assessments, built for the exact role they'll do for you
2
Remote readinessOur proprietary Remote Readiness Score โ€” built from 1,000+ successful hires
3
AI fluencyReal tasks with a live LLM โ€” prompting, workflows, judgment
4
Interviewed by a real humanTop scorers meet one of our recruiters before you ever see them
Only the top 5% get in See the tests โ†’
NEVER STOPS
Training

Then they keep getting better

Your hirealways in training
Webinars & podcasts w/ AI leaders Personalized AI paths Hackathons & meetups Claude Academy

How We Find You Amazing Talent in 30 Days

01

You Specify a Role

You share job description, core requirements & key skills we should screen for.

02

We Source Talent

We run skills-based testing and manual screening, then deliver 3-5 candidates.

03

We Confirm Alignment

We confirm each candidate is interested in your role & aligned with your company.

04

You Interview & Select

You interview each candidate and, if needed, run a 1-2 hour test project.

05

We Handle Onboarding

We handle identity verification, NDA, compliant contracts & full payroll setup.

06

Your Hire Starts Working

Talent is embedded into your team and works like any other team member.

How much does it cost to Hire a People Operations Specialist?

Hiring a people operations specialist locally typically costs $5,500 to $7,500 per month once you factor in salary, benefits, and overhead. With our model, you can reduce that cost by up to 70% while still getting a full-time people operations specialist working directly inside your HRIS, survey tools, and internal docs.

Hiring locally
$5.5Kโ€“$7.5K/mo
Salary, benefits, and overhead factored in
Through us
from $2.5K/mo
Employment, contracts, and HR administration handled entirely on our side

We take on employment, contracts, payroll, and HR admin, so you get steady program capacity instead of borrowed hours from managers. When you hire a people operations specialist through us, the work compounds: onboarding gets sharper each cohort and lifecycle processes stop resetting to zero.

Common Questions

How fast can a people operations specialist start?
About 30 days from kickoff to embedded. We match candidates to your stage and stack, you interview the shortlist, and onboarding into your HRIS and docs starts immediately after.
What experience level should I expect?
Typically 3 to 7+ years in people operations or HR generalist roles at startups and scaleups, including owning onboarding, engagement programs, and HRIS administration without a large team behind them.
How are candidates screened?
Structured skills-based testing, real-world scenario evaluation such as designing an onboarding program or a policy rollout plan, and a hands-on AI fluency assessment. A small minority pass all three.
They will see sensitive employee information. How is that protected?
Every specialist signs an NDA and is formally employed by us, not freelancing across clients. They work inside your systems under access permissions you control and can revoke at any time.
Will they overlap with my team's working hours?
Yes. We match on time zone, so your specialist is present for new hire sessions, manager check-ins, and employee questions during your core business hours.
Which tools do they know?
BambooHR, Rippling, HiBob, Gusto, Deel, Culture Amp, and Lattice, plus Notion and Google Workspace for documentation and internal comms.
How is this different from hiring a freelancer or HR consultancy?
Consultants hand you a playbook, freelancers give you fragments of attention. This is one full-time person who runs your programs daily, learns your culture, and stays.

Hire a People Operations Specialist today

Strong people operations is the difference between a team that runs on process and one that runs on memory. Hire a people operations specialist who builds the former, vetted and full time, at a fraction of local cost.

Hire a People Operations Specialist