Zen Educate

People & Talent Partner

Posted Yesterday

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Chicago IL USA

Hybrid

40K-45K Annually

Mid level

Edtech

The Role

The People & Talent Partner will advise on people-related matters manage performance cycles enhance employee experience lead engagement initiatives and support talent acquisition in a collaborative environment.

Summary Generated by Built In

Location: Chicago

Job Type: Full-time hybrid working

Salary: $55000 - 65000 + share options

About the role

We are seeking a dynamic and commercially minded People & Talent Partner to join our growing People team. This is a high-impact broad scope role with a strong focus on people partnering culture building and employee experience alongside some talent acquisition responsibilities.

You will act as a trusted advisor to leaders and teams helping shape how we support develop and engage our people as we scale. This role offers significant scope to grow into broader international HR expertise across the US Canada and South Africa as we expand.

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. Schools spend over $9bn a year on temporary educators with over $2bn per year of that spent on fees that take money out of the education system. By leveraging the latest technology we purpose built a platform that helps schools to pay less while educators earn more.

We want students to have access to the best education possible and we go the extra mile to find onboard match and coach incredible educators that deeply care about their students. We wake up every day on a mission to care more. We care more about our schools. And we care more about our educators.

This is your chance to make a difference and join a high growth tech startup on the ground floor. We are a collaborative company and the career growth opportunities are endless if you are someone willing to dive in be entrepreneurial and do whatever is needed to get the job done. We are passionate about learning and development and will invest in both your personal and professional growth.

We have recently raised our Series B funding of $37mil the largest round in European EdTech last year. This is an exciting opportunity to make a difference and be part of a high growth start-up that is expanding rapidly in the UK and US markets!

What the People team achieved last year

We’re a small team that moves fast. In 2025 we successfully:

- Made 195 new hires and of course onboarded them

- Conducted and coordinated 1518 interviews

- Revamped our handbooks policies and processes to ensure 100% company compliance

- Delivered countless training sessions across People Operations and Talent upskilling leaders on how to interview offer reference and manage their people

- Developed our People Drumbeat with a regular cadence of employee engagement surveys and performance reviews across all of our regions

- Managed countless daily moments across onboarding offboarding documentation engagement and general team support

This is the momentum you’ll step into and help drive forward.

Who you’ll be working with

You’ll report directly to Sandy Vo (that’s me!) People Lead at Zen. My background is in agency recruitment across all types of hiring: volume permanent contractors as well as strategic exec level hiring. I now manage the Talent function at Zen as well as all of our HR and People Operations and I can’t wait to coach you in everything I know. We're a small collaborative People team UK & Canada based but globally minded and we’re ready to support you as you grow and own your work.

What you’ll own

People Partnering & Employee Experience

Act as a trusted partner to managers and teams across the business on all people-related matters.
Support and guide managers through performance management cycles including goal setting reviews and performance improvement processes.
Provide coaching and advice on team effectiveness leadership capability and employee development.
Manage and evolve the company’s people drumbeat (e.g. performance review cycles check ins calibration processes).
Lead on employee relations matters ensuring fair consistent and legally compliant outcomes.

Culture Engagement & Internal Communication

Own and drive our employee engagement surveys including design delivery analysis and action planning.
Report engagement findings to leadership and ensure meaningful follow-through on actions.
Lead initiatives to strengthen company culture belonging and connection across teams.
Own and deliver internal social cultural and team engagement initiatives (e.g. events rituals recognition programmes).
Continuously improve the overall employee experience across the lifecycle.

Learning & Development

Build and evolve our Learning & Development offering.
Identify capability gaps and design learning interventions aligned to business needs.
Source design or facilitate training programmes for managers and employees.
Support leadership development and ongoing skills growth across Zen.

Talent Acquisition

Support hiring for key or strategic roles as needed.
Partner with leaders to ensure strong hiring decisions and alignment on talent needs.
Contribute to improving hiring quality onboarding experience and early employee success.

HR Operations & Broader People Work

Handle day-to-day People queries and employee relations cases with professionalism and care.
Ensure HR policies and processes are applied consistently and fairly.
Contribute to improving HR systems processes and documentation.

Why you’ll love this role

You will step into a broad high-ownership role with real influence on culture and people strategy where you’ll help shape the employee experience in a rapidly scaling organisation. You’ll be able to gain exposure to international HR practices and markets while also having significant scope for career growth into senior People leadership roles.

What We're Looking For

If the above reads a bit vague here's a breakdown of what I'm looking for:

Experience in a People Partner HR Business Partner or hybrid HR/Talent role where you've been responsible for a wide range of HR-related tasks including onboardings exit interviews benefits employee complaints flexible working requests etc.
You have experience coordinating and running performance review cycles end-to-end and are now looking to take a more influential role in how managers interpret calibrate and act on performance outcomes.
You’re motivated by improving consistency in how performance is managed across teams and by helping managers build confidence in giving feedback driving development conversations and improving overall employee engagement and growth.
You've been involved in launching and running employee engagement surveys and are now looking to go beyond delivery into real impact turning feedback into meaningful change. You care about what the data is saying and more importantly how it translates into action that improves the employee experience.
You’re excited by growth environments comfortable being a key go-to person for managers and employees and energised by helping build and shape people processes rather than just running them.

The interview process

Initial Screen (30 mins): With me! I’ll be delving deeper into your experience and why you’re interested in this role.

Meet the Team interview (1 hour): Opportunity to meet the People team. We work closely together and cover each other during busy periods. They’ll be asking you how you work - your approach priorities and ways you collaborate. At the same time this is your opportunity to learn more about them ask questions and gain insight into how we operate. Think of it as a two-way conversation where you are interviewing us just as much as we are getting to know you.

Meet the People Managers (1 hour): You’ll meet two of our key people managers where they will interview you for skillset and stakeholder management.

If you feel that there aren't enough stages to give you insight into who we are we’re also happy to organise any additional conversations you think may be beneficial. And if you’re curious about the role but still have questions before you put in an application I’m happy for you to contact me directly here: [email protected]

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The Company

London

675 Employees

Year Founded: 2016

What We Do

At Zen our mission is to change the world of education recruitment. Schools spend over £2bn a year on agency staff with over £600m per year of that spent on fees that go straight to recruitment agencies. So far we've saved UK schools over £14m in supply teaching recruitment costs and that number grows every day allowing schools to invest further into children’s wellbeing and attainment. We're not just redefining recruitment; we’re upskilling our supply staff to provide the highest quality teachers and TAs to schools. Each supply staff member is Level 2 Safeguarding trained guaranteeing the safety and wellbeing of children in your school. Using our online platform schools can access hundreds of fully vetted high-quality teacher & TA profiles who they can book instantly at the click of a button. We don't stop at just providing a platform – we have a dedicated school success team here to support you every step of the way. When you succeed we succeed!