About GovAI

GovAI was founded to help humanity navigate the transition to a world with advanced AI. One crucial input to achieving this mission is ensuring that we can identify and recruit exceptionally talented staff, visiting researchers and fellows. 

Since publishing our first research agenda in 2018, we have helped define and shape the field of AI governance. Our researchers have published in top venues, including Science and Nature, and work closely with decision-makers across government, industry, and civil society. Our alumni have gone on to influential roles in government (US, UK, EU), leading AI companies (e.g. DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic), top think tanks (e.g. CSET, RAND), and leading universities (e.g. Oxford, Cambridge).

Our team and affiliate community possess expertise across risk management, threat modelling, frontier AI regulation, technical governance, agent governance, AI economics, international cooperation, US-China relations, and AI forecasting.

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Why you might be interested in this role

• You'll be key to the most important outcomes in talent identification for GovAI. Every outstanding researcher, fellow, or staff member who joins GovAI will have been guided through processes you've helped design and run. Your operational excellence directly translates to better outcomes for humanity's AI future.

• You'll solve difficult puzzles and work to navigate challenging tradeoffs. How do you identify the top 30 candidates from 15,000 applications without missing anyone who might be a good fit? How do you design processes that feel personal and engaging even when handling thousands of applications? These aren't just logistics problems—they're strategic challenges that require creativity and rigorous thinking. You’ll directly work to help us solve them.

• You'll see your systems work in real time, and make them better. In this role, you'll get to directly watch candidates move through your hiring pipeline, see your process improvements reduce time-to-hire, and get direct feedback from both applicants and hiring managers on what's working or needing improvement.

• You'll build the foundation for GovAI's most important work. Our talent development programs have launched careers at OpenAI, DeepMind, the White House, and top universities. The systems you build will identify and recruit the next generation of AI governance leaders.

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Role Description 

This position plays a pivotal part in GovAI’s future success — if we fail to identify the top talent for our staff roles, research programs and fellowships, our impact as an organization suffers. Your role is to directly and actively facilitate this talent identification.

You’ll project-manage hiring processes from outreach through the offer stage, making sure that candidates have an excellent experience and that internal stakeholders are timely evaluating candidates. For many roles, you’ll likely directly evaluate candidates as well. You’ll report to the Talent Systems Manager, and work closely with other members on the team.

Responsibilities will include: 

• Project managing hiring rounds:
  
  • You’ll directly project-manage hiring rounds – working with internal stakeholders to define what each round needs, guiding candidates through stages, and keeping internal stakeholders on schedule so the round stays on track.
• Running our hiring systems:
  
  • You’ll run our applicant tracking system day-to-day, including setting and maintaining bases, email automations, candidate tracking, and grading interfaces for assigned rounds.
  • You’ll also design and implement adjustments to our ATS that streamline round needs.
• Recruiting and communicating with candidates:
  
  • You'll run sourcing strategies for your hiring rounds, including outreach to referral sources and referred candidates, and communicate with candidates throughout the hiring process to ensure they have an excellent experience.
• Improving our hiring systems and processes:
  
  • You’ll work with the Talent Systems Manager to continuously improve how GovAI hires, including building and maintaining our templates and materials. You’ll also have the opportunity to take on longer-horizon projects that make our systems more efficient and scalable, and we'd expect to define those around your strengths. 
    

In your first six months, we expect that you might:

• Directly project-manage 1–3 hiring rounds, from outreach through offers.
• Rebuild or substantially extend parts of our applicant tracking system, so that rounds require less manual work.
• Deliver at least one other improvement that carries across rounds — a refined template, a workflow change, or an automation that becomes part of how we run future hiring.

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Selection Criteria

Essential

• Excited by the opportunity to use their careers to positively influence the lasting impact of artificial intelligence, in line with our organization’s mission.
• Demonstrated hands-on proficiency in building and running hiring or database systems — preferably Airtable — including automations and candidate tracking.
• A track record of delivering operational work autonomously with light oversight.
• Strong project and process management across several concurrent workstreams, including keeping internal stakeholders on schedule — our hiring has many moving pieces, and you'll manage several rounds and stages at once.
• Prior experience in a hiring, recruiting, people-operations, or other process-intensive role.
• Clear, professional written communication, and comfort acting as a main point of contact for candidates and stakeholders.

Nice to have

• Familiarity with CRM tools and broader operations tooling.
• Familiarity with the AI safety and governance talent landscape, useful for handling partner-organization recommendation requests.
• Experience improving or standardizing hiring processes, not just running them.

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Salary and Location

This position is full-time. We have offices in London, UK, and Washington, DC, and we strongly prefer team members to be in-office, but are open to individuals who would need to work remotely. We are able to sponsor visas in the UK and the US and can support relocation.

The Hiring Specialist will be compensated in line with our salary principles. The salary for this role will depend on the successful applicant's experience and location, but we expect the range to be between £74,000 and £91,000 if based in London, or between $120,000 and $145,000 if based in Washington, D.C. In rare cases where salary considerations would prevent a candidate from accepting an offer, there may also be some flexibility in compensation.

We also offer competitive benefits, including a 10% pension/401k contribution and private medical cover.

How to Express Your Interest and What to Expect

Submission deadline: rolling

If you would like to be considered for the role, please complete the expression of interest form below. You will be asked to submit a CV or a link to your LinkedIn or a personal website, and to answer a few short written questions.

We are accepting expressions of interest for this role and evaluating candidates on a rolling basis. Priority consideration will be given to early candidates. The next stage is expected to include a paid remote work test, followed by an interview, though the exact steps and order may be adjusted as the process develops. We also conduct reference checks for all candidates we interview.

Please feel free to reach out to recruitment@governance.ai if you need a decision communicated by a particular date, if you need assistance with the application due to a disability, or if you have questions about the process.
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Addressing complex AI governance challenges requires many different skill sets and perspectives. We welcome applicants from a wide range of backgrounds. If our mission excites you, we encourage you to express interest even if your experience doesn't align perfectly with every qualification listed. Your combination of experience and motivation might be exactly what we're looking for.

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