Startups & founders

Your first ten hires.
No recruiter needed.

Type the role in one sentence. Your AI recruiting team finds and ranks people, reaches them and books interviews, runs the first round, and hands you a shortlist with reports.

Startups & founders
Brief confirmedFounding engineer · remote
Shortlist readyEach match explained

Trusted by hiring teams at

WalmartBMWBooking.comRazorpayDocuSignPaytmRandstad DigitalKPI PartnersCodeRabbitDeccan AISpace MatrixPhilogenUnifi CapitalenParadigmphamaxMastercomAnthriqSolinasPopular Motor CorporationPopular Motor VenturesStelloSurf

You are building the product, selling it and now hiring for it. EmployLabs takes the hiring job that has no owner and does it every day.

Sound familiar?

Hiring has no owner.

No recruiter

The founder is the recruiter, at midnight, between customer calls.

No time

A bad first screen costs an hour you do not have.

No budget for agencies

Percentage fees on every hire do not fit a seed round.

How it works

Three agents. One founder.

Tell them the role. They take it from there.

MeeraAI recruiter
Meet Meera
Find

Meera turns a sentence into a search

Say “founding engineer, payments, remote”. She asks what is missing, shows the market and pay, and ranks people from their public work.

YOU NO LONGER
  • scroll profiles at night
  • guess a fair salary
Meera turns a sentence into a search
ZiaOur career strategist
Meet Zia
Reach

Zia sells your story

She writes to each person about the mission and the role, answers their questions with your job facts, and follows up on the channel they reply to.

EmailWhatsAppSMSCallXReddit
YOU NO LONGER
  • write cold messages
  • chase replies
Zia · Founding engineerZia · every channel
Zia

Hi Dev, we are a small team building payments tooling. Remote founding engineer role. Open to hearing more?

Dev

What stage is the company, and is it fully remote?

Zia

Fully remote, and the salary band is in the brief. It is a seed-stage team of six.

Zia

Booked: interview Friday 19:00

NairaAI interviewer
Meet Naira
Interview

Naira does the first round

A live voice interview at any hour. Engineers work in a code editor, others role-play. Everyone gets the same plan and rubric, and candidates get their own report minutes after finishing.

YOU NO LONGER
  • take first calls
  • judge by gut
Founding engineer · scoping a featureNaira · live
Customers want invoices by email. How would you scope it?
Start with one template and a retry queue, then ask which customers need custom fields.
You have one week. What do you cut?
Custom templates and bulk export. Ship the send path and logging first.
Module score 4.3 / 5
ELYouThe final call
See a sample report
Decide

You meet the few worth meeting

Read the shortlist and each finalist’s report, then spend your time on the conversation that matters.

YOU NO LONGER
  • sit through weak calls
  • compare people from memory
Naira report cardVoice · Naira

Maya ThompsonApplied for Collections SpecialistInterviewed Sep 27, 2026, 38 min

74.0/ 100 overall

AlignedIntegrity 96%English (CEFR) B2
“Clear, calm caller who secured a payment plan without pressure tactics; audit caught 4 of 5 compliance slips. Speaks fluently at a natural call pace.”

Handle a Customer Who Disputes a Past-Due Balance

M2Voice only
Module Score4.1 / 5

Strengths

  • Verified identity before discussing the balance
  • Offered a concrete 3-month plan unprompted

Weaknesses

  • Slight hesitation stating the exact due date
  • Did not repeat the total balance for confirmation

Evidence (transcript quotes)

  • “I understand this is frustrating — let's find a plan that works for you and confirm it today.”
Inside the flow

A recruiting team in a tab.

Find, reach, interview and shortlist, under your control.

Brief

One sentence in

Meera asks the rest in one turn, then ranks matches.

Founding engineer, remote, seed
PythonPostgresEarly-stageRemote
Reach

Every channel

Zia writes on email, WhatsApp, SMS, calls, X and Reddit.

Zia
Interview

First round, any hour

Zia books the slot; Naira interviews from a browser link.

MonTueWedThuFri10:003:0011:302:009:305:004:00
Shortlist

A shortlist you trust

Each report has a score out of 100 and the moments behind it.

74.0
Budget

You set the cap

Spending stops at the cap per role.

Budget600
creditsCap 1,000
Stop

Kill switch

One switch stops everything.

Sourcing
Outreach
Paused You
Before & after

Founder hiring

The usual way
Evenings scrolling profiles
Cold messages nobody answers
First calls with the wrong people
Agency fee after the hire
Hiring stalls when you travel
ELWith EmployLabs
Meera ranks matches with a reason for each person
Zia reaches people and follows up every day
Naira runs the first round on one plan and rubric
No hire fee on credit plans, and a budget cap per role
It keeps running, and the shortlist waits for you
By the numbers

The engineering behind every hire.

Sourcing800M+professional profiles to search
Engagement5M+candidate conversations on every channel
Interviews50K+AI interviews completed
Shortlists10K+shortlists delivered
Time saved200K+recruiter hours saved
Coverage40+industries hired for
FAQ

We have the answers

How it works, what it costs, and what your candidates see.

Can a startup hire without a recruiter using EmployLabs?

Yes. Describe the role in a sentence and Meera finds and ranks candidates. Zia, our career strategist, reaches them on email, WhatsApp, SMS, calls, X and Reddit and books interviews. Naira interviews each one on a live voice call and writes a report. You meet only the finalists, with a budget cap you set.

How long does setup take?

Describe the role in a sentence or upload a JD. Meera asks what is missing and builds a brief you confirm, then you choose how far the role runs on its own.

What does it cost?

Individual is $100 a month with 1,250 credits and 1 seat. Team is $100 per seat a month from 2 seats. Search and scoring cost 0 credits.

How does the first hire work?

Meera ranks people, Zia contacts them, Naira interviews them and you read the reports. Contacted costs 25 credits, a reply 30, an interview 100.

Can I keep control of spend?

Yes. Set a budget cap per role, use a dry run to preview, and stop everything with one switch.

Is there a fee when I hire?

No hire fee on Individual or Team. An outcome-based plan priced against placements is available — talk to us.

What if my role is not engineering?

Meera searches every role and industry, Zia reaches people on the channel they answer, and Naira uses role-plays, case questions, documents or spoken English for non-technical roles.

Let's talk
Still have questions? We're here to help.

Hiring for several roles, or need something specific? We'll walk you through it.

Talk to a specialist (opens in a new tab)

Your next hire is
already out there.

Tell us who you need. We find, contact and interview them, and you meet the best.

The EmployLabs hiring board