Founding Account Executive - AI Talent Placement

Founding Account Executive, AI Talent Placement

Pursuit  |  New York City  |  Full-time |  $170,000 base, $275,000–$300,000 OTE

You will be the first commercial hire at Pursuit, and you'll carry a personal number and close deals yourself. "Founding" refers to the commercial function you're building, not the organization (Pursuit is twelve years old).

About Pursuit

Pursuit is a social impact organization building economic mobility in the age of AI. For over a decade we've moved adults from low-income backgrounds, most without college degrees, into high-growth tech careers. Our graduates have generated nearly $1 billion in lifetime wage gains. We also pioneered the Pursuit Bond, an outcomes-based financing model that ties our revenue to the long-term earnings of the people we train.

We train what we call Builders: people who complete seven months of immersive training in applied AI — workflow automation, prompt engineering, data pipelines and labeling, junior technical development — and who deliver business value early.

About the role

Reporting at first directly to the CEO, Pursuit is seeking an entrepreneurial, hands-on Founding Account Executive for our AI Talent Placement team to manage and land placements of Pursuit’s AI Trained builders into full-time roles at a wide range of employer accounts.

Your pipeline of ~200 comes from Pursuit’s long-established employer relationships and network. Introductions and first discovery calls land with you, and you own them from that point: qualifying, structuring, closing, and driving the Builder match through to a signed hire. 

The placement motion is still evolving, so you'll also be expected to learn quickly from the market and rapidly iterate to test and improve the approach over time. 

As a founding director of sales, you'll have the opportunity to help build from scratch our commercial infrastructure for landing AI-native business roles and help us achieve scale over the next 18 months. 

What you'll do

• Own warm executive introductions end to end, from first conversation through a Builder starting work.
• Run consultative discovery to understand a company's business priorities, team gaps, and hiring constraints — including the needs they haven't articulated.
• Translate Pursuit talent capabilities into concrete roles, use cases, and business outcomes tailored to each employer- especially when the opportunity is not immediately obvious.
• Design the commercial structure for each opportunity. Direct hire, multi-hire cohort, paid apprenticeship or more. Judge what will actually close with this buyer and build it.
• Follow up consistently and creatively to keep opportunities moving, navigate objections, and maintain momentum through long or ambiguous sales cycles.
• Maintain disciplined pipeline tracking, outreach activity, next steps, and employer records across internal systems.
• Share patterns and feedback from employer conversations with the team to continuously improve messaging, targeting, and the placement motion.
• Use AI tools to improve prospecting, account research, personalization, follow-up, workflow automation, and relationship management.
• Build and run the funnel. Define stages and qualification criteria, keep next steps dated, and hold a forecast you'd stand behind in a weekly review.
• Use AI as a force multiplier across research, personalization, follow-up, and account management.

About you

• 5+ years closing B2B business — sales, business development, strategic partnerships, staffing and recruiting, or professional services.
• A track record against a number: quota, placement targets, revenue goals, or comparable measurable outcomes.
• Comfortable with an offering that changes shape per account. You've sold something where the answer to "what exactly am I buying" had to be built during the conversation.
• Strong discovery skills with the ability to uncover and shape real business and hiring needs rather than defaulting to a standard pitch.
• You've owned a full cycle or led complex partnership conversations from first contact through close.
• Pipeline discipline as a habit, not a chore. You can explain your conversion rates by stage and know where your deals actually die.
• You can translate capability into business value for very different buyers. Experience selling talent, staffing, recruiting, services, or marketplaces is a plus.
• Experience owning a full sales cycle or leading complex partnership conversations from initial outreach through successful close.
• High tolerance for ambiguity and a bias toward testing rather than waiting for a defined strategy.
• Executive presence across engineering, product, operations, and talent leadership.
• Committed to expanding economic opportunity and to Pursuit's mission.

You might be a great fit if

• You've opened a new territory, launched a new motion, or helped build a market - and personally did the outreach, discovery, and follow-through required to make it work.
• You've closed businesses where the offer had to be invented on the call.
• You can turn a vague employer need into a concrete hiring use case and explain why a specific skill set could create value.
• You'd rather convert 40 warm executive relationships than cold-call 400 strangers.
• You can tell a hiring manager they should create a role that doesn't exist yet, and be right.
• You've opened a new territory or launched a new motion and personally did the work to make it go.
• You're comfortable hearing "not now" and curious enough to find out what the business actually needs.
• You've worked in a startup, high-growth company, or entrepreneurial environment where wearing multiple hats was the norm.

Compensation

$170,000 base salary. On-target earnings of $275,000–$300,000.

Variable compensation is tied to two things: placements closed and how well you run the funnel — pipeline coverage, stage discipline, conversion rates, and forecast accuracy. We'll finalize the plan with you before you start, and we'd rather design it with someone who has lived inside a good one.

Contract engagements are structured separately. The range reflects the role as scoped; exceptional candidates bring different depth, and compensation will reflect that.

Structure and reporting

You'll report to our CEO initially, and ultimately a VP of AI Talent Placement once that hire joins, targeted for December. You'll work alongside our training and program teams daily.

Engagement and location

• Full-time preferred. Hybrid, three days a week at our New York City HQ.

Benefits

• 401(k) match
• Unlimited PTO plus organization-wide summer and winter breaks
• Comprehensive health benefits
• Catered lunches and a stocked office
• Dedicated time to experiment with AI and build AI fluency

Our process

Two-week sprint. We move fast and we'll tell you where you stand at every step.

• Screening conversation with our CEO or Chief of Staff.
• Working session on a real account from our pipeline — how you'd read it, structure it, and drive it to a close.
• Final decision.

Pursuit values diversity

Our team brings a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, and we value the richness that diversity brings to our organization. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, national origin, age, familial or marital status, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender identity or expression, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other classification protected by federal, state, or local law.