2021 KP People Report
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2021 KP People Report
2021 KP People Report

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People Team Structure

Breakdown of People Team 🚻

We often get asked about how to resource a people team. We have broken down the data a number of different ways so you can choose the best fit based on your company’s revenue and growth. Some findings:
Early stage founders and CEOs should invest significant time towards recruiting (sourcing, interviewing all early employees). As your company grows and you add more resources to your People team, you can focus most of your time on building out your executive team / board, and help close candidates in competitive situations.
We typically see companies bringing on a Head of People at the series B/C stages or when the company gets to around 75-125 employees. For companies <75 employees, many companies are hire a HR lead/generalist.
Over the past year, demand for recruiters and sources has increased significantly. Compared to 2020, where we saw layoffs within those functions, we have seen an increase of 20%-30% this year.
On average, we are seeing a ratio of 1 recruiting manager to 7-8 recruiting resources (recruiters/sourcers/coordinators) across all stages. Companies <200 employees often have a recruiting manager that wears multiple hats, and may only have a coordinator and/or sourcer for support.
There are a few companies that have a Head of Remote. We anticipate this to be a more common role over the coming years. Responsibilities include: lead a cross-functional team responsible for helping companies transition to a fully-remote/remote-first environment; coach and educate HRBPs, managers, and organizational leaders as they scale and support remote work; evaluate internal communications / collaboration processes and identify gaps.
Median headcount by funding stage in 2021:

Screen Shot 2021-09-17 at 10.23.51 AM.png
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People Team Structure by Growth


Recruiting

People Team
Grow btwn 5%-25%
Grow btwn 25%-50%
Grow btwn 50%-75%
Plan to double
TBD
1
Recruiters
1
2
5
8
2
2
Sourcers
1
1
1
5
0
3
Coordinators
0
1
1
2
0
4
University Recruiting
1
0
0
0
0
There are no rows in this table
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HR

People Team
Grow btwn 5%-25%
Grow btwn 25%-50%
Grow btwn 50%-75%
Plan to double
TBD
1
People Ops (HR/Recruiting)
1
1
1
2
1
2
HRBP
1
1
1
2
0
3
L&D
1
0
0
1
0
4
Facilities
1
1
1
2
1
There are no rows in this table
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People Team Structure by Revenue


Recruiting

People Team
Pre (2021)
$0-$3M (2021)
$3-$10M (2021)
$10-$25M (2021)
$25-$50M (2021)
$50M+ (2021)
1
Recruiters
1
1
1
3
4
19
2
Sourcers
0
0
1
1
1
11
3
Coordinators
0
0
1
1
1
5
4
University Recruiting
0
0
1
0
0
1
There are no rows in this table
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HR

People Team
Pre (2021)
$0-$3M (2021)
$3-$10M (2021)
$10-$25M (2021)
$25-$50M (2021)
$50M+ (2021)
1
People Ops ( Recruiting and HR)
1
0
1
1
1
4
2
HRBP
0
0
0
1
1
5
3
L&D
0
0
0
0
1
3
4
Facilities
0
0
1
1
1
6
There are no rows in this table
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Dedicated Diversity Recruiting Resource 🌏

It is common for companies that have revenues of $50M+ and employee size of 100+ to have dedicated resources focused on diversity recruiting. While many of our earlier stage companies do not have a dedicated diversity recruiting resource, some have gotten creative by having their recruiters spend a percentage of their time on building a diverse pipeline, and others have set metrics around % of diverse candidates presented per role.
Additional Reading:
Gem’s State of Diversity in Tech Recruiting
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First Recruiting Hire 📭

The most common first hire for the People team is a recruiter who has experience sourcing technical talent. We have seen companies with growth rates of >25% leverage external recruiting agencies / individual recruiting consultants to keep up with their growth in parallel to investing in their internal recruiting capabilities. Over time it is more cost effective to bring the recruiting expertise in-house. Internal recruiters are aligned with the company mission and vision, embody the company culture, are able to articulate the upside in equity, and be a valued partner to hiring managers.



Breakdown of People Team 🚻
People Team Structure by Growth
Recruiting
HR
People Team Structure by Revenue
Recruiting
HR
Dedicated Diversity Recruiting Resource 🌏
First Recruiting Hire 📭
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