Hi Sarah, I work in HR for tech start ups and basically yes the generalist role includes recruitment until the point where growth projections mean that a specialist Talent Acquisition role can be justified.  Then, often the Talent specific role would then be brought in on a fixed term basis to cover a period of intense growth as it’s a role which isn’t always required on a perm basis unless a business going through hyper growth.

In my experience recruitment is really quite a different skillset (often more sales orientated) within HR so yeah it can be a tricky one to bridge.

I think the HR generalist role is such a tricky one as basically you’re expected to be employment lawyer, reward specialist, recruiter, executive coach and (though I really try to steer clear of babysitting) unfortunately childminder sigh…  On the other hand, we accumulate such a varied skillset!  It’s not an easy role and think we should pat ourselves on the back more often :   )