Human Resources Specialist

About the Role

We're looking for professionals with deep, hands-on experience in the administrative and operational work that keeps HR and people functions running — the "back office" of a company's human resources department, people-operations team, or HR shared-services center. This spans the full HR administrative lifecycle: getting employees onboarded and set up, enrolling and administering benefits, running payroll through to payment, managing vendor and provider relationships, and keeping records and compliance in order. You'll help us understand the precise steps these workflows take in the real tools you use every day.

Core Workflows (you should actively own one or more)

• Onboarding & Employee Lifecycle: new-hire onboarding, offer/contract processing, I-9/E-Verify, HRIS data setup, employment verification, transfers, and offboarding

• Benefits Administration: benefits enrollment, open enrollment, qualifying life events, leave of absence (FMLA/ADA), and COBRA administration through carrier and broker portals

• Payroll & Time: payroll processing, timekeeping, deductions, garnishments, corrections, and off-cycle payments

• Compensation Operations & Reconciliation: payroll register and GL reconciliation, benefits-invoice reconciliation, and posting against pay cycles

• Vendor & Compliance Operations: benefits broker/carrier management, HRIS vendor configuration, EEOC/ACA/state reporting, unemployment claims, and audits

• HR Records & People Operations: personnel/employee records administration, document and release-of-information handling, and day-to-day HR office operations

Requirements

• 3+ years of daily, hands-on experience in an HR administrative / people-operations back-office role

• Direct experience with the systems this work runs on — HRIS / HCM platforms (Workday, ADP, UKG, Paycom, BambooHR, Rippling, Gusto), payroll systems, benefits-administration portals, and/or ATS / onboarding tools

• Currently working in an HR administrative role

• Based in the United States

Ideal Backgrounds

• HR Administrator / HR Coordinator

• People Operations Specialist / HR Operations Analyst

• Payroll Specialist / Payroll Coordinator

• Benefits Administrator / Benefits Coordinator

• HRIS Analyst / HRIS Administrator

• Onboarding / Employee Lifecycle Specialist

• Leave of Absence (LOA) Specialist

• HR Compliance Specialist

• Total Rewards / Compensation Operations

Note: We are looking for administrative and operational workflow expertise across HR / people operations — not talent-acquisition/recruiting sourcing or strategic HR business-partner (HRBP) roles.

We consider all qualified applicants without regard to legally protected characteristics and provide reasonable accommodations upon request.

Contract and Payment Terms

• You will be engaged as an independent contractor.
• This is a fully remote role that can be completed on your own schedule.
• Projects can be extended, shortened, or concluded early depending on needs and performance.
• Your work at Mercor will not involve access to confidential or proprietary information from any employer, client, or institution.
• Payments are weekly on Stripe or Wise based on services rendered.
• Please note: We are unable to support H1-B or STEM OPT candidates at this time.

About Mercor

Mercor partners with leading AI labs and enterprises to train frontier models using human expertise. You will work on projects that focus on training and enhancing AI systems. You will be paid competitively, collaborate with leading researchers, and help shape the next generation of AI systems in your area of expertise.