Hiring and recruitment support
Hiring is the most expensive decision a small company makes and the least prepared for. We support the whole process: deciding whether to hire at all, writing the seat and its scorecard, building a structured interview, helping you assess candidates and planning the first ninety days. We are not a licensed recruitment agency and we do not charge placement fees. Employment law questions go to your employment lawyer.
What you leave with
A written hiring process you can repeat, a scorecard for the seat, and a new hire who is productive in ninety days.
Who it is for
- Owners who have hired on gut feel and regretted it
- Companies making their first manager level hire
- Investors rebuilding a management team after an acquisition
What we deliver
- A seat scorecard: outcomes, responsibilities and the number the role owns
- A job post and sourcing plan for the channels that reach your candidates
- A structured interview guide with scoring and a work sample
- Reference and offer process support, with legal terms from your lawyer
- A ninety day onboarding plan with checkpoints
How it runs
01Define
We confirm the seat exists on the accountability chart, write the scorecard and set the budget. Most hiring mistakes are decided here.
02Source
Job post, channels and outreach. We help you screen responses against the scorecard.
03Assess
Structured interviews, a work sample and reference calls, with us in the room when you want a second view.
04Onboard
A ninety day plan with weekly checkpoints, so the hire is judged on outcomes rather than impressions.
Engagement and fees
Per hire support fits the lower end of the Advisory Retainer band, $8K to $25K per month, for the months a search is open. Whole teams are usually built with org design in a Workshop engagement. No placement fees, never hourly. Every engagement is scoped after a call and confirmed in writing. See consultations and fees.
Why we do not operate as a recruitment agency
Recruitment agencies are typically paid a placement fee tied to salary. That model rewards filling the seat quickly. We are paid for the quality of your process and the outcome in ninety days, so we are free to tell you not to hire, to promote instead, or to automate the work. When a search needs an agency, we help you brief and manage one.
Our team supports hiring. Licensing, employment contracts and anything to do with employment standards go to your employment lawyer.
The scorecard is the hire
A job description lists duties. A scorecard says what the person must have achieved in twelve months and what number they own. Writing it forces the decision about what the seat is really for. It becomes the interview guide, the onboarding plan and the first review. Candidates who read it either lean in or self select out, which saves everyone time.
We also write the work sample, a short task that shows how the candidate actually thinks, because interviews reward people who interview well.
What to prepare and common mistakes
The accountability chart or at least a list of who does what today, the budget for the seat including benefits, and the names of the people the hire will work with most. We interview those people before writing the scorecard.
Common mistakes: hiring a copy of yourself, skipping references because the interview went well, and leaving the new hire alone for the first month. The ninety day plan exists to prevent the third one, which undoes the first two. Weekly checkpoints are cheap insurance.
Industries where we run this most
Questions about this service
Are you a recruitment agency?
No. We are not a licensed recruitment agency and we charge no placement fees. We design the seat, the process and the onboarding and we support you through interviews. If a search needs an agency, we help you brief one.
Can you handle the employment contract?
No. Contracts, termination clauses, probation terms and anything under employment standards are drafted or reviewed by your employment lawyer. We tell you what the scorecard needs the contract to reflect.
Do you help with manager and executive hires?
Yes, and these are where the structured process matters most. For executive seats, a fractional or interim executive from our team is often the better first step while you define the permanent seat.
What if the hire does not work out?
Checkpoints at thirty, sixty and ninety days surface problems early. If a hire is not working, we help you decide with evidence and, with your lawyer, handle it properly. Then we fix whatever in the process let it happen.
Tell us which seat is empty.
A 30-minute call with Ali about the business and the people running it. You leave knowing which role to fill first and whether fractional, outsourced or a hire is the right answer, whether or not we work together.