How to Hire

Hiring is a discipline with an order to it. Each decision is upstream of the next, and the leader owns all of them: the ones made before a candidate is in the building, and the ones that decide whether they stay.

Articles
9
In order
Responsibility to the exit
End to end
About 3 hours

Read straight through and you have the whole discipline. Read one and you have that stage settled. Each is written to stand alone, and the order is the order the work actually happens in.

  1. 01 Antique engraving illustration. An open canvas expedition pack on a workbench with brass surveying instruments spilling out of it. How to Think About Hiring Responsibility Who owns the outcome, why fit cannot be predicted, and how a risk gets priced instead of hoped away. 25 min · Jul 2026
  2. 02 Antique engraving illustration. A blank sheet of drafting vellum clamped to a board with a drafting pen resting across it. How to Write a Job Description The only written agreement about what the job is, built from outcomes rather than activities. 16 min · Jul 2026
  3. 03 Antique engraving illustration. A brass surveyor's theodolite on a wooden tripod beside a plan chest with one drawer pulled open. How to Design an Interview Process Every decision that matters, made before anyone shakes a hand: lanes, interview types, prep, and the record. 22 min · Jul 2026
  4. 04 Antique engraving illustration. A geologist's core sample split open on a stone bench next to dividers and a hand lens. How to Interview How to ask, how to read what comes back, and how to weigh the resume, the assessment, and the references around the conversation. 44 min · Jul 2026
  5. 05 Antique engraving illustration. Blank folded letters fanned across a desk beside a brass letter balance and its weights. How to Make a Hiring Decision How five independent judgments survive a debrief, and what to confirm before an offer goes out. 18 min · Jul 2026
  6. 06 Antique engraving illustration. An antique brass balance scale on a stone plinth with a plumb bob in one pan and the other pan empty. How to Set Compensation Pay built from the inside out: mission first, then a few measured outcomes, then the market as a check. 18 min · Jul 2026
  7. 07 Engraving of two masons on opposite scaffolds lowering a shared keystone into an unfinished stone arch. How to Onboard a New Hire What the first ninety days have to produce, who owns producing it, and why the plan was written before the offer went out. 15 min · Jul 2026
  8. 08 Antique engraving illustration. A great oak tree with deep visible spreading roots gripping the earth, standing firm and anchored against a strong bending wind. How to Keep the People You Hired Why pay is a floor and never a reason to stay, what the leader controls once the landing is over, and how keeping people turns into succession. 23 min · Jul 2026
  9. 09 Antique engraving illustration. A magnifying glass and steel calipers examining a cracked timber joint on a bench, diagnosing the point of failure. How to Handle a Bad Hire Why a failed hire is an output of the process that made it, how to diagnose one before deciding anything, and how to separate justly when that is the answer. 13 min · Jul 2026