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Hiring Is Underwriting

Fit cannot be predicted, only underwritten. Every hire is a priced risk against a written thesis rather than a bet on a person.

8 parts · about 71 minutes end to end · Each part builds on the one before it

  1. 1 Diagram contrasting predicting fit before a hire (a crystal ball, a bet on signals) with evaluating fit after the evidence (a measuring rule). Predict Fit or Evaluate It? Fit can only be confirmed in hindsight. What interviewers call gut instinct is almost always retrospective rationalization dressed up as intuition. Hiring Decisions & Accountability · 32 min · Jun 2025
  2. 2 Antique engraving illustration. A worker stepping confidently onto wooden scaffolding planks that dissolve into thick fog, the path ahead unseen. Hiring on Hope When a team says 'I liked them' and moves forward without evidence, ambiguity isn't neutral. It's deferred risk, one near-miss from real consequences. Hiring Decisions & Accountability · 6 min · Oct 2025
  3. 3 Antique engraving illustration. A pocket compass lying open on a rough-hewn table, its needle pointing steadily while a storm cloud looms through a nearby arched window. Trust Your Gut, But Keep It in Check Gut instinct in hiring is real neuroscience. The same pattern-matching that flags genuine red flags also fires on irrelevant similarities. It needs structure. Hiring Decisions & Accountability · 5 min · Nov 2025
  4. 4 Engraving of an underwriter's desk: magnifying glass over building drawings, balance scale, and ledger, with a building frame rising outside the window. Hiring Is Underwriting Hiring is underwriting, not sales. Price the risk against a written thesis, and the scorecard becomes the instrument that lets you say no with evidence. Hiring Decisions & Accountability · 7 min · Jun 2026
  5. 5 An antique engraving of a surveyor's theodolite on a tripod, sighting a distant marking stake across open ground. You Can't Manage a Hiring Risk You Never Named Hiring risk is only the inverse of a goal you can name. If you cannot say what good looks like fourteen months out, you are only guessing with conviction. Interview Design & Strategy · 7 min · Jul 2026
  6. 6 Antique engraving illustration. A row of graduated iron weights set on one pan of a balance scale, units of measured risk against a counterweight. Risk Units Every hire comes with a backpack full of risk. The goal is not zero risk but measured risk: know what you are taking on and build accordingly. Hiring Decisions & Accountability · 4 min · Dec 2025
  7. 7 Antique engraving illustration. Three distinct weighted satchels of different sizes hanging from a balance scale, three separate kinds of risk being weighed. Good Candidates Don't Fix Hiring Risk Even a strong hire can fail if leadership risk, role design, or dysfunction go unaddressed. Good candidates can't fix problems that exist upstream of recruiting. Hiring Decisions & Accountability · 2 min · Aug 2025
  8. 8 Antique engraving illustration. An X-ray lightboard illuminating a detailed anatomical cross-section of a hand, the hidden structure revealed in full relief, every bone and tendon visible where only skin appeared before. Hidden Before Day 1 You cannot eliminate hiring risk, but you can detect it earlier, cap the downside, and set post-hire tripwires. This maps the playbook for every major risk category. Hiring Decisions & Accountability · 8 min · Jul 2025
Start with part one