This is a working document. Print it, fill it in, share it with your team. Every template here is designed to be used on a real hire — not filed away and forgotten.
The 30-day timeline is a target, not a hard rule. Senior roles and niche specializations may take longer. The point is to run a process tight enough that delays come from genuine complexity, not from things that just fell through the cracks.
Week 1 · Days 1–7 — Define & Source
Get aligned on what you need. Start finding people before you post.
Week one has two jobs: get your team aligned on what "great" actually looks like, and start building your candidate pool before the job post goes live.
Most companies skip the first part and go straight to posting. The result is a process that stalls in week three when the hiring manager and the engineering lead can't agree on who to move forward — because they never agreed on what they were looking for in the first place.
Write the role brief first. Post second. Source in parallel.
What "sourcing before posting" means in practice
The engineers you want are almost certainly not actively applying right now. They're employed and passively open. You have to go find them on LinkedIn, through your network, or through a sourcing tool — and start conversations before your listing is even live.
Done right, you have a handful of interested candidates by the time the job post goes up. You spend week one building a pipeline, not waiting for one.
Week 1 Checklist
- Write the role brief (use template below) — 1 hour
- Align hiring manager and team lead on non-negotiables
- Identify 3 sourcing channels (LinkedIn, referrals, Nodi pool, etc.)
- Build a list of 30–50 target candidates
- Draft outreach messages — specific to each person's background
- Begin outreach on day 3
- Publish job post by day 5
- Set up your ATS pipeline with stages defined
Template 1 — Role Brief
Fill this out before writing a single word of the job description. Share it with everyone involved in the hire.
Role title
________________________________________________________________________________
Why this role exists right now — what problem does this hire solve in the next 90 days?
________________________________________________________________________________
What success looks like at 6 months — be specific: what will they have shipped, built, or improved?
________________________________________________________________________________
Non-negotiable technical requirements (max 3) — if they don't have these, they're out.
________________________________________________________________________________
Nice-to-haves (max 3) — things that would make them stronger but aren't required.
________________________________________________________________________________
Automatic disqualifiers — what would rule out an otherwise strong candidate?
________________________________________________________________________________
Their first project — what does week one actually look like?
________________________________________________________________________________
Comp range — be honest. Surprises at offer stage kill deals.
________________________________________________________________________________
Remote / in-office / hybrid
________________________________________________________________________________
Target start date
________________________________________________________________________________
Week 2 · Days 8–14 — Evaluate Fast
Screen without losing good people to slow feedback loops.
The goal of week two is to go from a large applicant pool to a shortlist of 5–7 people worth interviewing — without your team spending 20 hours reading resumes.
The key is sequencing: automated screening first, async technical assessment second, human review of a pre-filtered shortlist third. Humans enter the process at step three, not step one.
And respond to everyone within 48 hours. Not because it's nice — but because every day of silence is a day a good candidate is getting warmer at another company.
The Evaluation Sequence
Week 2 Checklist
- Automated screening live and ranking candidates
- 48-hour response sent to every applicant
- Async technical assessment sent to top 20–30
- Assessment deadline set (3–4 days)
- Shortlist of 10–15 reviewed by hiring manager
- Top 5–7 interview invitations sent by day 14
- All other candidates notified with respectful no
Template 2 — Candidate Evaluation Scorecard
Fill this out for every candidate after the async assessment. One scorecard per reviewer. Do not share scores until everyone has submitted.
Overall recommendation
☐ Strong yes ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ Strong no
Summary notes
What stood out, what concerned you: ________________________________________________________________
Week 3 · Days 15–21 — Interview & Decide
Structured conversations. Fast decisions. No endless rounds.
Three rounds. Same structure for every candidate. Scorecards before debrief. Decision by day 21.
The most common mistake at this stage is adding rounds when you're unsure about a candidate. More data doesn't resolve genuine uncertainty — it just delays the decision and gives the candidate time to accept something else.
If you're unsure after three rounds and a full scorecard, the answer is no.
Template 3 — Interview Question Bank
Use the same questions for every candidate in the same round. This makes feedback comparable and decisions defensible.
Round 1 — Structured Screen
Round 3 — Hiring Manager Conversation
Week 3 Checklist
- Round 1 complete for all 5–7 candidates
- Round 1 scorecards submitted before debrief
- Top 3–4 moved to Round 2
- Round 2 complete, scorecards in
- Top 1–2 moved to Round 3
- Round 3 complete
- Final scorecards aggregated
- Decision made by end of day 21
Week 4 · Days 22–30 — Close
Make the offer. Handle the negotiation. Get the signature.
Most offers fail not because of the number, but because of how they're delivered. Call before you send. Frame it as the full picture. Set a deadline. Plan for the counter.
Speed matters here more than anywhere else. Every day between your decision and a signed offer is a day something can go wrong. Move.
The Pre-Offer Call
Before the offer goes out, call your top candidate. Find out if they're still excited, whether a counter-offer from their current employer is likely, and what matters most to them in the decision. Use that to write an offer that speaks to their actual priorities.
The Counter-Offer Conversation
Ask directly: "If your current employer makes a counter when you resign, how would you think about that?" A candidate who's thought this through holds firm. A candidate who's surprised by it wavers.
Template 4 — Offer Checklist
Run through this before you send anything.
Pre-offer
- ☐ Pre-offer call complete
- ☐ Candidate still excited and engaged
- ☐ Comp expectations aligned (no surprises incoming)
- ☐ Counter-offer conversation had
- ☐ Internal approval for offer terms confirmed
- ☐ Offer letter drafted and reviewed
The offer package — confirm each item is clear in the letter
- ☐ Base salary
- ☐ Equity (amount, vesting schedule, cliff)
- ☐ Signing bonus (if applicable)
- ☐ Benefits summary
- ☐ Remote / in-office expectation
- ☐ Start date
- ☐ Response deadline (recommended: 5 business days)
If they come back with a counter
- ☐ Do you have room on base?
- ☐ Can you move on equity?
- ☐ Is there flexibility on signing bonus?
- ☐ Can you adjust start date or remote days?
- ☐ What's your absolute ceiling? Know it before negotiating.
After the verbal yes
- ☐ Signed offer letter received
- ☐ Start date confirmed
- ☐ Background check initiated (if required)
- ☐ Onboarding sequence triggered
- ☐ All other final-round candidates notified
- ☐ 30-min team retro scheduled for after day 30
One Last Thing
The playbook works. But the companies that hire the best don't just run it once — they run the 30-minute retro after every hire and tighten the process each time. What slowed you down? Where did you lose someone you wanted? What would you do differently?
That's how you build a recruiting operation that compounds. The first hire might take 35 days. The fifth one takes 22. By hire ten you're running something most companies would spend a year trying to build.
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