Standardised Hiring Process
A structured hiring process makes your talent bar repeatable and scalable
Kick off with a clear hiring process document and don't start sourcing until it's in place
Calibrate fast with a sourcing sprint that aligns on quality before volume and continue proactively sourcing candidates
Screen candidates using score-based filters and calls focused on fit and trajectory
Run interviews with scorecards and assign only trained, certified interviewers
Engage candidates throughout the process with tailored communication to build trust and momentum
Deliver offers anchored in the candidate's motivation, not just comp
Validate the decision with structured reference checks that probe for risk and confirm strengths
Close the hiring process with a probation period, including clear goals and structured checkpoints, to confirm the new hire meets the talent bar
Monitor the process by tracking funnel conversion, offer declines, and early attrition - spot breakdowns before they become patterns
Standardising each step of hiring
The end-to-end hiring processOwner
Hiring process document development
What you’re looking for, how to assess it and who’s involved in a “single source of truth” doc
Role Owner
Sourcing
Fill the top of the funnel and calibrate fast with proactive sourcing
Sourcer
Screening
Use score-based filters and structured calls to assess experience, motivation and red-flags
Recruiter
Interviews
3-4 interviews with standardised playbooks and scorecards, run by certified interviewers
RecruiterInterviewer
Selling & Closing the role
Close candidates by understanding motivations and proactively resolving potential blockers
Recruiter
Reference check
Confirm strengths and collect feedback to ensure no blind spots before the hire is final
RecruiterInterviewer
Probation period
Validate hire by assessing in-role performance through structured goals and checkpoints
RecruiterRole Owner
Role OwnerSourcerRecruiterInterviewer
It’s one thing to know what great talent looks like. It’s another to consistently find, evaluate, and close those people - across teams, time zones, and hiring managers. That’s where process comes in.
Standardising the recruiting process makes hiring for new roles seamless. It enables fast, high-confidence decisions and makes quality repeatable, especially as the volume of open positions increases when your company scales. No matter the role, the hiring process should follow the same key steps with clear owners to ensure consistency and to keep a high talent bar.
1. Kick off with a hiring process document
The hiring process document is the single source of truth for recruiters and hiring managers
Purpose of the role
Role description and key outcomes
CV requirements
Must-havesNice-to-havesRed flags
Example profiles
Archetypical profiles from LinkedIn that match the CV requirements
Candidate sources
IndustriesCompanies
Interview process
List and sequence of interviews
Practical details
Interview playbooksInterview scorecardsInterviewers list
Before sourcing begins, before any interviews are scheduled, every role should start with a shared, written plan - the hiring process document. This is a templated document that defines the process from sourcing to screening and later interviewing and acts as the main source of truth for recruiters.
The Role Owner is responsible for creating and maintaining the hiring process document, with support from the Recruiter, who ensures it’s complete and shared before sourcing begins.
A hiring process document in detail
Role and Requirements
Work experience or education requirements that can be inferred from a CV or a LinkedIn profile. The purpose is to provide recruiters with parameters for screening candidates. These are broken down into:
- must-have
- nice-to-have
- red flags
A job description that can serve as the content to publish the role on job boards, and help recruiters answer questions about the role. The recommended sections:
- About the team
- About the role (role mission)
- What you’ll be doing (key outcomes and responsibilities)
- What we are looking for (CV requirements)
- Benefits (company and role benefits)
Hiring process
Interview process steps, with links to the playbooks, scorecards and list of eligible interviewers to make this a one-stop shop for recruiters. A typical example would be:
- CV Screening
- Screen Call
- Functional skills assessment
- Bar raiser
2. Building the funnel through sourcing
To create a solid recruiting pipeline focus on three things
Sourcing sprint
Sprint to calibrate requirements and test approach with hiring manager
Optimised outreach
Structure approach to contacting candidates to maximise response rate
Recruiter tools
Effective use of templates and tools such as LinkedIn Recruiter
Sourcing is the highest-leverage part of the hiring funnel and sets the tone for quality. Weak sourcing forces your team to over-interview mediocre candidates and burn time on backfills. At scale, it separates fast-moving companies that raise the bar from those that lower it just to fill roles.
We believe that the ability to identify strong profiles and create a solid recruiting pipeline lies in three things:
- Starting with a sourcing sprint - before launching full outreach, run a 1-week sourcing sprint to calibrate requirements and test hypotheses with the hiring manager, covering:
- 10-15 (real) profiles across 2-3 candidate archetypes
- a live review with the hiring manager to align on where your filters may be too narrow or too loose and any adjustments to CV criteria or target companies
- Optimizing the way you contact candidates - a structured approach to contacting candidates can help maximize the response rate and save time and should include:
- outreach templates with pre-defined fields for personalization with A/B tested versions to find the message that works best
- a 3-touchpoint schedule to follow up with candidates and ensure no one falls through the cracks when the volume of profiles increases
- Using the right tools to super-charge recruiters - LinkedIn Recruiter is a key tool for contacting candidates
A note on remote, high-density talent pools
One of the most effective ways to improve sourcing efficiency is to expand beyond traditional markets. Tapping into remote, high-density talent regions unlocks access to exceptional candidates who are often overlooked in saturated local markets.
This approach increases the likelihood of finding talent that meets (or exceeds) your bar, especially in competitive functions like engineering, data, and operations.
Where to start:
- Identify target regions with strong talent density by function (e.g., Eastern Europe for engineering)
- Run sourcing sprints in new regions to test candidate quality and adjust filters early
This strategy helped companies like Revolut scale top engineering teams across the globe, and at a fraction of the cost of hiring in London or San Francisco.
This isn’t about lowering the bar. It’s about widening the funnel and finding excellent people where others aren’t looking.
3. Screening for the right talent
Use a 30’ screen call with the Recruiter to filter through candidates
Introduction & Context
Introduce the company, provide an overview of the role and the main requirements and objectives
Candidate evaluation
Use a scorecard for an initial evaluation of the candidate’s experience and discuss practical considerations (availability, location, compensation)
Example scorecard for a Product Owner
Pass score
4 points
Wrap-up & Next steps
Address the candidate’s questions and be clear on next steps; if you want to progress outline the process, otherwise be transparent on why the role is not the right fit
The screening call is your first real opportunity to assess whether a candidate is likely to succeed in the role and not just whether they’re interested. The recruiter should be evaluating if the candidate's experience matches your hiring scorecard and if their career trajectory aligns with your expectations. A “maybe” at the screen call stage is usually a no. You’re better off screening out and preserving interview quality than hoping something will click later.
Role Fit
- Does their experience align with the requirements in the scorecard? Have they had exposure to similar challenges or complexity?
Trajectory
- Do they show signs of upward momentum, increasing scope, or adaptability? Are they growing fast enough for your environment?
Motivation
- Are they running toward this role or just away from their last one? What excites them about this specific opportunity?
Red Flags
- Vague responses, blame-shifting, low curiosity, low ownership, or clear values misalignment
- Does their experience align with the requirements in the scorecard? Have they had exposure to similar challenges or complexity?
- Do they show signs of upward momentum, increasing scope, or adaptability? Are they growing fast enough for your environment?
- Are they running toward this role or just away from their last one? What excites them about this specific opportunity?
- Vague responses, blame-shifting, low curiosity, low ownership, or clear values misalignment
4. Standardising interviews
Early on, founders interview all candidates so the talent bar can be kept consistently high. As the company grows, founders need to rely on managers for hiring. This opens up a problem with misalignment of incentives: managers have KPIs (e.g. launching a product), so they are incentivised to hire average talent fast to get the job done instead of keeping a high bar.
Developing and enforcing a standard interview format early on will help you tackle this challenge and ensure consistency in your new hires. To do this, for each interview type, you should develop:
- an interview playbook - directs interviewers on how to assess candidates with a step-by-step guide that ensures consistency across interviews
- interview scorecard - defines requirements as a set of true/false statements on observable behaviours to remove subjectivity from candidate evaluation and align with the skill scorecard of the skill tested in the interview; the skills tested should match one-to-one with the skills defined in your talent framework
Interviewer certification program
Interviewers are the gatekeepers of your talent bar. To protect quality and consistency, no one should run interviews without certification. At a minimum, this means:
- Selecting qualified interviewers: Only high performers should assess candidates - set clear minimums (e.g., top performance rating in a certain skill, only interview for equal/lower seniority roles)
- Providing structured training: Functional leaders should develop skill-specific training for interviewers
- Requiring shadowing: Interviewer candidates should shadow 2–3 interviews of experienced interviewers, then discuss feedback in debriefs
- Assessing through reverse shadows: Before certification, have interviewer candidates run mock interviews with feedback from experienced interviewers
Track who’s certified for each interview type and maintain separate registries for functional and generalist interviews (e.g. bar-raiser, problem-solving). If an interviewer’s pass rate consistently exceeds 60%, re-assess them - either they’re misapplying the bar or the interview needs to be revised.
As interview volumes grow, an Interviewer Quality Score (IQC) can be introduced. This metric measures the average deviation of interview results from the first performance score of the new hires that an interviewer has assessed. Interviewers can be ranked based on the IQC, and the score can be used to decide whether they should also be utilised as a trainer for new interviewers or have to redo training and certification.
5. Engaging candidates
Keep candidates engaged throughout the recruitment process
Pitch call
Timing
after CV screening
Objective
Understand the candidate’s motivation and emphasise the value proposition of the company and the role
Pre-closing call
Timing
after successful first interviews
Objective
Overcome objections and start building excitement to facilitate closing in case of successful process
Too many hiring processes treat closing as the final step. In reality, closing starts from the first message and continues at every interaction. In competitive markets, great candidates have options. Offers aren’t just about compensation but about trust, clarity, and conviction. This step is about engaging candidates intentionally throughout the process and delivering a high-impact close when the time comes.
To minimise the number of candidates that drop off during the process, recruiters should build seamless communication with the candidate to understand their motivations outside of compensation and prepare for closing in case of a successful process. We recommend two key touchpoints during the process:
- Pitch call - understanding the candidate’s experience and motivation is key to effectively selling the role to them
- Pre-closing call - overcome objections before they happen and start building excitement for the candidate
By the time you extend an offer, it should feel like a natural, exciting conclusion, not a surprise. The candidate should already know you want them, understand the role deeply, and feel like this is their next chapter.
Managing common objections
“I’m not sure about comp”
- Anchor on total comp and long-term upside and be clear on how equity works
“I have other offers”
- Lean into motivation - why does this role align better? Why this team, timing, trajectory?
“I’m not sure about culture fit”
- Point them to references such as former employees, future teammates, and even past candidates who didn’t join
“I need more time”
- Acknowledge it, but hold a firm but reasonable timeline to keep momentum
- Anchor on total comp and long-term upside and be clear on how equity works
- Lean into motivation - why does this role align better? Why this team, timing, trajectory?
- Point them to references such as former employees, future teammates, and even past candidates who didn’t join
- Acknowledge it, but hold a firm but reasonable timeline to keep momentum
6. Reference checks as the final guardrails
Use reference checks to verify info and collect feedback
Request referees
Recruiter sends a job offer conditional on references and requests contact details
Choose referees to contact
Prioritise referees with most recent and longest exposure to candidate
Schedule calls
Recruiter gets in touch with referees to set up calls
Collect feedback
Certified interviewer who conducted the interview calls referees and goes through a standard scorecard to evaluate candidate
Proceed based on outcome
Offer stands if reference check outcome is satisfactory
By the time you’re ready to extend an offer, you’ve spent hours interviewing the candidate. You’ve seen their performance in structured interviews, heard their narrative in the screen call, and gotten excited about what they could bring to the team. But what you haven’t seen is how they show up every day: under pressure, on bad days, when they disagree, or when no one’s watching.
Checking a candidate’s references isn’t only about verifying the information they provided, but a helpful tool to collect 360-degree feedback from their former colleagues. It is a critical step in the recruiting process and can often lead to the offer being rescinded.
The reference check should be conducted by the same interviewer who ran the bar-raiser interview. This ensures continuity, allows direct comparison with the candidate’s own narrative, and brings sharper judgment to any inconsistencies.
Example reference call questions
To ensure a high-quality signal, reference calls should follow a structured set of questions that mirror the bar-raiser topics:
- How would you rate the candidate’s performance (0–10) and why?
- What was their biggest achievement in the role?
- What were their main development areas? How did they respond to feedback?
- Would you rehire them? Why or why not?
For each question, dig 2-3 layers deeper. Don’t settle for general praise and ask for specific examples, challenges they faced, and how they handled them.
7. Probation period - the last step in hiring
The hiring process doesn't end with the offer acceptance - it ends after probation.
Probation is the period where you confirm if the person can deliver at the expected level, within your company's environment. It's your last step to identifying A-players and to act quickly if there is a mismatch.
A structured probation period should include:
- Goal setting: clear, measurable targets, set within 2 weeks of joining
- Checkpoint reviews: a mid-probation and a final review, to assess performance against targets and give the opportunity to course-correct
- Committee decision: the final decision is taken by a designated committee based on performance and the hiring manager's recommendation
Monitoring the process
Monitor 3 KPIs to ensure your recruitment process stays on track
Volume
% achievement of quotas
ensures staffing needs are met
Quality
% of new hires fired/quitting within the first 6 months
assesses effectiveness of process
Offer dropout
% of offers declined
warns of potential issues in the process
Designing a great hiring process is only half the battle. The real challenge is making sure it’s followed and that it continues to deliver the outcomes you care about: speed, quality, and consistency.
As your hiring volume grows, even small breakdowns (e.g. missed feedback, vague scorecards, drift in sourcing quality) compound quickly. To prevent that, you need to monitor the system just like you would any critical business function.
To do that, continuously monitor three core KPIs at the company level:
- Volume: % achievement of quotas - ensures that the team meets staffing needs and indicates when additional recruiters are required
- Quality: % of new hires that are fired/quit within the first 6 months - assesses whether you’re hiring the right people
- Offer dropout: % of offers declined - indicates potential issues in the process such as candidate experience, competitiveness of offer, time to complete the process, employer brand etc.
To gain insights into the specific hiring process for each open role, you should also look at the conversion rates by candidate archetype at each step. These metrics will give you direction on whether you should shift your approach to optimise the recruitment strategy.