Guide
Glossary — Talent Acquisition Lingo
The core vocabulary of hiring, in plain English. From ATS to TC.
Hiring OS
Founder-Led Hiring OS
Everything you need to plan, source, assess and hire exceptional people.
View all resources 51 live · 12 modules
00
Introduction
Orientation, principles and how to run the Hiring OS alongside the masterclass.
Guide
Basic Tech Stack / Tools You’ll Need
The essential sourcing, outreach, CRM and meeting tools to run your early-stage hiring stack.
Guide
Goals for Founder-Led Recruitment
The non-negotiables that set the DNA of your company: own your first hires, drive referrals, and do things that don’t scale.
Guide
Brainstorm: Early Stage Startup Archetype
Founders and recruiters on what a perfect early-stage hire looks like — agency, ownership, grit and mission over pedigree.
Guide
Brief History of Tech Hiring Cycles
How the tech talent shortage, hiring booms and layoff cycles shape the market founders recruit in today.
Worksheet
Founder Hiring Confidence — Baseline Assessment
Rate your confidence across seven founder-led hiring capabilities and get a baseline score out of 35.
01
Your Talent Brand
Define why exceptional people should choose you over anyone else.
Worksheet
4-Pillar Talent Brand Audit
Rate your company across Founders & Team, Product & Challenge, Mission & Story and Rewards & Opportunity.
Template
Culture Doc Template
A living document defining how you work, the behaviours you reward, and the behaviours you won't tolerate.
Worksheet
Homework Task 1 — Brand Audit
Map your talent competitors, benchmark your proposition and review your strengths and weaknesses.
Worksheet
Homework Task 2 — Starting Your Pitch
Write your founder story, craft a 4-pillar pitch and review your candidate-facing marketing material.
Guide
Elite Sports Example — Branding in Talent Acquisition
How tech hiring is shifting toward an elite sports recruitment model — and what founders can learn from sports storytelling.
02
Identifying Hiring Needs
Role design, your first hires and planning your search.
Worksheet
Ideal Candidate Profile
Define exactly who you're trying to hire before beginning your search.
Guide
Archetype: Early Stage SWE Profile
The four attributes that define a great early-stage engineer — product-minded, bias to build, generalist and entrepreneurial.
Guide
Hiring a CTO
When a technical founder is enough, when you need an experienced CTO, and how to source, attract and close one.
Interactive Tool
Hiring Priority Matrix
Plot roles by Urgency and Impact to decide which hire to make first.
Worksheet
Role Design / Role Market Fit Worksheet
Design a role that solves your company’s needs and excites top candidates.
Worksheet
Quick Activity — Find Your Skill Gaps
Analyse your current team’s experience and skillset, then rank the gaps that matter most to your roadmap.
Interactive Tool
Quick Activity — Start Your Hiring Plan
Turn your designed roles into a hiring order, headcount, timeline and budget — with a Hiring Costs Calculator.
03
Sourcing
Find the people who are not applying to your jobs.
Cheat Sheet
Boolean Search Cheat Sheet
Quick reference for constructing more effective candidate searches.
Cheat Sheet
GitHub Sourcing Cheat Sheet
Find technical candidates on GitHub using search operators, language filters, location qualifiers and quality signals.
Interactive Tool
GitHub Email Sourcing Tool
Paste a GitHub username and automatically check their profile and public commits for a contactable email.
Cheat Sheet
Sourcing Context Cheat Sheet — UK / USA
Market context for UK and US tech hiring: high-growth startups, tech stack by company, high hiring bar companies and overlooked talent pools.
Database
CRM / Candidate Database Template
Track every candidate in one place — fill it in here, then export to CSV or paste into Google Sheets or Excel.
Database
Referral ATS
Track employee referrals from referred to hired. Export as a new tab alongside your candidate CRM.
Template
Referral Scheme Agreement Template
A contract template for setting up an internal referral scheme: process, rewards, rules and employee acceptance.
04
Building Candidate Pipelines
Turn one-off searches into a durable, compounding pipeline.
Cheat Sheet
Spam Words Trigger List
A searchable reference of email spam trigger words and phrases to avoid in candidate outreach, organised by category.
Template
Job Ad Templates
Six fill-in job ad styles that sell the role instead of describing it — anti-sell, hardcore builder, work-life balance, mission, tech challenge and growth.
Template
Outreach Templates
Candidate outreach email templates that sell the opportunity — first touch, follow-ups, LinkedIn, referrals, re-engagement and full transparency styles.
05
Interviewing
Structured interviews that predict performance, not likeability.
Worksheet
Quick Activity — Design Your Interview Process
Rank requirements, define pass/fail signals and weightings, design your interview stages and set overall pass/fail criteria.
Worksheet
Activity 2 — Designing Your Discovery / Intro Call
Design evidence-generating questions per requirement, with strong/weak signals, scores, weightings and pass/fail rules.
Worksheet
Activity 3 — Designing a High Signal Technical Interview
Design technical interview stages that resemble real work — with tailored examples for engineering, sales, research and recruiting roles.
Cheat Sheet
Discovery Call Cheat Sheet
A 30–45 minute reference for opening strong, pitching the company, qualifying the candidate and closing with clear next steps.
Worksheet
Interview Scorecard
Evaluate candidates consistently against role requirements. Record evidence first, make your decision second.
Template
Trial Work Contract Template
A simple agreement for short-term paid projects to validate candidates before making a full-time offer.
Template
Interviewer Responsibility Cheat Sheet
Assign ownership of every interview section to your team so each interviewer knows exactly what they own.
Guide
Interview Question Banks by Function
Question banks for engineering, product, design, sales, marketing, ops, recruiting, research and CS hires — each with the signal it tests.
Guide
Diversity, Bias & Legal Basics
The biases that cost you hires, questions you must never ask, and UK/US legal basics for founder-led hiring.
06
Sales in Talent Acquisition
Position, persuade and close without overselling.
Checklist
Sales Checklist
A step-by-step checklist to qualify, sell, close and secure candidates without missing a beat.
Guide
Recruitment Sales & Discovery Questions
A master list of questions for every stage — motivations, competing processes, compensation, trial closes, offers and counter-offer defence.
Template
Offer Letter Templates (USA & UK)
Fillable formal offer letters for US and UK hires — compensation, equity, benefits, contingencies and acceptance.
Calculator
Closing Percentage Calculator
Estimate candidate closing confidence and identify the actions most likely to improve your odds.
07
Candidate Experience
Every touchpoint is a signal about how you run your company.
Checklist
Candidate Experience Checklist
A practical to-do checklist to run before and during every hiring process, built around seven candidate-experience principles.
Worksheet
Homework — The 11 Star Candidate Experience
Apply Brian Chesky's 11-Star Experience framework to your hiring process: rate where you are today and brainstorm your way toward an 11 star candidate experience.
Template
Candidate Rejection Templates
Human, compassionate rejection emails for every stage — application, screening, interviews, trial work and silver-medalist finalists.
08
Onboarding
Get new hires productive and committed in their first 90 days.
Checklist
New Hire Onboarding Checklist
A practical to-do checklist to onboard a new hire into a confident, connected and productive team member without overwhelming them in week one.
Interactive Tool
Onboarding Booklet Generator
Enter your company and new hire details to generate a personalised welcome booklet covering week one, tools, people and the 30/60/90 day plan.
09
Scaling Your Recruitment Efforts
Systems, hires and partners that let hiring outgrow the founder.
Guide
Working With Agencies — Assessment Guide
Questions to ask and red flags to look out for when assessing a recruitment agency — references, past placements, named consultants and overlooked talent pools.
Interactive Tool
Scaling Decision Matrix
Enter your hiring roadmap — headcount, timeline, budget — and get a recommended resourcing strategy: founder-led, internal team, embedded / RPO or agency.
Template
Agency Brief Generator
Fill in your company, role and process details to generate a complete written brief to send to agencies, embedded or RPO providers after your intro call.
10
Recruitment Data
The handful of numbers that actually change hiring decisions.
Interactive Tool
Recruitment Data Dashboard
Track pipeline and stage conversion, sourcing ROI, outreach rates, process speed, offer close rate, candidate NPS, cost per hire and quality of hire in one visual tracker.
11
Course Conclusion
Bring the methodology together into an operating rhythm.
Interactive Tool
Course Feedback Form
Rate the course out of five stars and tell us what to improve — embeddable directly inside your course lessons.