Hiring Playbook
Price a role before you post it, choose its structure in dollars, fill it from a funnel whose rates you know, interview every candidate on the same Four-Fit scorecard with a paid work sample, train week one with the 3Ds, and diagnose a struggling hire before you decide anything.
What’s Inside
- The Hiring Funnel, Step 0 to Step 6, the framework the whole book runs on
- Step 0, the structure decision with money: control questions plus a Structure Cost Sheet comparing employee, part-time, contractor, fractional, vendor and fixing the process in cost per used hour
- hiring-math.xlsx: Price-the-Role, Structure Cost Sheet, Funnel Solver, CAT (cost to acquire talent), ramp, vacancy and your own mis-hire cost. Opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets
- Outcomes worksheet and job description checklist
- 4-beat job ad template plus 3 worked ads (crew lead, front desk, field service tech), each with repel lines and a wording check
- Sourcing with the Internal Core Four and a referral bonus sized from your own CAT
- Screen script (15 minutes) for expectations fit
- The Four-Fit Interview guide (60 minutes, timed) with a 0 to 3 scorecard
- Work sample design and blind score sheet
- Reference call script, decision sheet and offer checklist (have an attorney build the letter once)
- 3Ds training checklist for week one and 30/60/90 review sheets with a weekly self-score
- The struggling-hire sheet: the 4-cause check, the seat, the 2 questions
- Try-before-you-buy promotion sheet (red, yellow, green)
- Per-hire tracker with your funnel rates, a 14-day sprint quickstart, and a guide to keeping the people you hired
The Problem
You hire on how the hour felt. The job is the other 2,000 hours. An interview rewards being easy and articulate with a stranger, and that has little to do with loading a truck, booking a client or fixing a leak.
Most owners also skip the 2 decisions that move the most money: what kind of working relationship the role should be, and whether the business can afford it at all.
You are not bad at hiring. You are hiring without the math, without a scorecard and without a training plan, and paying for it later.
The Hiring Funnel, Step 0 to Step 6
Hiring is your customer funnel pointed the other way. Know the rate at every step, then solve for how many applications your next hire needs.
- Step 0: Structure. Which of 6 working relationships this is, decided with the control questions and the cost per used hour.
- Step 1: Define. 3 to 5 outcomes, what they decide alone, and the break-even jobs per week.
- Step 2: Attract. A 4-beat ad with repel lines and a real pay range, sent through at least 2 channels.
- Step 3: Screen. 15 minutes on pay, hours, place and must-dos, within 48 hours.
- Step 4: Interview. The Four-Fit Interview for culture, skill and potential, then a paid work sample scored blind.
- Step 5: Decide. References, score sheets before opinions, and the offer. If it is close, it is a no.
- Step 6: Onboard. The 3Ds in week one and the 30, 60 and 90 day reviews.
Then 2 parts most owners never plan for: what to do when a hire struggles (check 4 causes and the seat before deciding anything) and how to promote from within without losing a good worker to a bad seat.
From the book: the math before the ad
Say the person costs $20,000 a year all in. Each job keeps 40% after dump fees, fuel and materials. The average job is $500. That hire must add $20,000 ÷ 0.40 = $50,000 of work, which is 100 jobs a year. About 2 a week.
That is to break even. Not to be worth it. A hire who must add 2 jobs a week is a different decision from one who must add 20. Part 5 adds ramp cost, the weekly cost of an empty seat, and a formula for what your own last bad hire cost you. Every number here is a round, labelled hypothetical.
Who This Is For
The owner of a small service business making their 1st through 10th hire, who has hired on gut feel before and wants a process with numbers in it.
Questions
Will this tell me what a bad hire costs?
No printed figure. It gives you the formula and has you fill it from a past hire of your own. Nobody else’s number knows your pay, your trade or your town.
Is this legal or HR advice?
No. Every legal point is a shape and a question to take to an employment attorney in your state. The dated notes on worker classification, job ad wording, paid work samples and final pay were checked against government pages on 2 October 2026.
Does it include job descriptions for my roles?
It includes the method, a 4-beat ad template and 3 worked ads. The full set of role-by-role description and ad pairs is in the Job Description Templates kit in the same library.
Does it give me targets, like a pass rate or retention number?
No. You count your own baseline first, then compare each hire with your last one.
Read it in your library.
This is included with The Standard, along with every other guide in the library. Your monthly re-audit tells you which one to open next. $497 to start, $297/mo to keep it running. Cancel any month and keep everything.
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