How we actually vet people

Every talent firm on earth says they "vet rigorously." It's the most meaningless phrase in our industry, right up there with "rockstar developer." So instead of telling you we're thorough, here's exactly what happens between someone applying and you ever seeing their name.

Step one: a real screen, not a quiz

We don't run people through a generic coding puzzle that has nothing to do with the job. We screen inside their actual discipline. A backend engineer talks through real systems they've built and the decisions they made. A designer walks us through a project and, more importantly, the projects that didn't work and why.

The goal isn't to catch people out. It's to find the gap between "can talk about the work" and "has done the work." Those are different people, and the difference shows up fast when you ask a follow-up question they weren't expecting.

Step two: a work sample on something real

Talk is cheap, so we ask for a small piece of actual work. For engineers, that's usually a short, paid take-home rooted in a problem close to what they'd really do — or a live pairing session if they'd rather. For designers, it's a focused exercise, not a week of free spec work.

A few principles we hold to here:

• We pay for anything substantial. Asking someone to do real work for free is a tell about how you'll treat them later.
• The problem is realistic, not a brain-teaser. We want to see how they work, not whether they've memorized the trick.
• We look at the process, not just the answer. How someone gets to a decent solution tells us more than whether they nailed the perfect one.

Step three: references from people who actually worked with them

We call references — but not the cherry-picked cheerleaders. We ask specifically to speak with someone who worked alongside the person day to day, and we ask questions that are hard to answer with a generic "they were great." When did they struggle? What would you have them work on? Would you hire them again, honestly?

Real references hesitate sometimes. That's fine. A reference who has a small, specific criticism is usually more trustworthy than one who gushes.

Why most people don't make it

Across a typical search, the large majority of candidates don't make it past one of these steps. That's not a flex — it's the job. The whole value of what we do is that you get to interview three or four genuinely strong people instead of wading through forty maybes yourself.

If we've done our part well, your interview isn't about filtering anymore. It's about deciding which good person fits your team best. That's a much nicer problem to have.