Your Hiring Process Is Broken. Here's How to Fix It in 15 Minutes.

2019. I'm sitting across from “Sarah”, interviewing her for a marketing role.

Perfect resume. Great energy. Nailed every traditional interview question.

"Tell me about yourself." Smooth answer.
"What's your biggest weakness?" Textbook response.
"Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" She crushed it.

I hired her on the spot.

Three months later, I had to let her go.

She couldn't write copy that converted. Didn't understand our target market. Had zero intuition for what content would resonate.

All the stuff that actually mattered for the job? She couldn't do it.

But I never tested for it. I just asked generic questions and hoped for the best.

That failure cost me $15,000 in salary, $8,000 in training, and three months of zero progress on marketing.

All because I hired based on interview theater instead of actual skills.

Most Founders Hire Like They're Casting a Movie

Here's how most hiring goes:

Post a generic job description. Review resumes. Ask the same tired questions everyone asks. Make a gut decision based on "culture fit."

Then wonder why half your hires don't work out.

The best predictor of job performance isn't how someone interviews. It's how they actually do the work.

But most founders never test that. They just cross their fingers and hope the person can figure it out after they're hired.

That's not hiring. That's gambling.

The 15-Minute Exercise That Changed Everything

After the Sarah disaster, I built a simple system. Takes 15 minutes to create. Saves hundreds of hours of bad hires.

Here's the exact process:

Step 1: Define the Role Reality

Write down exactly what this person will do day-to-day. Not the fluffy job description. The actual tasks you want off your plate.

Step 2: Identify the 3-5 Critical Skills

What must they be great at to succeed? Be specific.

For a social media manager:

• Trend hunting
• Copywriting
• Design criteria
• Platform understanding

Step 3: Create One Technical Test Per Skill

Design a test / case study that forces them to demonstrate the skill, not just talk about it.

Initial questions, but you should elaborate a deeper test on each subject:

Trend hunting: "What recent trend do you think I could use in my account to gain visibility?"

Copywriting: "How would you improve this post's copy? What would you change and why?"

Design criteria: "What would you criticize about this post's design? What changes would you suggest to make it perform better?"

Platform understanding: "Why do you think this reel we made did not perform well? How does it connect to how the platform works? How would you reframe it?"

Step 4: Define the 3-5 Values You Need

What character traits are non-negotiable? For us:

• Extreme Passion
• Absolute Accountability
• Execution Speed

Step 5: Create One Case Study Per Value

Use past scenarios where your company faced challenges and you weren't satisfied with how they were solved. Ask candidates what they would do instead.

Extreme Passion: "Last quarter, we had a project that hit major roadblocks. The team member assigned said 'it's not possible' and stopped trying after two failed attempts. We ended up missing a key deadline that cost us a $50K deal. How would you have approached this differently?"

Absolute Accountability: "We had a product launch that failed to hit targets. When I asked what went wrong, the team lead blamed the marketing team, budget constraints, and market timing. But never took ownership of their part. What would you have done in that situation?"

Execution Speed: "We had a competitor launch a similar feature to what we'd been planning for months. Instead of accelerating our timeline, the team wanted to stick to the original schedule and 'do it right.' We lost first-mover advantage and market share. How would you have handled this crisis?"

Stop Asking Stupid Questions. Start Testing Real Skills.

Ditch these useless questions:

• "Tell me about yourself"
• "What's your biggest weakness?"
• "Why do you want to work here?"

They predict nothing about job performance.

Instead, give them real scenarios. Show them your worst-performing content and ask how they'd fix it. Give them a customer complaint and see how they'd respond.

The best hires happen when candidates forget they're being interviewed because they're too busy solving problems.

The Scoring System That Eliminates Guesswork

Here's how to turn subjective impressions into objective decisions:

Rate each answer 1-5:

• 1 = Missing the point completely
• 2 = Basic understanding, poor execution
• 3 = Decent answer, some insight
• 4 = Strong answer, clear expertise
• 5 = Exceptional insight, obvious expert

Add up the scores. Highest total wins.

No more "they seemed nice." Just clear data on who can actually do the work.

ACTION: Build Your Hiring Scorecard This Week

Pick the next role you need to hire. Spend 15 minutes creating:

• 3-5 critical skills with one question each
• 3-5 essential values with one question each
• Scoring criteria for each answer

Test it in your next interview. I guarantee the scorecard will be more accurate than your gut.

Why This Works When Everything Else Fails

Traditional interviews: Test how well someone talks about work
This system: Tests how well someone does the work

Traditional hiring: Rewards smooth talkers
This system: Rewards problem solvers

Traditional results: 50% of hires fail
This system: 80%+ success rate

Stop hiring resumes. Start hiring results.

Final Reality Check

Every bad hire costs you 3-6 months of progress and x7 the salary in real costs.

Every great hire saves you 100+ hours and accelerates your growth by months.

The difference between the two? A 15-minute exercise that tests what actually matters.

Stop interviewing. Start testing.

Ready to stop making costly business decisions based on guesswork? Join 9 other founders and get coached by me, hands on.

My Founder Accelerator Group helps you create frameworks for every critical decision. Expert-led coaching (by ME) for founders scaling from $250K to $3M.

This isn’t another “Mastermind” - its direct, hands on group coaching where we get sh*it done.

What you get:

• One quarterly goal-setting workshop to cut through chaos and focus on what matters
• Two monthly tactical coaching sessions for real problems and execution challenges
• Daily Slack support with me and 9 other committed founders
• Personalized performance dashboards to track real progress
• Expanding library of frameworks and systems that prevent costly mistakes

Limited to 10 founders per cohort. No theory. Just proven systems that turn scattered efforts into strategic execution.

→ Apply for Founder Accelerator Group

Stop guessing. Start executing.

-  Ignacio

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