Screen a candidate against your situation, not a job title

The problem with screening on the title

Founders often ask for a "CTO" or "co-founder" with a description of what they hope they need in 6-12 month, should everything go according to plan (which it almost never does).

The resumes received can be hard to read, even with a future bias and when you know what role you want: a VP of Engineering who scaled a platform team from forty to a hundred people is excellent at a job that may not bear any resemblance to being the first technical leader in a nine-person company. Both resumes say "VP Engineering." Both candidates interview well. One of them will spend your next two quarters building process you do not need yet.

The useful screen is not "is this person good?" It is "is this person good at the thing I just described?" That requires knowing what you described — which is why this starts with questions about you rather than questions about them.

How it works

What comes back

The report opens with what you described in the brief, the kind of leader that maps to, and what the resume showcases. An outcome call — aligned, partially aligned, or unaligned — explains why.

Then it breaks down how the candidate stacks up against your situation on five dimensions: whether they operate at your stage, own what you described, have the technical depth you need, represent a growth opportunity, and exhibit the three attributes you named.

It closes with the three biggest gaps, each with interview questions written to probe those gaps. Those questions are the part people forward to whoever is running the next round.

What it will not do

It will not tell you whether to hire someone. It does not score candidates against each other, produce a ranking, or make a hire-or-no-hire recommendation. A hiring decision should not be delegated to software.

It will not infer anything about a candidate beyond what the document says. It does not weigh where someone went to university or make character judgements. What it gives you is a sharper first conversation, not a verdict.

Common questions

Who is this resume screening tool for? +

Founders and hiring managers evaluating a candidate for a technical leadership role — CTO, VP of Engineering, first engineering hire, or an equivalent. It is built for the person doing the hiring, not for a candidate reviewing their own resume.

Why does it ask about the company before the candidate? +

Because fit is relative. Whether a candidate is right depends on your stage, the size of the team, what your customers are actually paying for, and whether you want someone to set direction or follow it. Without that, any screen is measuring against a generic job title, which is the mistake the tool exists to avoid.

What happens to the candidate's resume after screening? +

The file is deleted once the report has been sent. The candidate's name and the assessment are kept so the archive of everyone you have screened stays useful, and you can delete any of it at any time from that archive.

Does it decide whether to hire someone? +

No. It produces interview preparation and an assessment of what the resume evidences. It does not rank candidates, does not score them against each other, and makes no hiring recommendation. The decision stays with the people doing the hiring.

If the hire is the real problem

A screening tool helps with one candidate. If the harder question is which role you should be hiring for at all — or whether you need a full-time leader yet — technical leadership hiring covers running that process properly, and fractional CTO work is often what bridges the gap while you look.