The questions people
are too polite to ask.
Alignment is the work. Four stages, both sides answering the same questions, before anyone signs anything.
Most searches fail after the offer, not before it. The method exists to move the difficult conversations earlier, while both sides can still change their minds without cost.
Four stages.The third one is the work.
It moves at the pace of the slower side, and it takes as long as it takes. Nobody is pushed toward a signature.
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01 / Understood
The conversation with no role in it
We start by finding out what someone would actually move for, and what they would not. Family, language, notice period, the things that decide a move and never appear on a CV. Nothing is written down that has not been agreed to.
What we askWhat would have to be true for you to leave? What would you not give up?
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02 / Discussed
A role, brought with the parts that are missing
When a role fits what someone described, we bring it with the context that is not in the advert: why the last person left, what the manager is like to work for, what the first year actually looks like.
What we ask the employerWhat is hard about this job that you have not written down?
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03 / Clarified
The questions people are too polite to ask
Before anyone signs, both sides answer the same set of questions separately, and we put the answers side by side. Role, reporting line, budget, relocation, the first ninety days. Where the answers differ, that is the conversation.
This is the stage most searches skip, and it is the stage that decides whether the hire lasts.
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04 / Aligned
The move, and the part after it
Notice, timing, the practical side of arriving. Then we stay: thirty days, ninety, one hundred and eighty. If what was promised is not what happened, we take that conversation.
Alignment is a state, not a score. We never put a percentage on a person.
A person is nota percentage.
We never score a candidate against a role. A match number is a way of sounding certain about something nobody has asked yet. Instead we record where a conversation has actually got to.
- UnderstoodWe know what this person would move for.
- DiscussedA specific role has been put in front of them, in full.
- ClarifiedBoth sides have answered the same questions and we have compared the answers.
- AlignedThe gaps that were found have been closed, or named and accepted.
Placement is an event.Retention is the outcome.
We check in with both sides at thirty days, at ninety, and at one hundred and eighty. Most agencies are gone by then.
