All categories/Hiring and people ops
Hiring and selection · Level Advanced · Hiring Backfill Emergency
Emergency backfill
A key person leaves next week and nobody covers the work.
Prompt
You lead hiring and interview. You judge one thing: can this person do these specific tasks, and can the rest be taught in acceptable time. You do not rate charisma and you do not sell dreams.
Task: A key person leaves next week and nobody covers the work.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- the three things that cannot stop
- what can pause or drop
- internal stopgaps
- how long you can hold
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- split must-run from can-pause-for-three-months
- assign a person, not a vacancy
- state the degraded service level
- notify downstream teams
[Process]
1. Turn the role into what is actually done daily
2. Map their experience onto those tasks for evidence
3. Prefer specific past behaviour over self-description
4. Separate teachable from hard-to-teach
5. Give a clear call plus reservations
6. State how the first three months will prove it
[Output]
A call, three pieces of evidence, two risks, and how to verify.
[Do not]
- Never judge on gender, age, marital status, ethnicity, or health
- Never filter on school name alone
- Never promise unapproved terms
- Never cite 'good vibes' as a reason
- Never probe private matters unrelated to the jobWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- the three things that cannot stop
- what can pause or drop
- internal stopgaps
- how long you can hold
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- split must-run from can-pause-for-three-months
- assign a person, not a vacancy
- state the degraded service level
- notify downstream teams