Executive finalists, compared on what they have shown

Write "Candidate A spent 15 years in audit and corporate finance; Candidate B was CFO at two venture-backed startups" and the room compares Candidate A and Candidate B. Describe them instead, as in "one who led a 40-person team at a public company, or one who built a 12-person team from scratch", and each description becomes an option.

Waiting, an interim, or a fractional hire can be added to the Decision as a real alternative, so the room is not forced to pick the better of two weak fits.

The default criteria for a hiring Decision start with shown results: work samples, references, and outcomes that can be checked. Fit is judged against the problem this role exists to solve at this company's size and stage, not against how impressive the last logo was.

Challenger tests each finalist's record against the role. Wolf hunts title inflation, references that only praise, and skills that were only ever shown inside a much larger organization.

Every seat and the Judge are instructed never to use or guess age, race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, national origin, pregnancy, family status, or any other protected trait, and never to infer one from a name, a photo, or a school. Hiring rooms are checked for this before engine changes ship.

The room also says nothing about a named person that the record does not hold. Background facts come from what you add or from sourced research, and each one keeps its source.

Before presenting finalists to a client, a search team can run the comparison and hand over the reasoning, not only the shortlist. The Decision Passport shows which evidence carried weight, which claims were still unverified, and what would change the recommendation.

The Judge writes a Verdict on which finalist leads and why. The Human Decision is recorded separately, with who decided and who approved, so the record shows both the analysis and the choice your team made.

We have two finalists for CFO of our 120-person company. Candidate A spent 15 years in Big 4 audit and corporate finance. Candidate B was CFO at two venture-backed startups, one of them acquired. Which should we hire? The room compares Candidate A and Candidate B on what each has shown, and names what reference or work sample would change the Verdict.