Hire-Train-Deploy

Recruit for potential, deploy against a standard

Hiring only for people who already know your stack means competing for a small pool at a high price. Hiring for aptitude and training to the stack widens the pool considerably, provided there is a verified standard at the end, so that "trained" means something specific.

The three stages

• Hire: candidates selected on measured aptitude rather than on keyword-matched experience.
• Train: a programme built around the tools, practices and domain the role actually uses.
• Deploy: release to the team against a standard that was defined before training began.

Why the standard comes first

A training programme with no exit criterion tends to end when the calendar says so. Defining the standard up front is what makes the deployment decision an assessment rather than a date.