THE FELDMAN HIRING SCORECARD
Gut-feel hiring works fine right up until it doesn't — and by the time you find out, you've lost a quarter and a seat. This is Danny's own system for turning a vague opening into a written scorecard: what the seat owns, what proof of success actually looks like, and questions that ask for evidence instead of opinions — built from personally training and hiring across 55,000+ people at Cutco and building Stellar's team from one market to fifteen states.
4 parts · 1 open seat · No email required
WHERE THIS COMES FROM
This isn't hiring theory. It's what training 55,000+ reps and scaling Cutco's division from one location to fifty-eight actually taught about who gets the seat and how you'd know before the ninety-day mark — carried straight into building Stellar's team from one market to fifteen states.
THE HIRING SCORECARD
Most job postings describe a person — years of experience, a degree, a personality. A scorecard describes the seat: what it owns, what proof of success looks like in year one, and what you're actually going to ask to find out. Everything below narrows toward one honest decision.
Wide at the top, honest at the bottom — every stage narrows the decision instead of the candidate pool.
What this seat owns before you write the job posting — not a list of tasks, one clear outcome.
Three to five specific, measurable things this person needs to accomplish in year one.
Questions that ask for a real example tied to the proof bar, not a hypothetical answer.
Independent scores before the group discusses, and references checked against the actual proof bar.
FOUR PARTS TO THE SCORECARD
Most job postings describe a person — years of experience, a degree, a personality. A scorecard describes the seat: the outcome it owns, tied straight back to how every seat in this system gets defined.
One sentence: what does this seat own, not what does it do all day.
If the seat isn't already mapped with a clear owned outcome, that's the first problem — worth fixing before you hire for it.
Ten years doing the wrong job doesn't predict success in this one. The outcome does.
If the hiring manager and their boss describe the seat differently, you're not ready to post it yet.
"We need someone with 5+ years of experience and a can-do attitude."
"This seat owns getting qualified pipeline to 40 booked demos a month within 90 days."
Self-check
0 of 4 confirmed
The proof bar turns the seat's outcome into three to five specific, measurable things this person needs to be true by the end of year one. If you can't measure it, it doesn't belong on the scorecard.
What has to be true twelve months in for this hire to be a clear win?
Not "good communicator" — "presents the weekly pipeline review to leadership without notes."
More than that and it stops being a bar, it becomes a wish list nobody can actually hold anyone to.
If you can't answer that in one sentence, the item isn't specific enough yet.
"Looking for someone who's a strategic thinker and a team player."
"Rebuilds the onboarding flow and cuts 90-day churn from 18% to under 12% by month six."
Self-check
0 of 4 confirmed
Every proof-bar item should have a matching question that asks for a specific real example — not what the candidate would do in theory.
"Tell me about a specific time you..." tied directly to the outcome on the scorecard.
"What did you actually do next?" and "What was the result?" until you hit specifics.
Every interviewer writes their score down first. Discussion happens after, never before.
A great story with no specific numbers or outcomes usually means it didn't happen the way it's being told.
"What would you do if a client was unhappy with a project?"
"Tell me about a specific client who was unhappy. What happened, what did you actually do, and how did it turn out?"
Self-check
0 of 4 confirmed
The decision gate is where independent scores, structured references, and the proof bar come together — instead of whoever argued for the candidate the loudest in the debrief.
Anchoring on the first strong opinion in the room is the single easiest way this goes wrong.
Ask about the specific outcomes on the scorecard, not "would you hire them again."
A scorecard only works if a candidate can actually fail it.
If you're the only person who can interview for every seat, the scorecard isn't the bottleneck — you are.
"We talked it over and everyone just kind of felt good about her."
"Three independent scores, two reference checks against the actual proof bar, and a clear yes before the offer went out."
Self-check
0 of 4 confirmed
SCORECARD CHECK
Eight questions, two for each part of the scorecard. Answer honestly about how you actually hire, not how you'd like to.
Can you describe what this seat owns in a single sentence, before you write the job posting?
Would two people involved in the hire describe the seat's core outcome the same way?
Does the scorecard list 3 to 5 specific, measurable things for year one?
Are those written as numbers or deliverables, not personality traits like "strong communicator"?
Do your interview questions ask for a specific real example, not a hypothetical?
Does every interviewer score independently before the group discusses the candidate?
Do reference checks ask about the specific proof-bar outcomes, not just "would you hire them again"?
Is there anyone besides you who could run this interview process without you in the room?
HOW THIS WAS BUILT
This combines decades of research on structured, evidence-based interviewing — meta-analytic work in organizational psychology (notably Schmidt and Hunter's research on selection-method validity) consistently shows that a clearly defined role outcome, measurable success criteria, and structured evidence-based questions out-predict unstructured "gut feel" interviews — with Danny's own hiring bar, built training 55,000+ sales reps and scaling Cutco's division to 58 locations, then building Stellar's team from one market to fifteen states. This page doesn't use or reference any single proprietary hiring methodology or its branded terminology.