Define before
you decide.
Most hires go wrong before the interview. Trueseat makes sure the seat is defined, to a standard, before anyone is met. Then it carries that standard from the job ad through the interview and into the first 90 days.
A 60 minute working call with a real person. No funnel, no sequence.
No match percentages. No ranking algorithms.
Hiring tools love to grade people. Trueseat refuses. It shows you evidence, written down by a named interviewer, and leaves the verdict where it belongs: with you.
A number nobody can explain, computed from a resume, standing in for a person. It feels like certainty. It predicts almost nothing.
"Walked me through the quarter they missed their number: what they changed, who they told, and when. Specific, unprompted, owned it."
Scorecard · Ownership · 4 of 4 · signed Dana M.The story before the score, on a 1 to 4 scale with no safe middle. A values miss can veto the hire.
Illustrative example, not a real candidate record.
The hire goes wrong before the interview
You know the hire that didn't work. Wrong fit, slow ramp, gone within the year. It almost never fails at the interview. It fails earlier, when the role was never actually defined, when everyone on the team imagined a different person for the same seat, and when the ad went out before the thinking happened.
Then the interview runs on gut feel, the decision gets made on a vibe, and the new person is left to figure out the first 90 days alone. Every step feels reasonable in the moment. Together they cost you the hire.
The bad hire never felt like a bad hire on decision day. It felt like a good one.
Figures from published hiring research (predictive validity 0.19 unstructured vs 0.42 structured). They describe the method, not a measured outcome on this platform. Early-exit causes from Enboarder's published HR research.
The inbox
Resumes pile up from four sites. You skim the ones that came in when you had a minute.
The spreadsheet
A list you started with good intentions and stopped updating by the third candidate.
The gut
A 20-minute coffee, a good feeling, and a decision worth tens of thousands of dollars.
When a role opens, that is what most owners actually run: three tools nobody would call a system. No shame in it. It is just what was there. You are not replacing a system. For most owners, this is the first hiring system you have ever had.
Nothing lifts off until every system reports green
Five pieces of work, each signed off by a named person, before the role is cleared to interview. Trueseat won't let you skip one. That gate is the product.
Definition
What the seat is for, what it owns, and what good looks like, in plain language. Written once and agreed by everyone who touches the hire.
Behavioral Target
The behaviors the work actually requires, so you interview for the person the seat needs, not the resume you happened to like.
30/60/90
What the first 90 days look like, planned before you hire. Day one becomes a plan instead of a scramble.
Job Ad
Written from the definition, not from a template, so the ad attracts the person the seat needs and repels the ones it doesn't.
Scorecard
A structured interview that forces the story before the score, on a 1 to 4 scale with no safe middle, where a values miss can veto the hire.
Then, and only then
When every signal is done and signed by name, the role clears. No anonymous green anywhere in the product.
Hired is where the tools stop. It's where the risk begins.
From the day a new hire says yes, through their start date and their first 90 days, is the most vulnerable stretch in hiring. There's a name for it: the valley of new hire death. It's where good hires get cold feet, get poached, or quietly fail to land, and where your biggest investment is most exposed. Almost every tool hands you an onboarding checklist and walks off. Trueseat runs the whole valley: structured check-ins between the manager and the new person, on a cadence, held to the same standard the seat was defined to.
The silent gap
The riskiest stretch is the one before day one, where good hires cool off or get poached. The 30/60/90 is written and waiting, so the standard starts before they do.
Plan waitingThe plan carries over
The 30/60/90 you wrote before the hire becomes the onboarding plan. Same seat, same standard.
On planFirst pulse
A structured check-in between the manager and the new hire, on a cadence, not a vibe.
On planA quiet struggle surfaces
Needs attention, flagged while there is still time to act. The manager coaches to the standard, by name.
Needs attention → acted onThe standard held
The seat the person was hired into is the seat they are coached in. That is the whole point.
Fit, and lastingPublished workforce research traces most early exits back to the manager and the ramp, not the hire. The cadence exists because of it.
Every layer reads what the last one missed
This is not an opinion. Each validated layer you add reads something the last one could not see, and the odds stack.
interview
interview
wired
they learn
the role
manager
Straight with you. The science is settled that stacking validated methods roughly doubles the odds a hire works. We will not claim we doubled yours until a real hire proves it. We sell you the method, and we prove the rest together.
One system that closes every gap you just felt
Clarity
define the seatPrep
arm the interviewCapture
screen the pileFuse
panel synthesisDecide
one defensible callLearn
first 90 daysThe day-90 loop-back. Learn feeds the next seat.
Clarity on the role, the exact questions to ask, an evidence-based decision your team can stand behind, and a real first 90 days so the hire sticks. Five tools and five logins become one flow, and the loop feeds your next hire.
A system, not a service
Trueseat runs the whole arc of a hire. You bring the seat; it won't let you skip the step that costs you the hire.
Define the seat
The five signals, built in Trueseat and signed off by name, before anyone is met.
Run the hire
Post the role, interview against the scorecard, and decide on evidence instead of gut feel.
Carry it to 90 days
The pulse keeps the manager and the new hire on the standard the seat was defined to.
That's the system. Starting it is one working call.
Book a callThe price is on the page
Every plan runs the complete method and carries the first 90 days. What changes is how much of the team the system holds after the hire is made. Pay monthly, or pay annually and save 15%.
Decide + Land
The hire in front of you, made right and made to last.
- The complete hiring engine, three searches at once
- The sign-off gate: cleared to interview
- 30/60/90 armed on day one
- Pulse check-ins and gap alerts
Full system
Every seat, all year. Not just the next hire.
- Everything in Decide + Land, unlimited searches
- The seat map: culture and performance, every person
- Quarterly people reads on the whole team
- Coaching plans and the seven people-solves
- The leadership ledger: are your managers actually leading
Full system · Operator
The whole operation, held to one standard.
- Everything in Full system
- Multiple locations and crews, one standard
- Your brand on the candidate experience
- The accountability cockpit across every manager
- A quarterly review with a certified guide
A recruiter charges $10,000 to $24,000 for one placement, and guarantees 30 to 90 days. This is the whole system, for every hire you make this year, priced against the mistake it prevents, never against software.
Three things that pair with any plan
Choose how deeply you read each candidate
Structure alone comes with every plan at no added cost. The fit read and the deepest read go further, priced by fit as an annual agreement and recommended on your call.
First Hire
One seat, run end to end: defined, posted, screened, interviewed, decided. When it's done your account lapses to read-only. Reactivate any time.
Leadership Intensive
A full day with your leadership team: the seats you have, the seats you need, and the plan for the gap between them. For owners who want a person in it with them, not just a system.
Annual agreement. Pay monthly, or pay annually and save 15%. No per-hire fees, no per-seat math, no surprise add-ons. Implementation is a one-time setup engagement, scoped on the call.
Before you book
Is this an ATS?
No. An ATS tracks applicants. Trueseat exists for the part an ATS doesn't touch: deciding who to hire, and then not wasting the decision. If you've never used an ATS, good. You won't need to learn one.
What actually happens on the call?
Sixty minutes, working, with a real person. You bring the seat you need to fill next and we define it together. You leave with that seat sharper than it was, whether or not we ever work together. No funnel, no sequence.
Do I need to buy assessment software?
No. The method works without it. If a behavioral read would genuinely help your decision, we'll say so on the call and recommend a fit. It's never bundled and never required.
How long does setup take?
Your first seat can be defined and cleared in days, not months. Implementation is a one-time engagement scoped to your company on the call.
I'm a coach or advisor. Can I run this for my clients?
Yes. Trueseat runs white-label: your brand on the surface, the discipline underneath. See the partner section above, or just book the call and say so.
Built for the owner who is also the recruiter
It is written in plain language for people who run a business, not an HR department. If you have ever felt a bad hire in your sleep, this was built for you. And you cannot build a business you can step back from on hiring you cannot trust.
You run a company of roughly 25 to 250 people and every hire lands close to home.
There is no dedicated HR team, so hiring competes with running the business.
You've had a hire fail slowly, and you'd rather never feel that again.
You want a standard everyone hires to, whether or not you're in the room.
Your brand on the surface. The discipline underneath.
If you coach owner-operators, you already teach them to define the role before they hire. Trueseat runs white-label, so your clients see your brand while the method holds between sessions.
Your brand changes. The green never does.
Client-facing surfaces render in your brand. Your logo, your colors, your client relationship.
Status colors never re-theme. Green, amber, and red mean the same thing for every client. Information, not decoration.
You coach the manager. Trueseat enforces the standard. The sign-off gate does the nagging so you don't have to.
Take the checklist instead
The 5-Signal Hiring Checklist: the five signals on one page, with the check question behind each one. Run it on your next open seat before the ad goes out.
It is the same standard the platform enforces, on paper, free.
Your checklist is downloading.
If it did not open automatically, download it here. Brian may follow up once, personally.
All systems go.
Bring the seat you need to fill next.
You were never bad at hiring. You just never had a system for it. Book a 60 minute working call with Brian and leave with your next seat better defined than it was, whether or not we ever work together.
Leaning toward a candidate right now? Bring them. We'll run them through the structured scorecard together, live, on the call. You'll see something your gut will not.