Jobsly Blog.
Hiring playbooks, product deep-dives, and the occasional rant.
Stop writing job descriptions. Start writing hiring briefs.
The JD is a shopping list. A brief is a problem statement. Here’s how we write briefs at Jobsly, and why every founder should switch before their next hire.
Hiring playbooks·May 2, 2026
Why your first engineer shouldn’t come from your network
The referral network is narrow, biased, and comfortable. That’s exactly what’s wrong with it.
Hiring playbooks·Apr 25, 2026
What a good reference call actually sounds like
Ten questions that turn a reference call from "did they work there" into a real signal.
Hiring playbooks·Apr 18, 2026
How Source scores fit, not keywords
A look at the semantic scoring model behind Source, including the failures that shaped it.
Product deep-dives·Apr 11, 2026
The cost of a slow hire
Unfilled seats cost more than you think. Here’s the real math, with the numbers most founders get wrong.
Field notes·Apr 4, 2026
Why we killed our dashboard
Jobsly used to have a Kanban. We removed it. Here’s what we learned about dashboards as anti-solutions.
Field notes·Mar 28, 2026
Hiring for ambiguity: a founder’s rubric
Comfort with ambiguity is the hardest trait to screen for. Here’s the rubric we use.
Hiring playbooks·Mar 21, 2026
Progressive scoring, explained
CV at 45, post-Q&A at 55, post-test at 75, post-AI-interview at 85+. Why confidence matters more than the number.
Product deep-dives·Mar 14, 2026
Why Rob never auto-rejects
The guardrail, the override learning loop, and what it costs us in speed.
Product deep-dives·Mar 7, 2026
The three visual surfaces rule
Career pages, contracts, and scheduling pages are the only things the candidate sees. Everything internal is conversational. Why.
Product deep-dives·Feb 28, 2026
The backchannel reference graph
How Rob maps LinkedIn connections across your team to surface references the candidate didn’t list.
Product deep-dives·Feb 21, 2026
Shipping the end state
No progressive simplification. No training wheels. No "v1 vs the real thing" mode.
Field notes·Feb 14, 2026