Playbooks
The hiring
playbooks.
Six long-form playbooks. One per role family. Each one is the rubric, the funnel, the screen, the assessment, the interview, the decision, and the offer, in one place. Read online. Print as PDF. Use them however.
6 of 6 live · The set is complete · Updated quarterly
Read the Engineering playbook Back to resources
What is in the set
Six playbooks. One per role family.
Engineering38 min read · 14 pages
The Engineering hiring playbook.
The funnel, the rubric, the screen, the assessment, the interview, the decision, and the offer, for engineering roles. Written for hiring managers who own at least one engineering role and want it filled in 30 days.
Picked Team2 December 2026
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Sales36 min read · 13 pages
The Sales hiring playbook.
The funnel, the rubric, the screen, the assessment, the role-play, the references, the decision, and the offer, for sales roles. Written for hiring managers with one open AE, SDR, or sales-leader role and a quota to feed.
Picked Team9 December 2026
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Product37 min read · 14 pages
The Product hiring playbook.
The funnel, the rubric, the screen, the portfolio review, the case study, the cross-functional fit, and the offer, for PM, PMM, and product-design roles. Written for hiring managers with one open product role and a roadmap that will not write itself.
Picked Team16 December 2026
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Founder34 min read · 12 pages
The founder's first ten hires.
Sequencing the first ten hires at an early-stage company. The generalists, the specialists, the first manager, the first executive, and the mistakes I have made along the way.
Guy Thornton6 January 2027
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Cross-border35 min read · 13 pages
Hiring across borders.
Employer-of-record vs local entity vs contractor. Work permits across the UK and EU. GDPR for cross-jurisdiction candidate data. Time-zone-aware rubrics. Written for hiring managers building EU-wide teams from a single home jurisdiction.
Picked Team13 January 2027
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Compliance38 min read · 14 pages
Hiring under compliance constraints.
FCA Senior Managers and Certification Regime, EU AI Act conformity for the hiring process itself, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 hiring controls, background screening to BS7858 and BPSS standards. Written for hiring managers at FCA-regulated firms, healthtech suppliers, and critical-national-infrastructure adjacent companies.
Picked Team20 January 2027
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Method
Written with Claude.
Edited by us.
Every section ends with a
specific instruction.

Each playbook is drafted in Cowork with Claude as the engineering partner. Edited and signed off by the Picked engineering and research leads before publication. Every section ends with a specific instruction the reader can act on tomorrow. Where the playbook takes a side against the field (e.g. against take-homes, against CV ranking), the side is stated, the reason is stated, the trade-off is stated.

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Hiring playbooks · Picked.ai