We Can't Hire Fast Enough and Wrong People Are Getting Through – Forward Achieve

When Hiring Hurts

Every founder who's been here knows — bad hires don't just cost a salary. They cost morale, trust, and 18 months of forward motion.

The ATS is full. The recruiters are sending. Offers are getting accepted. On paper, you're hiring fast.

And six months in, half the new team isn't where you needed them to be. Your best people are quietly carrying the others. Performance conversations are piling up. Two folks have already left. And the next round of headcount is supposed to start next quarter.

This is a harder problem than "we need better recruiters." When the funnel is full and the bar still slips, the gap is upstream — in how you define the role, how you screen the work, what signal you actually evaluate in the loop, and what package you put on the table.

Here's what doesn't fix it: a new ATS. An expensive search firm. Another rewrite of the careers page.

What fixes it is three operators who've rebuilt hiring at scale — people who've designed the loops, closed the critical hires, and stabilized the team with comp and leveling that retains. People who give you a system, not a sourcing strategy.

That's a Personal Advisory Board. And when hiring is wobbling, it might be the most leveraged 10 hours you spend this quarter.

"Hiring fast and hiring right are different problems. When you confuse them, your headcount grows and your company shrinks."

Three operators. One hiring unlock.

We don't match you with generalists. We match you with people who've solved this exact problem.

Talent Strategist

Vu Lam

Transforms talent from a cost center to a competitive advantage.

When hiring breaks, it's almost never the recruiter. Vu starts upstream — the talent operating model: how roles get defined, how the bar gets set, how the company actually competes for the people it wants. He's the operator you bring in when you've outgrown improvised hiring but haven't yet built the function. He doesn't sell sourcing — he builds the talent system the company will run for the next three years.

Recruiting Architect

Eric Vega Giordano

Builds hiring infrastructure and closes critical early engineering hires.

Most early-stage companies lose the hires they really wanted at the closing stage — not because the offer was wrong, but because the closing motion was. Eric builds the hiring infrastructure that catches those losses: scorecards, structured loops, calibrated decisions, and the closing playbook for the 3–5 engineering hires that actually matter this quarter. He works in the room, with your hiring managers, until the loop holds without him.

Comp & Leveling Designer

Shelly Michaels

Designs compensation frameworks and leveling to stabilize retention.

Hiring well and keeping people are the same problem one quarter apart. Shelly designs the comp and leveling that holds — bands calibrated to your stage, leveling rubrics that scale, equity structures that hold up at the next round. She's the operator you bring in when the same people you fought to hire start looking around quietly, and the org chart needs to stand up to the next 18 months of growth.

From diagnosis to motion in weeks — not quarters.

How it works.

You tell us what's happening.

A 20-minute intake. The honest picture of where things are breaking — no polish required.

We build your board.

Our matching engine selects three operators from a vetted pool of 175+ — people who've solved your exact problem before, not advisors who've read about it. You review the profiles and confirm.

Your first board session happens within 2–3 weeks.

All three advisors. Your situation on the table. By the end of session one, you'll have a shared diagnosis, a prioritized fix sequence, and three operators who are invested in the outcome.

Twelve weeks of structured support.

Monthly group board sessions. Bi-weekly 1:1s with the advisor most relevant to your current bottleneck. Async messaging when decisions can't wait. Forward Achieve facilitates everything — you just show up and execute.

What a hiring problem actually requires.

You don't need one fix. You need three operators — and they need to challenge each other.

A recruiter sources. A search firm runs a process. A comp consultant delivers a doc. An advisory board gives you real-time pattern recognition across the whole hiring stack — talent strategy, closing motion, comp and leveling — and the power of the PAB is that they see the same broken funnel from three completely different angles.

Talent Strategist

Sees the talent operating model gap.

Recruiting Architect

Sees the closing motion failure.

Comp & Leveling Designer

Sees the retention math.

When they push back on each other's diagnosis in your board session, that's where the real insight lives — the tension between their perspectives is the most valuable thing in the room.

This isn't a retainer. It's not a six-month engagement. It's the leadership team you don't have yet — assembled for the moment you need it most.

What this takes from you.

~10 hours over 12 weeks.

Monthly Group SessionsOne per month with your full board.

Bi-Weekly 1:1sOne or two per cycle with the advisor most relevant to your current bottleneck.

Async MessagingFor when decisions can't wait.

Forward Achieve HandlesMatching, scheduling, facilitation, and follow-through.

Your only job: show up with honest data, stay open to uncomfortable diagnoses, and execute on what your board helps you see.

Your Personal Advisory Board is waiting.

Bad hires aren't a luck problem. They're a systems problem — and it's solvable.

The companies that hire well at speed don't do it by working harder on sourcing. They do it by getting clearer — on the role they're really filling, the bar they're really willing to defend, and the package that keeps the right people for the long arc.

Request Your Board → Talk to our team — schedule a 15-min scoping call →

Internal: Sales playbook — ICPs, Apollo search & 5-touch sequences ↗