You need to fill a role in 2 weeks. Your last hire took 42 days. Everyone told you that was normal, and everyone was wrong.
You can hire in two weeks without lowering the bar, but only if every day has a job. Drift kills hiring speed far more than a weak pipeline does.
Days 1 to 2: scorecard and job description
Block two hours on day one to write a scorecard. Five outcomes the person must deliver in their first 90 days, plus the three skills that make those outcomes possible. Day two, turn that scorecard into a job description a human would actually read. Keep it under 400 words. Publish it by 5pm.
Days 3 to 7: sourcing and screening
Spend days three and four sourcing hard. Post on two job boards, message 30 passive candidates on LinkedIn, and ask your team for 5 referrals each. Aim for 80 applicants by Friday of week one.
Days five to seven are for screening. A careful human read takes 5 to 7 minutes per CV, so 80 applications is roughly 8 hours of focused work. That is where most 2-week plans fall apart, because nobody has 8 clear hours.
This is the step to compress with AI screening. Good tools can rank 80 CVs against your scorecard in under 10 minutes, leaving you a shortlist of 12 to interview.
Days 8 to 11: interviews
Run first round interviews across days 8 and 9. Keep them to 30 minutes and use the same four questions for every candidate, tied directly to the scorecard.
Day 10 is a paid work sample, 90 minutes maximum. Day 11 is your final panel, two interviewers, 60 minutes, with a debrief straight after. Write scores before anyone speaks.
Days 12 to 14: decision and offer
Day 12, references. Two calls, 20 minutes each, with direct questions about how the candidate handled pressure and feedback.
Day 13, decide. If the team is split, the answer is no. Ambivalent hires almost always end in a 9-month regret.
Day 14, make the offer by phone, follow with a written contract within two hours, and give them 48 hours to respond. Top candidates accept other offers inside 10 days, so speed protects the work you just did.
Sieve turns hundreds of CVs into a ranked shortlist in minutes, scored against the outcomes you care about, so you spend your time interviewing the right 12 people instead of reading the wrong 68. See it at sievecv.com.