A Performance-based Hiring System

Stop Wasting $60 Billion on Broken Hiring

Transform recruiting from reactive chaos into proactive excellence. Apply Toyota's revolutionary Kanban system to talent acquisition.

The hiring industry produces defective output at a rate that would shut down any factory.

$60B
Annual Waste

Global recruiting spend with minimal returns on investment

0.5%
Hire Rate

Less than 1 in 200 applicants actually get hired

50%
Failure Rate

Half of new hires underperform or leave within 18 months

We respond to a broken system by adding more volume — never questioning if the design is the problem.

Traditional hiring is reactive, volume-driven, and designed to filter out the unqualified after a job opens. It's a weeding-out process built around skills-laden job descriptions that attract people looking for lateral transfers at slightly more pay.

You can't attract the best with job descriptions designed to weed out the weak. The wrong strategy drives the wrong process.

Traditional Hiring
Kanban for Hiring

Reactive — scrambling when someone quits

Proactive — building relationships months ahead

Volume-driven with bloated applicant pools

Flow-based with right-sized talent pools

Skills-based filtering that misses top talent

Performance-based matching that expands pools

Attracts lateral moves for more pay

Attracts ambitious people seeking growth

Kanban for Hiring: Just-in-time talent acquisition

When Toyota introduced Kanban in the 1950s, it revolutionized manufacturing. The same logic transforms talent acquisition: less waste, lower cost, higher quality, faster throughput.

01

Start with Workforce Planning

Begin with a rolling 6–12 month plan by job class. This shifts recruiting from reactive scrambling to proactive relationship building. When a role opens, candidates are already in the pipeline.

02

Convert Jobs Into Career Moves

Define work as performance objectives, not skills lists. This opens talent pools to high performers with different skill mixes but comparable accomplishments. No more keyword filtering that misses top talent.

03

Build Relationship-Based Talent Pools

Maintain genuine engagement with high-performers who fit critical role profiles. When circumstances align on both sides, conversations are warm — not cold outreach to strangers.

Why this works

💰

Far Lower Cost

Stop paying to post hundreds of jobs and process thousands of unqualified applicants. Smaller pools mean less screening and fewer wasted interviews.

Just-in-Time Hires

Workforce planning plus nurtured talent pools means candidates are ready when needs arise — not weeks of scrambling after a resignation.

🎯

Higher Quality

Performance-based descriptions attract people seeking career growth. Relationship-based sourcing means you know candidates before you need them.

Fewer Mistakes

When both sides are choosing rather than settling, commitment is stronger and results are more predictable.

📈

Less Turnover

Hires made for career opportunity stay longer than hires made for incremental pay bumps. Regrettable turnover drops.

🛡️

Fraud Disappears

Résumé fraud and AI-generated applications are symptoms of high-volume systems. Smaller pools and performance-based criteria eliminate the conditions that create fraud.

One Matrix Replaces Dozens of Job Postings

Stop posting individual jobs. Instead, publish one 6×6 Career Matrix per job family — Engineering, Sales, Operations — and let candidates find themselves within it. They design their own career path; you get pre-qualified applicants who've already mapped their fit.

6×6 Career Matrix showing success factors and performance levels
🎮

Candidates Design Their Own Roles

Instead of scrolling through dozens of postings hoping one fits, candidates explore the matrix and identify where their accomplishments place them today — and where they want to grow. No more "Apply Now" buttons. Just career conversations with people who've already done the work to understand their fit.

📉

Fewer Postings, Better Results

One Engineering matrix replaces Senior Engineer, Staff Engineer, Principal Engineer, and Engineering Manager postings. Consolidation means less noise, better candidates, and faster time-to-fill.

🎯

Self-Selection, Not Screening

Candidates see exactly where they fit today and where they could grow tomorrow. The right people opt in; the wrong ones opt out — before you spend a minute screening.

📈

Career Growth, Not Lateral Moves

Skills-based postings attract people seeking 10% more pay. Career matrices attract ambitious people seeking their next chapter — the ones who stay and grow.

🛡️

Fraud-Proof by Design

You can't keyword-stuff a career matrix. Candidates must demonstrate accomplishments that map to specific performance levels — not just claim skills on a résumé.

"Toyota didn't fix manufacturing by sorting faster. They redesigned the system. Hiring deserves the same."

The Performance-based Hiring Talent Hub

Kanban for Hiring is powered by the Talent Hub — the engine that makes Performance-based Hiring actionable. Build your own performance-based job descriptions, create candidate-facing career matrices, and implement the entire methodology in one platform.

📝
Build PBJDs in Minutes Convert any role into a performance-based job description with clear objectives and success criteria
🎯
Generate 6×6 Career Matrices Create candidate-facing tools that attract growth-minded talent and enable self-selection
🤝
Align Hiring Managers & Recruiters Get everyone on the same page with shared performance objectives and interview scorecards
Get Started at the Talent Hub →

Ready to redesign your hiring system?

Kanban for Hiring is a component of Performance-based Hiring — a methodology proven over 40 years to attract and hire stronger talent.