You can, when the seat is one a CV describes well: a repeat role, a familiar title, work you can judge yourself. For a first-of-its-kind seat it breaks down, because a CV shows titles, employers and tenure, not the two or three things that decide whether this person can do this job at your company. A written screen asks every candidate the seat's own questions before anyone interviews, and a written read records what each person said with a plain verdict, so the first interview starts from evidence instead of from a CV.
The question comes up in exactly these words. A recruiter writing about a scale-up founder who asked it gave the short answer: "Because the thing that will make or break this hire isn't on there." The longer answer is worth having, because a founder hiring a seat nobody in the company has held is the person most likely to rely on the CV, and the person it serves worst.
What a CV leaves out
A CV is written by the candidate to clear a filter. It reliably tells you where someone worked, for how long and under what title. It rarely tells you what part of the result was theirs, what conditions they had (a founder on every deal, a platform someone else built), or whether they built the thing or inherited it.
That gap matters because the reasons hires fail are mostly not on a CV. In Leadership IQ's study of more than 20,000 hires, reported by 5,247 hiring managers, 46% of new hires failed within 18 months. Technical competence explained only 11% of the failures; coachability explained 26%, emotional intelligence 23%, motivation 17% and temperament 15%. And 82% of the managers said the interview had shown clues they did not act on. The study is old and cross-industry, but it is the one failure rate with a published method, and its message is direct: the evidence was available and nobody wrote it down.
Titles are a choice, and filters read titles
At an early-stage company the title on a CV is whatever the last employer chose to call the seat. The same title covers different jobs, and different titles cover the same one. Among the 171 companies we follow that posted an account executive role in the twelve months to October 2026, 3 titled it founding account executive. The rest of the breakdown, by seat and level, is on Is the title asking for two jobs? A screen that filters on the title you would have written misses the person who did the work under someone else's.
Volume makes the filter tighter, not better. In Gem's 2025 recruiting report, job boards and social sites produced 49.0% of applications but 24.6% of hires. The more applications arrive, the more the first pass falls back on keywords, and keywords are the part of a CV that is easiest to write and least informative to read.
What a written screen on the seat's questions adds
Most requirement lists are too long to screen on. The same recruiter describes being sent ten or twelve requirements, every one marked essential, and asking "Of these 10, which 2 would you not hire someone without?" and finding the answer is almost always two. Those two are the seat's questions. A written screen asks every candidate to answer them, in a few sentences, before anyone books an interview.
The questions ask about work already done, in a form the answer can be checked against. Some examples by seat:
| Seat | The questions the CV does not answer |
|---|---|
| Founding account executive | What did you close yourself, and at what cycle length? Which deals had a founder on them? |
| First sales leader | Which playbook did you write from what closed, and who used it after you? |
| Applied AI engineer | What did you ship, who uses it, and what latency or cost came out? Which evaluation loop is yours? |
| Platform or backend engineer | What did you ship that others depend on, and what did you automate away? What was the last incident you owned? |
| Founding product manager | What did you ship with engineers, and which number did it move? What did you cut, and why? |
This is the same instinct good functional heads already have. Writing for First Round, Pete Kazanjy told sales leaders to "ask for actual proof, screenshots of activity graphs and leaderboards directly from their org's CRM." A written screen asks for the proof before the interview instead of during it, and asks every candidate the same way, so answers can be laid side by side.
It also answers the founder's hardest version of the question: how to judge a hire for a job you have never done. A founder on Hacker News put it as "I wouldn't know the first thing about how to evaluate their skills." The questions can be written, or checked, by someone who has done the job, even when the founder has not.
What a written read adds
The screen produces answers; the read says what they mean. A written read on each person records three things: what the candidate said, what you would push on in a second conversation, and a plain verdict, put forward or not, with the reason. It is short, and it travels with the profile.
- The first interview becomes a second conversation. The manager starts from the weak point in the answer instead of walking the CV.
- The decision has a record. If two people disagree after the loop, they disagree about something written down, not about an impression.
- "Neither" becomes a possible answer. A read that can say neither candidate is right is the only kind that can tell you the scope, not the shortlist, is the problem.
This is how we screen every search, and the questions are agreed with the hiring manager before anyone is contacted. The mechanics are on how we scope and screen.
When the CV is enough
Not every seat needs this. If you have hired the role well before, the title means the same thing at every company you would hire from, and you can judge the work yourself in an hour, the CV is a fair filter. A written screen earns its place on the seat where those conditions fail: the first of its kind, the title that hides two jobs, the specialty the founder cannot assess, and the search where a wrong hire costs a quarter or more.
Common questions
- Is a written screen the same as a take-home assignment?
- No. A take-home asks for new, unpaid work. A written screen asks two or three questions about work the person has already done: what they shipped or closed, at what scale, and what was theirs. It takes minutes, not an evening, which is why senior people will answer it.
- Who should write the screen questions?
- The person who will manage the hire, with the founder, before anyone is contacted. Start from the requirements list and ask which two you would not hire without. Those two become the questions.
- Does a written step slow the search down?
- It moves the reading earlier rather than adding to it. The time a search loses is usually in the loop, interviewing people a written answer would have ruled out. Reading two short answers per candidate is faster than a first-round call with each of them.
- When is hiring off the CV fine?
- When the role is a repeat of one you have hired well before, the title means the same thing everywhere, and you can judge the work yourself in an interview. Then the CV is a reasonable filter and a written screen adds little.
Sources
- Leadership IQ, Why new hires fail (5,247 hiring managers, more than 20,000 hires; ICMA reprint): icma.org
- Gem, 2025 recruiting report: lp.gem.com
- First Round Review, Pete Kazanjy, The anatomy of the perfect sales hiring process: review.firstround.com
- A recruiter's LinkedIn post on screening from CVs and requirement lists: linkedin.com
- Hacker News, Ask HN: How do you hire engineers whose job you know nothing about?: news.ycombinator.com
- Human in the Loop Talent, Is the title asking for two jobs?: humaninthelooptalent.com/research/how-do-peers-title-this-seat/