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SynthBoard

Decision Cluster · Hiring

A hiring decision framework —
not a recruitment tool

Put the hire to a board — the CEO, the CFO, the Operator, the Skeptic — and test the role, the candidate and the offer before you commit a year of payroll.

Start free See how it works

In short

Yes — with the call after the interviews, not the screening. A SynthBoard board weighs whether the role is right, whether the candidate fits it, and whether this is the right quarter to hire at all. That's the part founders get wrong, not resume filtering.

Last reviewed

An example

One ask, start to finish.
What comes back is a memo.

How a board takes a call like this: her read, who sits, what they ask first, then the call — with how sure they are, who disagreed and the first step.

Hiring

Example · Board of 3

Should I hire this senior engineer for $185k or two mid-level engineers for $95k each?

Chief of staff

This one needs a board: The CEO, The CFO and The Operator. The CEO holds the through-line on company strategy and stakeholder trade-offs. Each researches alone first, then they react to one another — and on a decision, two of them take opposed sides.

  • The CEOChief Executive Officer
  • The CFOFinancial Controller
  • The OperatorCOO

Asked first

If you could do only one thing this quarter, is this it?

YesOne of twoProbably not

The board’s call

Hire the senior engineer at $185k with a 90-day scorecard tied to one concrete shipped outcome.

Senior hire pays back inside 9 months if scoped to platform work, not feature work. Two mid-level hires create coordination overhead the team can't absorb yet.

Confidence72 · Moderate

The Operator disagreed

“Senior engineers without a peer often disengage within 6 months”

First step Bake a 90-day exit ramp into the offer so a bad call isn't a 12-month tax.this week

Board of 3 · up to 135 credits on the card · an example, not a recorded run

Other asks people bring here

Several asks in one message become several rooms, each with its expert and its own price on the card. Keep or drop any, then convene them together.

  • My top candidate has 70% of the skills but is a culture-add. Hire or keep searching? — The CFO, up to 85 credits
  • Should I make a hire now or stretch the existing team another quarter? — The Operator, up to 85 credits
  • I have two finalists — a domain expert and a faster learner. Which one? — The Empath, up to 85 credits

What you get

What she handles.
On this kind of call.

Multi-angle candidate review

The CEO, the Operator, the Empath, and the Skeptic each evaluate the same candidate against the same role from independent angles.

Role-fit stress test

Before the candidates, the board tests the role itself — is the JD honest, is the seniority right, is this a hire or a contractor?

Total-cost reality check

The CFO models loaded cost, ramp time, and the implied revenue this hire has to defend over 18 months.

Failure-mode pre-mortem

The Skeptic runs a pre-mortem on the hire — what's the most likely way this person fails in month 6?

Why SynthBoard

Why SynthBoard for this.
Not one voice. A board.

A board, not a chatbot

Named experts with conflicting incentives, seated on different AI models, give you a hiring read no single chat can — one model rarely disagrees with itself.

Anti-sycophancy by design

Every board is built to include someone whose job is to argue against the obvious answer. Your favored candidate has to survive the dissent.

A memo you can come back to

Every board's memo stays in your account with the reasoning intact — the call, the conditions, who disagreed. When you revisit the hire, the why is still there.

The call, not a scorecard

No scheduling, no scorecard theatre — tell her the role, the candidate and the trade-off, and the board comes back in about 6–10 minutes with the call.

Who sits

The experts for this call.
Each one holds a position.

Your Chief of Staff proposes who sits for the call, and every board is built with someone whose job is to argue against the obvious answer. Name an expert and they take a seat; tell her who you want on your board and they sit by default. How many seats a board has depends on your plan.

Pick an expert

Hover, tap or tab throughSwipe, then tap one
  • GPT
  • Claude
  • Gemini
  • Grok

Seats are spread across model families: GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and more.

In their words

A bad senior hire is not a $185k mistake — it's an $185k mistake plus eighteen months of opportunity cost plus the cultural drag of letting them go. Price the decision, not the offer.
The CFO Financial ControllerOn why a hiring call should start with total cost, not headline salary.

Questions

Fair questions.
Straight answers.

What people ask before they bring this call to a board.

Can AI actually help with hiring decisions, or is it just resume screening?

Yes — with the call after the interviews, not the screening. A SynthBoard board weighs whether the role is right, whether the candidate fits it, and whether this is the right quarter to hire at all. That's the part founders get wrong, not resume filtering.

How is this different from asking ChatGPT to evaluate a candidate?

One chat gives you one voice, and it tends to agree with you. A SynthBoard board seats named experts with conflicting mandates on different AI models — the CFO defends the budget, the Empath defends the team, the Skeptic argues against the hire. You see who disagreed and why, not just the conclusion.

What candidate information should I share with the panel?

Paste the role description, what the candidate brings, what concerns you, and the alternative use of that headcount. The board doesn't need the resume — it needs the trade-off you're actually wrestling with. If something is missing, the expert asks before answering.

Does this replace structured interviews or a hiring scorecard?

No. SynthBoard sits before the offer, not before the interview. Use it when you have your data and you're trying to make the call — especially when the team is split or the trade-off is uncomfortable.

Is the board biased toward hiring or not hiring?

Neither. Every board is built to include someone whose job is to argue against the obvious answer. On a decision, at least two experts are assigned opposed positions. The disagreement stays on the memo — who dissented, why, and what would change the call. You get the dissent, not the rubber stamp.

How much does a hiring board cost?

On the Free plan a full board's card reads up to 135 credits and a new consult's reads up to 85 credits. A board never bills above its card. Free to start — 150 credits every month + 250 to start. Talking to your Chief of Staff is free within a daily allowance. A consult or a board shows its price on the card before anything runs, and nothing runs until you tap.

Keep exploring

Nearby decisions, audiences and methods inside SynthBoard.

SynthBoard (synthboard.ai) is one place for your business, your life, and every hard call. Your Chief of Staff keeps what you tell her on file, and 24 named experts on different AI models take the calls — one expert for a consult, a board with opposed seats for the hard ones — and hand back a memo with the call, the dissent and the first move. How it works.

24 named experts.
She seats the ones your call needs.

How do I sequence my next three hires for the most leverage?Is this a full-time role or should I scope it as a 6-month contract?Should I make a hire now or stretch the existing team another quarter?

It waits in her box after you sign up. Nothing is sent until you press send.