For talent teams and reviewing engineers

Confirming role requirements and setting the hiring bar

Colare exists to measure real engineering ability, not resume keywords. That only works if the assessment is built on an accurate picture of the job, and your team is the only one who has it. The proposal is how you give it to us: we draft, your engineers correct, one sign-off starts the build.

1What a proposal is

A proposal is a quick form that captures our first read of your JD: what the role is composed of, and the minimum bar a hire needs to clear. Your team edits both directly so the document matches the real job. Once the team has made its pass and signed off, our talent science team analyzes the results and builds the assessment out for you.

Section 1. What we think this role does

The assessment needs to emulate the real work happening on the job. This section lists the responsibilities we pulled from the JD, ranked by how central we believe each is to the role. You can re-rank, remove, and add.

Ranked responsibilities with re-rank and add controls
What it drives: the assessment is time-limited, so your top-ranked responsibilities get the deepest questions. Lower ranks get lighter coverage. Re-ranking here is how you point question depth at what matters.

Section 2. The minimum viable engineer

The skills the weakest candidate you would still be comfortable hiring must have. This list becomes the competence floor: the line that decides which candidates pass through and which stop here. That is why honest beats aspirational, a floor is not a wishlist.

Minimum viable engineer skill list with add field and mis-hire prompt
What it drives: the competence floor. No candidate advances below it, and together with your top-3 ranking it sets the starting cut score for the role.

2How the review works

Five steps from JD to live assessment.

1
Colare's talent science team

We draft the proposal from your JD

Colare's talent science team drafts the proposal and sends your talent team a link to the editable version, pre-filled with our read of the responsibilities and the minimum bar.

2
Talent team

Sends the link to the relevant engineers

The talent team owns this step: pick the engineer or engineers closest to the role and send them the link. Ready-to-send intro copy is provided with the proposal.

3
Engineers

The proposal circulates among your engineers

Anyone with the link can re-rank, edit, and add directly in the document. Changes save as they go, so whoever opens it next always sees the most updated version. No formal pass needed from every person, just from the people who know the work.

10 to 15 min per engineer

4
Final engineer

One engineer signs off

Once the review is done, one engineer types their name and confirms.

Signing off locks the document for everyone. The locked version is what we build from, so it should happen last.
5
Colare's talent science team

We build from the confirmed version

The assessment goes live to candidates within 7 days of sign-off.

3What a good review looks like

For the engineers doing the reviewing. Three habits separate a review that sharpens the assessment from one that rubber-stamps the JD.

Rank the daily work first

If the JD leads with a skill that comes up twice a year, demote it. The top three ranks decide where question depth goes, so they should be the three things the hire will do most.

Set the bar you would actually hold

The minimum viable engineer is the weakest hire you would still make. If a listed skill is trainable in week one, it does not belong on the floor.

Use the mis-hire prompt

Where past hires fell short is the single most predictive input you can give us. "Strong on paper, could not work from a drawing" tells us exactly what to test hardest.

4After sign-off

  1. We build the assessment from the confirmed version of this document.
  2. It is live to candidates within 7 days.
  3. Your top-3 ranking and minimum bar set the starting cut score for the role.
  4. Optional: 1 to 3 of your engineers take the assessment to benchmark the bar against people already doing the job.

5FAQ

Why does an engineer sign off instead of the talent team?
The proposal describes how the work is actually done, so the confirmation comes from someone close to it. The talent team owns routing; an engineer confirms accuracy.
What if our engineers disagree on the ranking?
Resolve it before the final sign-off, in the document or in a five-minute conversation. Since edits save live, the doc itself is a fine place to hash it out. The signing engineer confirms the resolved version, not their personal preference.
Can we change the proposal after it is signed off?
The sign-off locks the document because it is the version we build from. If something material changes about the role, tell your Colare contact and we will re-open the proposal and re-run the confirmation. What we avoid is silent drift between what was confirmed and what gets tested.
How many engineers should review?
One is enough, more is better. The proposal can circulate to as many engineers as you like, and everyone sees the latest version. Whoever reviews last signs off.
What if the JD itself is out of date?
Even better that this process exists, then. Correct the proposal to match the real job. The proposal, not the JD, is what the assessment is built from.
How long does the whole review take?
Sending the link takes minutes, and each engineer typically spends 10 to 15 minutes in the document. The 7-day build clock starts at sign-off, so a same-week review keeps the whole process inside two weeks.