Partnerships Hiring

Build the artefacts a hiring manager needs to recruit into a partnerships role with the rigor this field's own hiring evidence supports: a scorecard calibrated to company type, a structured interview loop with named case studies and judgment tests, a sourcing plan, and a compensation stance that doesn't pretend the public benchmarks agree.

Partnerships has no cross-company career ladder and no named posting-quality taxonomy the way sales or DevRel do - that absence is why this skill leans on company-type calibration and the field's few well-documented loop patterns instead of importing a framework that doesn't exist here.

Out of scope, hand off instead: coaching the candidate - mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partnerships-career is the mirror image of this skill. If the user is job-hunting rather than hiring, say so in one line and route them there.

Interview

Ask one question at a time, multiple-choice where possible. Skip anything already answered. Questions 8-10 re-rank the artefacts below - ask them before producing anything.

1. Which sub-discipline: (a) channel/alliance and business-partner strategy (b) affiliate program management (c) influencer/creator partnerships (d) referral program management (e) not sure - recommend one from the company's motion.
2. Company type: (a) early-stage startup, this will be the first dedicated partnerships hire (b) scale-up building a dedicated team (c) enterprise with per-hyperscaler or per-tier headcount (d) PLG company where integrations/affiliates dominate.
3. Go-to-market motion: sales-led B2B, product-led (PLG), or a hybrid?
4. For a first dedicated hire: is a founder or someone else already spending 10+ hours a week on partner inbound/outbound today?
5. What does this role need to be measured on - partner-sourced pipeline, partner-sourced revenue, integration/marketplace activations, affiliate-driven revenue, or referral conversion?
6. Reporting line: will this role report to sales, marketing, or its own function? (This changes what the role is actually measured on - answer honestly, not aspirationally.)
7. Compensation stance: will you publish a range, and do you know the attribution model (sourced/influenced/attached/delivered) that would trigger any variable pay?
8. Deadline: this month, this quarter, or no hard date?
9. One-off hire or the first of several where the scorecard and loop get reused?
10. Effort ceiling: how many interviewer-hours per candidate, and is there a recruiter or trained panel?

Reading the answers

• Q1 + Q2 decide the scorecard template and the interview format - load references/company-type-hiring-bar.md. A startup hire is screened as a generalist; an enterprise hire is screened for depth against one hyperscaler or partner tier; a PLG hire is screened for integration/marketplace fluency over channel deal-registration process.
• Q2 + Q4 decide the candidate profile for a first dedicated hire. Two named failure modes to avoid: hiring someone too senior, who expects to set strategy and lead a team when the actual need is hands-on execution; and hiring someone too generalist with no real go-to-market reps, who cannot prioritize which early motions will actually work. Match the hire to the intended shape of the work - a few deep, high-touch integrations versus many light-touch partnerships need different profiles.
• Q5 sets the scorecard's outcome metrics - never write generic "build partnerships" outcomes; name the actual metric this role owns.
• Q6 is the single highest-leverage question in this interview. A role's real measurement follows its reporting line, not its title - a partnerships role under sales gets measured like a sales role, under marketing like a campaign function, standalone like its own P&L. Write the scorecard's outcomes to match the actual reporting line, not an aspirational one.
• Q7 triggers the compensation gate in the Quality gate below - published benchmarks for partnerships titles disagree by 2-3x on the same title (see references/compensation-guidance.md), so never quote a single blended figure as market rate.
• Q8 promotes reusing an existing loop and question bank over designing new ones from scratch.
• Q9 decides whether the interview loop stays thin. One-off: keep it lean. Compounding: build the loop and scorecard properly since they serve every future hire in this sub-discipline.
• Q10 deletes loop stages rather than reordering them, the same way sales-hiring treats a tight interviewer-hour budget.

Workflow

Produce the artefacts in order, validating each with the user before moving to the next.

1. Run the Interview. State the sub-discipline and company-type calibration in one short paragraph the user can veto.
2. Artefact 1 - role scorecard. Build from references/company-type-hiring-bar.md:
   • a one-sentence mission naming the reporting line and its metric (Q6)
   • 3-8 measurable outcomes matched to Q5's stated metric, never vague responsibilities like "build partnerships"
   • competencies weighted per sub-discipline and company type - a startup generalist scorecard should not read like an enterprise alliance-manager scorecard with the numbers changed
3. Artefact 2 - interview loop and question bank. Build from references/interview-loop-and-case-studies.md:
   • for channel/alliance hires, the documented pattern applies: recruiter screen, hiring-manager round(s) with cross-functional stakeholders, behavioral/scenario questions on partner conflict, a technical/tooling round, and at senior levels a multi-department panel with a mock 30/60/90-day plan or partner business review
   • include the two named judgment probes explicitly: the "same deal in December as January" question, and the de-prioritized-partner follow-up - both are rehearsable-but-revealing, the field's version of a DevRel-opinion round
   • a negotiation role-play, when warranted: a two-sided simulation with hidden constraints, scored on how the candidate structures terms and finds a walk-away point, never on who "won"
   • for affiliate, influencer/creator, and referral hires: no comparably documented loop pattern exists - build the loop from the role's actual outcome metrics (program performance, campaign results, incentive-design decisions) instead of importing the channel-manager case studies wholesale, since the day-to-day differs enough that those scenarios would test the wrong thing
4. Artefact 3 - sourcing plan. Build from references/sourcing-channels.md:
   • for a first dedicated hire, look inside the existing sales/BD organization before posting externally - the person already fielding partner inquiries informally is a validated, low-risk candidate pool
   • post on the field's one dedicated job board, and treat the overlapping practitioner communities as a sourcing channel in their own right, not just a research source
5. Artefact 4 - compensation stance. Build from references/compensation-guidance.md:
   • never invent a single market-rate figure; present a range with its source and population, or check the field-specific compensation database live
   • match the pay structure to the sub-discipline (three-part base/bonus/commission for affiliate roles; base-plus-variable tied to a named attribution model for channel/alliance roles)
   • decide and state which attribution model (sourced, influenced, attached, delivered) triggers any variable pay before publishing the posting
6. Run the Quality gate below. Iterate until it passes.
7. If your harness has persistent memory, store the scorecard, the loop design, and the sourcing plan so a repeat hire in this sub-discipline reuses them instead of restarting.

Company type and sub-discipline calibration

Never treat one scorecard template as portable across company types or sub-disciplines - the full comparison, timing signals for when to formalize the role, and the field's specific staffing-imbalance risk at enterprise scale (business development over-rotated under marketing, under-rotated under sales) live in references/company-type-hiring-bar.md.

Quality gate

Score the artefacts against these checks before final delivery. Iterate until every check passes.

1. The scorecard names the actual reporting line (Q6) and its metric, and every outcome is quantified.
2. The candidate profile for a first dedicated hire avoids both named failure modes: not too senior for hands-on execution, not too generalist with no GTM reps.
3. The interview loop for a channel/alliance hire includes at least one named judgment probe and, where warranted, a scored negotiation role-play.
4. For affiliate, influencer/creator, or referral hires, the loop is built from the role's own outcome metrics, not copied from the channel-manager pattern.
5. No stage asks a candidate to do unpaid client-style work beyond a reasonable, bounded exercise.
6. Sourcing considers the internal organization first for a first dedicated hire, before external posting.
7. The posting states a real compensation stance - a published range with source and population, or an explicit reason it's gated - never "competitive" with nothing behind it.
8. The attribution model behind any variable pay is named explicitly, not left implicit.
9. Every comp or benchmark figure used carries its source and date; no single blended number is presented as settled market rate.

Common failure modes

Not ranked, deliberately: every row is a defect with one mandatory fix.

Reference

• references/company-type-hiring-bar.md - the four company-type rows, timing signals, and the two named startup-hire failure modes.
• references/interview-loop-and-case-studies.md - the channel-manager loop, named case studies, judgment probes, and negotiation role-play design.
• references/sourcing-channels.md - the field's one dedicated job board, overlapping communities, and the internal-transfer sourcing implication.
• references/compensation-guidance.md - comp tables with sources, structure by sub-discipline, and the attribution-model decision.
• See mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partnerships-career for the candidate's side of this table.
• See mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partner-tiering for designing the partner-tier structure this role will operate, once hired.
• See mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partner-enablement for the onboarding curriculum a new alliance or channel hire will use to ramp partners once in seat.