Candidate Submittal Brief

Turn your notes on a candidate into the brief a recruiter sends the hiring manager (or client) to argue for an interview. Asked to "write up this candidate", base models produce a flattering paragraph — a rephrased resume, strengths given as adjectives, weaknesses omitted, and the logistics a manager actually needs (comp, start date) left off. This form forces a fixed set of labeled sections, evidence behind every claim, the money-and-timing facts, and an honest risks section a sales pitch would hide.

When to use / when NOT

• Use when packaging a specific candidate for a specific role to send to the hiring manager

or client who decides whether to interview them.

• Do NOT use for rewriting the candidate's own resume to target a role, screening a resume

against minimum bars to assign a pipeline stage, writing up interview panel notes into a scorecard, or drafting an offer/rejection email to the candidate.

The fixed section set

Emit these five labeled sections, in this order. Never collapse them into prose.

1. Fit Summary — 2–3 sentences: who the candidate is and why they match this role's stated

needs. Anchor to the role's requirements, not a general career overview.

1. Evidence-Backed Strengths — 3–4 strengths, each tied to a concrete fact from the

candidate's history. Not a list of adjectives.

1. Compensation Expectation — the candidate's stated target as a specific number or range

(with current comp if known and relevant). Never "competitive" or "flexible".

1. Availability / Notice — when they can start, or their notice period, stated concretely.
2. Risks / Gaps — at least one honest gap or risk relative to the role, stated plainly.

Evidence, not adjectives

Every strength must rest on a specific fact the notes give you — a thing they shipped, a measured outcome, years on a named system, a scope they owned. "Led the payments rewrite that cut checkout errors 40%" is evidence. "Strong engineer, great communicator" is an adjective and does not belong in the strengths section. If the notes do not support a claim, drop the claim — never invent the fact to fill the section.

Rules

1. Emit all five sections, labeled, in order. Never merge them into a narrative and never drop

one because your notes are thin on it.

1. Fit before flattery. The Fit Summary maps the candidate to the role's actual requirements.

A generic "seasoned professional" summary that would fit any role does not count.

1. Each strength cites a fact. Behavior, result, scope, or tenure drawn from the notes — never

a bare adjective and never an invented achievement.

1. Comp and availability are figures, not vibes. Give the number/range and the start date or

notice. If the candidate did not state one, write "not yet disclosed" — do not guess it.

1. Risks are real and unspun. Name at least one genuine gap against the role's needs, stated

as a gap. Do not omit it, and do not reframe a weakness as a strength ("a perfectionist").

1. It is a brief, not the resume. Do not restate the full work history chronologically. Select

only what bears on this role's decision.

Worked example

Notes (input): Backend eng, 6 yrs. Rebuilt a monolith's billing service into a service that now handles 2M invoices/mo; he is the on-call lead. Strong in Go and Postgres. Wants $185k, today at $168k. Can start in 4 weeks. Role is a Staff opening that expects mentoring 2–3 juniors, and he has spent his whole career as an individual contributor and has never managed anyone.

BEFORE (base default — rephrased-resume prose, adjectives, no risk, no logistics): > A highly accomplished backend engineer with 6 years of experience, deep expertise in Go and > Postgres, and a proven track record of delivering scalable systems. A strong communicator and > dedicated team player who would be a great asset to your team.

AFTER (this form): > Fit Summary — Backend engineer with 6 years building high-volume transactional systems, > matching this Staff role's ownership of the billing platform. Deepest where the role is hardest: > payments correctness at scale. > > Evidence-Backed Strengths > - Broke a billing monolith into a service that now processes 2M invoices/month. > - On-call lead for that service — owns its reliability, not just its code. > - Deep Go and Postgres, the exact stack this team runs. > > Compensation Expectation — Target $185k (currently $168k). > > Availability / Notice — Can start in ~4 weeks. > > Risks / Gaps — Has been an individual contributor throughout; never formally managed or > mentored people. This Staff role expects mentoring 2–3 juniors, so gauge his appetite and > readiness for that in the interview.

Edge cases

• Comp or start date not disclosed. Keep the section and write "not yet disclosed" — do not

invent a number and do not silently drop the section.

• You genuinely see no downside. Still write the Risks/Gaps section: name the closest thing to

a gap (a stretch in the role, a thin area, an open question to probe), rather than deleting it or writing "none".

• Notes are mostly a resume dump. Select only the facts that bear on this role; do not reproduce

the full chronological history.

• Strength is only an adjective in the notes. If the notes say "great communicator" with no

example, either find the supporting fact elsewhere in the notes or leave the claim out.

Do / Don't

• Always emit all five labeled sections in order.
• Always back each strength with a specific fact from the notes.
• Always give comp as a figure/range and availability as a concrete date or notice.
• Always include an honest gap in Risks/Gaps.
• Never write the brief as one flowing paragraph.
• Never list strengths as bare adjectives ("strong", "talented", "great fit").
• Never omit the risks, or disguise a weakness as a strength.
• Never rephrase the whole resume in place of a selective, role-anchored brief.

Common mistakes (the base's wrong defaults)

• A single glowing paragraph that reads like the resume reworded.
• Strengths given as adjectives with no shipped result, metric, or scope behind them.
• Comp written as "competitive"/"negotiable" or omitted; start date left off.
• No Risks/Gaps section, or a fake one ("only weakness is he cares too much").
• A generic Fit Summary that would fit any candidate for any role.