Building skills-based hiring from the ground up.

Cybersecurity hiring has a signal problem. A résumé can describe tools and credentials, but it does not show how someone investigates, prioritizes, or responds inside a realistic security scenario. Hiring teams spend time screening for proxies; capable candidates can be filtered out before demonstrating ability.

We centered the experience on capture-the-flag-style assessments: realistic, observable tasks that produce structured performance evidence. The bet was that demonstrated ability could improve both hiring speed and decision quality.

I translated that bet into the product vision, MVP roadmap, assessment framework, and go-to-market direction.

• Defined the product vision and sequenced the MVP around the smallest complete assessment loop.
• Designed assessment frameworks that connected scenarios to observable candidate performance.
• Specified dashboards so evaluators could compare evidence rather than rely on an undifferentiated score.
• Defined product metrics and analytics alongside the experience—not after launch.
• Shaped positioning and go-to-market for hackathon-style cybersecurity hiring.

40% faster time-to-hire.

The product also reported a 60% reduction in hiring bias and 45% higher candidate engagement. These figures are presented as reported product outcomes from the latest résumé; the deeper lesson is the operating model behind them: define what success means before building, then make the evidence visible to the user.

Hirelyst taught me to own the full loop: problem framing, product shape, sequence, instrumentation, and route to market. It also reinforced a belief that runs through my later work—better decisions start by replacing a weak proxy with evidence closer to the real behavior.