Playbook 03 · New / hiring

They are hiring full-time for work you could deliver in two or three days a week. Their search will take ninety days, and you could start on Tuesday. This playbook is how you make that offer without ever sounding like a rejected candidate.

Playbook 03 / full-time post, fractional answer
Who it targets Usually the CEO or founder at a 30–300 person company posting the first senior hire in your function.
The signal Senior single-contributor role (Head of / Director / VP), reports to CEO/founder, broad scope that looks like four jobs in one job description.
Where it is visible LinkedIn Jobs, company careers page, occasionally a founder post that links the role.
Time cost Part of the ~270 hour hiring set. Per live target: ~45 minutes through the tradecraft pipeline once the row is a keeper. Plan 4–6 solid sends a week if this is your only hiring angle.

How to run it

Tradecraft stages 1 and 2. Title strings: “Head of [function],” “Director of [function],” “VP [function].” Size band you serve. Agency strip until you have a named company.

Step 02: Read the description for scope, not for ego.

Are they asking one person to own positioning, demand, lifecycle, and team build from zero? Fractional fit. Are they hiring a manager with five reports already in place and a mature stack? Not your playbook. The tell is breadth without bench. Run expansion (tradecraft stage 3) on keepers so you catch copied briefs and richer ATS pages.

Step 03: Find the decision-maker with the tradecraft method.

Enumerate the org (tradecraft stage 4). Playbook-specific ladder: first senior hire in your function usually points at the CEO or founder under ~80 people, COO or commercial lead when a founder is no longer the only executive. Skim four weeks of their posts for tone. If you cannot name a human who can approve work, skip.

Step 04: Write the economic framing, not a CV.

They are about to spend ninety days screening a few hundred applicants, run multiple interview rounds, often pay a recruiter fee around a quarter of first-year salary, and onboard someone who needs months to ramp. You bring the function online in two weeks, part-time, with a clear exit into a full-time hire later if they still want one.

Step 05: Waterfall, send, log. Then stop talking about yourself.

Tradecraft stages 5 and 6. One short note. One proof point from a similar stage company if you can share it. Offer a twenty-minute call or a one-page “first 30 days” outline for that function. Do not attach a long capability deck on first touch.

What to say

CEO / first Head of Marketing role / LinkedIn

Alex, saw the Head of Marketing post at Flowline. Scope reads like four seats: positioning, demand, lifecycle, and the first team hires. I help Series B teams stand that function up in two days a week while they decide what full-time should look like. Recent pattern: pipeline operating rhythm in place by week three, hire profile written from real work not guesswork.

If a 90-day full-time search is the plan, fine. If you want the function live this month, I can show you what the first 30 days would be on a single page. Useful?

How this playbook fails

  • You pitch fractional to a company that already has a full senior team. Insult, not help.
  • You argue ideology (“full-time is dead”) instead of economics for this role.
  • You apply through Easy Apply like a candidate, which ranks you below the expert seat you are offering.
  • You hide that you are fractional, which reads as soft selling and filters the wrong buyers late instead of early.
  • You send the same paragraph to twenty CEOs, which is volume posture, not expert posture. They can tell.