Most bad hires aren’t bad luck. They’re a broken process.
Thistledown Consulting builds the recruiting process and core HR practices that keep you from hiring the wrong person again — job scoping, structured interviews, reference checks that catch problems, and the policies to back it up.
Not payroll, not benefits. Just the hiring and HR foundation most small businesses never got the chance to build.
The Thistledown approach
A good hiring process doesn’t just find better candidates. It stops you from talking yourself into the wrong one.
Big enough to need hiring discipline, too small for an HR department.
Thistledown Consulting was founded to close the gap most small businesses fall into. We work with owners who are hiring on instinct because nobody ever showed them another way, and every engagement starts by looking at your last few hires, good and bad, before we change anything.
Three ways we tighten up your hiring.
Recruiting and HR practices built for businesses that don’t have an internal HR department yet.
Hiring Process Design
We scope the role before you post it, build structured interview scripts tied to what the job requires, and put a scorecard in place so the decision isn’t made on charisma alone.
HR Foundations
Employee handbook, offer letter templates, and the core policies — attendance, conduct, leave — that most small businesses are missing until something goes wrong.
Candidate Vetting
Reference checks and screening steps designed to catch the red flags a resume and a gut feeling miss.
We’d made two hiring mistakes in a year before Thistledown rebuilt our interview process. Our last four hires have all worked out. That’s not a coincidence.
Devon Okwuosa
Owner, Okwuosa Logistics
Let’s fix the process before your next hire.
A short audit tells you exactly where your current hiring process is leaking good candidates or letting the wrong ones through.