Scorecard workshop
Ninety minutes that save three weeks.
We ask what the person will have shipped by month twelve, then work backwards. You leave with a one-page scorecard you can hand to a board member.
About Marlowe & Teague · Nevada City, CA
Hiring is the one experiment you never designed. We design it with you.
You wouldn’t run an assay without a protocol, controls, and a pass/fail line. Yet most founders hire a head of CMC off a job post and a hunch. We built a firm around fixing that, from a desk in the Sierra foothills, on a fixed fee.
Why this firm exists
We got tired of watching good science stall on a bad hire.
The data was fine. The person running the data was the problem.
Marlowe & Teague started with a pattern. Small biotech teams with real programs kept losing a quarter, sometimes two, to a search that was priced like a bonus and run like a lottery. Contingency recruiters sent a flood of résumés. Big retained firms sent a junior researcher and a retainer invoice.
So we picked a lane: founder-led biotech and life-sciences startups, one role or a handful at a time, and a method that looks more like lab work than sales. Define the question. Run the screen. Show the data. Then, and only then, make the offer.
We work from Nevada City, a long way from the coastal biotech clusters, which turns out to be an advantage. Nobody at this desk is mining your competitor’s hallway. The phone is quiet, the calls are long, and the list is built name by name.
Your next hire is already out there. Give us twenty minutes to describe them properly.
Book a scoping callWhat we’d put on the lab door
Four opinions we’ll defend at any bench.
These aren’t values on a poster. Each one changes what you get from us on a Tuesday.
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A job post is a hypothesis, not a spec.
Before we source anyone, you and we write the scorecard: year-one outcomes, must-haves, comp band, red flags. If the role can’t be scored, it can’t be searched.
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Price the work, never the salary.
A percentage of comp pays us more when you overpay. A fixed fee pays us the same whether the hire costs $190,000 or $310,000, so our advice stays honest about the band.
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Scientists deserve a structured interview.
Gut feel is for choosing lunch. Every search ships with a kit: questions, work-sample prompts, and a debrief sheet, so five brilliant people can compare notes without arguing from vibes.
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A miss is a data point. Say so out loud.
If a shortlist isn’t right, we say what the scorecard missed and reopen sourcing at no added fee. We’d rather tell you in week three than let you find out in month six.
The fine print, in plain English
What we do, what we won’t, and what you can hold us to.
Read it like a protocol. If a line here ever stops being true, tell us.
| Topic | What we do | What we won’t |
|---|---|---|
| Who we recruit for | Founder-led biotech, diagnostics, tools, synthetic bio, and ag-bio teams. | Take a search outside life sciences just because the fee is nice. |
| How we bill | Three invoices: kickoff, shortlist, accepted offer. Fixed fees from $11,800. | Charge a percentage of salary, a surprise add-on, or a monthly retainer. |
| Who gets called | Agree the target list with you, then screen every name ourselves by phone. | Forward unread résumés or approach a candidate on a list you’ve closed. |
| Confidentiality | Keep your pipeline, comp band, and runway in-house to this desk. | Share your search with another client or quote your name without asking. |
| When we’re wrong | Recalibrate the scorecard and reopen sourcing at no added fee. | Blame the market and send the same names again. |
The desk in Nevada City
Small on purpose, so the person who scores your role is the one who calls the candidates.
We run a deliberately small number of searches at once. That means your scorecard doesn’t get handed to a stranger, and your shortlist call is with the same ears that heard your kickoff.
See what each search costs
Phone screens
Every candidate gets a real conversation first.
We talk through programs, stage, and scope of past roles before a name reaches your shortlist, so you read write-ups instead of guesswork.
Office hours
Pick up the phone, we’ll pick up.
Mon–Sat 9:30am–4pm · Sun 10am–4pm. Call (916) 200-9466 in lab mode or weekend mode.
Got a role keeping you up? Send the job description and we’ll mark it up with you.
Email contact@marloweteague.com