partnerships-hiring

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from when this skill was listed. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: partnerships-hiring
description: Employer-side partnerships hiring across the field's four sub-disciplines - channel/alliance, affiliate, influencer/creator, referral. Calibrates the scorecard to company type (startup generalist, scale-up specialist, enterprise per-hyperscaler headcount, PLG integrations-first), builds the channel-manager loop with its named judgment test and negotiation role-play, sources candidates from the field's job board and communities, and gates compensation on live verification since public benchmarks disagree by 2-3x. States plainly where no documented loop exists for a sub-discipline. Use whenever the user asks how to hire a partner manager, write a partnerships job posting, design an interview loop, or source candidates. Do NOT use for candidate-side prep (mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partnerships-career).
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: Maya-Beth Finotti
  version: "1.1.9"
---

# Partnerships Hiring

Build the artefacts a hiring manager needs to recruit into a partnerships role with the rigor this field's own hiring evidence supports: a scorecard calibrated to company type, a structured interview loop with named case studies and judgment tests, a sourcing plan, and a compensation stance that doesn't pretend the public benchmarks agree.

Partnerships has no cross-company career ladder and no named posting-quality taxonomy the way sales or DevRel do - that absence is why this skill leans on company-type calibration and the field's few well-documented loop patterns instead of importing a framework that doesn't exist here.

Out of scope, hand off instead: coaching the candidate - mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partnerships-career is the mirror image of this skill. If the user is job-hunting rather than hiring, say so in one line and route them there.

## Interview

Ask one question at a time, multiple-choice where possible. Skip anything already answered. Questions 8-10 re-rank the artefacts below - ask them before producing anything.

1. Which sub-discipline: (a) channel/alliance and business-partner strategy (b) affiliate program management (c) influencer/creator partnerships (d) referral program management (e) not sure - recommend one from the company's motion.
2. Company type: (a) early-stage startup, this will be the first dedicated partnerships hire (b) scale-up building a dedicated team (c) enterprise with per-hyperscaler or per-tier headcount (d) PLG company where integrations/affiliates dominate.
3. Go-to-market motion: sales-led B2B, product-led (PLG), or a hybrid?
4. For a first dedicated hire: is a founder or someone else already spending 10+ hours a week on partner inbound/outbound today?
5. What does this role need to be measured on - partner-sourced pipeline, partner-sourced revenue, integration/marketplace activations, affiliate-driven revenue, or referral conversion?
6. Reporting line: will this role report to sales, marketing, or its own function? (This changes what the role is actually measured on - answer honestly, not aspirationally.)
7. Compensation stance: will you publish a range, and do you know the attribution model (sourced/influenced/attached/delivered) that would trigger any variable pay?
8. Deadline: this month, this quarter, or no hard date?
9. One-off hire or the first of several where the scorecard and loop get reused?
10. Effort ceiling: how many interviewer-hours per candidate, and is there a recruiter or trained panel?

## Reading the answers

- **Q1 + Q2 decide the scorecard template and the interview format** - load [references/company-type-hiring-bar.md](./references/company-type-hiring-bar.md). A startup hire is screened as a generalist; an enterprise hire is screened for depth against one hyperscaler or partner tier; a PLG hire is screened for integration/marketplace fluency over channel deal-registration process.
- **Q2 + Q4 decide the candidate profile for a first dedicated hire.** Two named failure modes to avoid: hiring someone **too senior**, wh