Evaluating scientific talent, with people who can read the work
For deep-tech startups and applied labs that hire researchers — and know that pedigree is a weak instrument.
The problem you already know
If your company builds on science, your hardest hires are researchers — and the evidence that matters is exactly what generalist hiring processes cannot read. A publication list needs an expert to interpret it, a reference call samples one opinion, and a take-home exercise measures performance under conditions nothing like research.
So teams compensate with proxies — school, lab, journal names — and proxies are precisely what a research community with published standards can replace.
Calibrated panels, in design
Vocaid is building an evaluation community of working researchers across eight disciplines, anchored by public rubrics and, over time, by each evaluator's measured calibration record.
For hiring decisions, the design is evaluation panels: several evaluators from the relevant discipline will independently assess a candidate's research evidence against the published rubric, with their assessments weighted by demonstrated accuracy rather than seniority.
This page is written in design tense on purpose. The founding evaluator cohort is forming now, and the panel mechanics will be validated inside the community before any hiring decision depends on them. Partners who engage early get a say in what the panels must answer to be useful.
Where this fits in your process
Panels are designed to complement your process, not replace it. They answer the research-ability question; you keep the judgment about team, mission, and role fit. The intended output is a reasoned assessment against the rubric's named dimensions — an argument you can read, not a score without one.
Nor is this a marketplace. The community's first obligation is to its own evaluation standards; partner work will only ever run on the rubrics the community publishes, and evaluators' calibration records remain theirs.
The standard is public
Every discipline rubric this community will score against is published on this site, before the first evaluation. You can read exactly what a physics or biology assessment will weigh, and judge the standard yourself before trusting it.
That openness is the point. An evaluation you cannot inspect is another proxy; one you can read, challenge, and see applied consistently is an instrument.
If a rubric looks wrong for the roles you hire, that is a conversation we want to have — partner scrutiny before launch is worth more than agreement after it.
Talk to us
If evaluating research ability is a real problem for your team, we would like to compare notes while the panels are still being designed. A conversation, not a sales call — there is nothing to buy yet.