Building a creative team when no playbook exists.
When Gusto's Chief Creative Officer joined to build Brand Studio from scratch, there were no rubrics, no sourcing guides, no portfolio evaluation frameworks, and no precedent. I built all of it.
Ximena Keirouz joined Gusto as Chief Creative Officer with a vision for Brand Studio that didn't exist yet. No team. No framework. No hiring history to learn from.
Every role was a first-of-its-kind search at Gusto — GCD Copy, Brand Design Manager, Web Experiences, Editor Motion, Content Strategist. Each one required a completely different sourcing strategy, a different way of reading portfolios, a different sense of what "great" looked like for that discipline.
I could have treated each role as a standalone search. Instead, I built a system. One that would make every subsequent Brand Studio hire faster, smarter, and more consistent — and that would preserve everything we learned along the way.
Creative hiring is fundamentally different.
Product design hiring has decades of established practice. Creative hiring — copywriting, motion, brand design, web experiences, content strategy — doesn't translate. The signals are different. The portfolios are different. The sourcing channels are different. And the stakes of a wrong read are high when you're building a brand function from nothing.
No Existing Rubrics
There were no calibration frameworks, no portfolio evaluation standards, and no documented signals for what "strong" looked like for any Brand Studio role at Gusto. Every assessment started from zero.
Portfolio as Primary Gate
In creative hiring, the portfolio isn't one signal among many — it's the first and most important filter. Without a structured way to evaluate portfolios consistently, every review was a judgment call with no shared standard.
Agency vs. Tech Pedigree
The signals that indicate strength in creative roles are fundamentally different from product design. Top-tier agency background, independent network pedigree, and campaign range matter in ways that don't apply to most Gusto hiring.
Each Discipline Requires Its Own Framework
A GCD Copy rubric looks nothing like an Editor Motion rubric. A Content Strategist assessment requires completely different dimensions than Web Experiences. Five roles meant five distinct frameworks — all built from scratch.
You can't find what the leader wants until you understand how they see.
The most important thing I did on Brand Studio wasn't sourcing. It was learning how Ximena thinks.
Through intake conversations, portfolio reviews together, candidate debriefs, and calibration sessions, I built a working model of her taste — what made her stop scrolling, what made her hesitate, what made her say "this is the one." That model became the foundation for every rubric I built.
"Bri, I've only worked with you for a few weeks and you've already made such a great impression. Your insights and experience helped me make a quick and sound decision when I needed it the most."
The insight was simple: creative hiring is subjective until you've done the work to make it legible. My job was to translate Ximena's creative instincts into structural frameworks that any recruiter could apply — and that would hold up across hundreds of candidates.
What I built for every search.
Each Brand Studio role got a complete hiring infrastructure — not just a job description. Every component was designed to compound: the more we learned from each search, the sharper every subsequent one became.
Six-Dimension Rubric (D1–D6)
Each role has a custom rubric calibrated to Ximena's actual signals — not the JD. Dimensions cover craft, range, systems thinking, AI fluency, cultural fit, and role-specific criteria. Strong Yes threshold: 14+ points.
Hard Filters
Non-negotiable stops before scoring begins. No portfolio = immediate HARDSTOP. Digital/social-only background for a role requiring integrated campaigns = pass. These protect everyone's time.
Sourcing Target Companies
Role-specific lists of where to hunt: holding company agencies, independent creative networks, Google Brand Studio, Airbnb, Shopify, Spotify. Not generic sourcing — precision targeting by discipline.
Portfolio Evaluation Standards
Specific guidance on what to look for in each discipline's portfolio: integrated campaign range for copy, editorial storytelling for motion, interactive web craft for digital, content systems for strategy.
AI Fluency Requirement
Universal Gusto hard filter applied to all Brand Studio roles: zero AI signal = automatic pass. But the bar is specific — Claude Code or Cursor in production for Web, Runway or Veo for Motion. Tool name-drops don't count.
Write-Back to Hiring Compass
Every calibration signal, candidate advance, and PE feedback is written back to Hiring Compass — so Brand Studio hiring intelligence compounds instead of disappearing at the end of each search.
Five searches. Five frameworks.
Each Brand Studio role required a completely distinct approach. Here's what made each one unique.
A function built. Infrastructure that lasts.
Creative hiring isn't subjective. It's legible — once you do the work.
The Brand Studio framework taught me that creative hiring feels subjective only when no one has done the work to make it legible. The signals are real. The patterns are real. The difference between a Strong Yes and a Maybe is concrete — once you've built the framework to see it clearly.
The most valuable thing I built wasn't any individual rubric. It was the infrastructure that ensures the next Brand Studio search doesn't start from zero. Every PE signal, every calibration correction, every portfolio review is preserved — ready to inform the next hire before the first resume is opened.
Editorial Note: Names and identifying details have been changed to protect confidentiality. The work itself has not.