Now Hiring
Head of Skills Advisory
The Opportunity
Most enterprise software fails not because the technology doesn’t work, but because the client wasn’t ready for it. In talent and hiring, that gap is almost always about skills: no competency framework, weak job descriptions, immature thinking about what good actually looks like for a role. The platform can’t fix that. People have to.
At Vervoe, we’ve built the most capable skills assessment platform in the market. What we’re building now is the advisory layer that makes it land — that closes the gap between what a client signs up for and what they actually get, and that elevates the conversation from “assessment tool” to “skills intelligence partner.”
This is the founding role for that function. You’ll work across our enterprise accounts and new engagements — ensuring the foundations are in place for clients to get real value, scoping and delivering advisory work that sits above the product layer, and taking on the highest-complexity assignments yourself. AI readiness is one area where this work is in high demand right now. But the role is anchored to skills, not to a market trend.
We’re looking for someone who sees “build it” as the compelling part, not the daunting part.
What This Function Does
There’s a gap between what Vervoe’s platform delivers and the value a client actually realizes — and it’s not a technology gap. It’s about assessment maturity: whether a client has the frameworks, mindset, and organizational readiness to use skills data well. Closing that gap is the job.
The function operates across two commercial motions simultaneously.
Embedded advisory across existing accounts
Woven into the account relationship, this is the work that protects and expands product value. It’s often undiscovered until you’re in the room:
- A client wants to deploy Vervoe but doesn’t have job descriptions that reflect what the role actually requires – which means the assessment can’t be built properly, and skills won’t be identified correctly. You identify the gap, scope the work to close it, and ensure the engagement succeeds.
- An account is underusing the platform because nobody has built a competency framework that connects hiring criteria to business outcomes. You diagnose it, propose the work, and either deliver it or scope it as a standalone advisory engagement.
- A client is trying to move toward skills-based hiring but is hitting internal resistance – change management, stakeholder alignment, manager skepticism. You navigate that, not as a consultant parachuted in, but as a trusted advisor embedded in the relationship.
- Assessment design for complex or non-standard roles requires expertise beyond what the implementation team can provide. You bring it.
This motion’s primary accountability is product retention and expansion. When clients are assessment-mature and well-supported, they renew, expand, and refer.
Standalone advisory engagements
Scoped, priced, and delivered as advisory services – separate from the product subscription. These are the engagements where the advisory function generates its own revenue:
- Competency framework design: building the skills architecture that makes everything downstream work – hiring, development, workforce planning.
- Assessment program design: structuring an enterprise-wide approach to skills measurement, including governance, role coverage, and evaluation criteria.
- AI readiness engagements: defining what AI-augmented roles require, assessing workforce readiness at the individual level, and producing a segmented readiness map that large consulting firms can’t deliver.
- Skills-based hiring readiness: diagnosing where a client is on the maturity curve and building the roadmap to get them to skills-first hiring in practice, not just in policy.
This motion carries its own revenue target. The two motions reinforce each other – embedded advisory creates the relationships and visibility that surface standalone engagement opportunities, and standalone engagements deepen the product relationship.
What You’ll Own
Client relationships
The most important thing you’ll do is earn trust with senior people – CHROs, Chief Transformation Officers, People VPs – and become mission-critical to their workforce strategy. That relationship is what surfaces the real problems, not the presenting ones.
Assessment maturity across the account base
You’ll develop a view of where each enterprise client sits on the skills and assessment maturity curve – and a plan for what it takes to move them. This is both a retention mechanism and a pipeline for advisory work.
Engagement delivery
You’re in the work. Competency frameworks, assessment program design, AI readiness engagements, complex assessment builds – this is hands-on delivery, not oversight.
Scoping and pricing
One of the most important things this role does is prevent underscoping. You’ll identify where the work is bigger than the original brief, have the commercial conversation to reflect that, and ensure advisory work is properly charged for.
Practice development
You’ll build the methodology, templates, and frameworks that make the advisory function scalable. This is the founding part of the role – you’re not inheriting a finished playbook, you’re writing it.
Partnership conversations
The co-sell opportunity with transformation consultancies and HR advisory firms is real. You’ll develop those relationships and position Vervoe as the evidence and measurement layer for their strategic work.
Who You Are
Three skill sets matter for this role, in this order.
First
You can lead a consulting engagement
Scoping an ambiguous problem into a deliverable with a price tag. Managing a client relationship where you’re the external party being scrutinized. Structuring and facilitating workshops with senior stakeholders. Writing findings that land with a CHRO who can walk away. This is a distinct craft – and the hardest thing to develop on the job.
Second
You can operate without institutional support
At a large firm, half the room’s receptivity is the logo on the deck. At Vervoe, you are the credibility signal. You’ve already operated in a context where you had to win on personal expertise and relationship quality, not brand.
Third
You know the skills and talent landscape deeply
Competency frameworks, assessment design, skills-based hiring, workforce intelligence – this is the domain. You don’t need to be taught it. You bring a point of view and can engage credibly with practitioners, HR leaders, and C-suite buyers on the substance.
You likely come from one of these three places:
Boutique or mid-tier workforce advisory
A specialist HR advisory, future-of-work practice, or org effectiveness consultancy. You’ve run engagements on your own credibility, without a household-name firm behind you. You’re probably frustrated that strategy work never gets to the skills layer – the actual measurement of whether people can do what the framework says they should.
Consulting-to-practitioner crossover
You did serious time in consulting – engagement manager level, running your own projects – and then moved in-house into a senior talent, OD, or transformation role. You have the craft and the buyer empathy. You understand what it takes to run an engagement and what it feels like to be on the receiving end of one.
Senior advisory or solutions role at an HR tech company
Not an account executive – the person brought into complex deals to run the strategic conversation. You’ve built practice-like functions inside a product company, operated without a big brand, and done the upstream advisory work of defining what a client needs before there’s anything to implement. You understand the gap between platform capability and client readiness because you’ve lived it.
We’re not looking for someone whose entire career has been in-house. Deep HR practitioner experience is an asset, but it doesn’t develop the consulting craft — scoping, pricing, managing the external relationship — that this role requires.
Across all backgrounds, we’re looking for the same core attributes:
CHRO-level credibility.
You can walk into a conversation with a Chief People Officer or Chief Transformation Officer and be taken seriously as a peer, not a vendor.
Genuine fluency in skills and assessment.
You find competency frameworks and assessment design interesting, not beneath you. The skills layer is where you’re anchored, not a stepping stone to something more strategic.
Commercial instincts.
You can see where the work is bigger than the brief and have the confidence to say so. You understand the difference between scope that builds the relationship and scope that gets left on the table.
Solo-operator instincts.
This is a hands-on role inside a ~22-person company. You’ll be the person in the room, writing the frameworks, interpreting the data, presenting findings. You need to be good at all of it.
The ability to see the deeper problem.
Clients present tool needs. The real problem is almost always about readiness, mindset, or organizational foundations. You can hear what’s not being said and reframe the conversation accordingly.
Builder instincts.
This is a founding role. You’ll establish patterns and make judgment calls that set the standard for everything that follows. That should excite you.
What You’re Walking Into
We’re not asking you to validate a hypothesis. The demand exists.
- An existing enterprise account base with active advisory needs – clients who are ready to go deeper on skills strategy, competency design, and assessment maturity, and where the relationship already exists.
- Active engagements and a qualified pipeline across accounts where AI readiness and skills transformation are the central themes – mid-market, global enterprise, and institutional buyers.
- A validated demand signal from enterprise buyers actively searching for the capability to move from credential-based to skills-based hiring in practice, not just in policy.
- A platform – Vervoe’s task-based assessment infrastructure – that is the most capable skills evidence tool in the market, and the natural anchor for everything the advisory function delivers.
- Regulatory tailwinds: NYC Local Law 144, the EU AI Act, and growing enterprise demand for explainable, auditable, skills-based hiring processes.
- An experienced Vervoe team member supporting delivery from day one – you’re not doing everything alone.
What This Role Is Not
A sales role. You’ll be the reason deals close and expand – but through the quality of advisory relationships and the value of the work, not through pipeline management.
A pure AI strategy role. AI readiness is a real and growing part of the work. It’s not the whole job. The role is anchored to skills – which means competency frameworks, assessment design, and hiring maturity are just as central as AI transformation.
A strategy-only role. You’ll be in the delivery. Frameworks, assessment builds, client workshops, maturity diagnostics – this is hands-on work.
A role for a pure in-house practitioner. Deep HR experience is an asset. But if you’ve never run a consulting engagement as the external party – scoping, pricing, managing the relationship – the core craft of this role will be a steep learning curve.
A role for someone who needs a fully built playbook. The methodology is maturing. You’ll shape it.
What Happens Next
We use our own platform — every time, for every role.
Initial conversation
A quick call to make sure we’re aligned on the opportunity and what you’re looking for.
Skills assessment
Designed to show us how you think about advisory and workforce problems – and give you a realistic sense of the work.
Deeper conversations
You get the full picture of the commercial model, existing pipeline, and the clients we’re already working with.
We move quickly
If we’re both in, we get started.