Kokoro People

Hiring and people support for small businesses and nonprofits

See what someone can actually do before you hire them.

We help owners and executive directors hire people who can do the job, and protect the business when a key person leaves. You keep the process, so you can run it again without us.

Book a call Hiring soon? Take the 2-minute check

Trusted by The Global Good Fund, Adaptiv, American Ambulance and Lanna Coffee Co.

Kokoro People logo: leaves in green, pink, mustard and leopard print under a sun
“We landed on two candidates, one who had less traditional credentials and the other who had a great resume listing the types of things that we wanted. To our astonishment, the less credentialed applicant had excellent organization and communication skills exhibited in their writing. We dodged a bullet and hired an employee that will be a force in the company’s future.”
Erik Petersen, CAO, American Ambulance

Prove-It Hiring

Hire from real work, not resumes.

Resumes tell you how well someone writes about themselves. We build a hiring process around what the job actually takes, and run it with you for one role.

  1. Get clear on the role

    We write down what this person has to do, decide and handle, and what doing it well looks like.

  2. Test with real work

    Instead of resumes and cover letters, candidates do short work samples based on the real job. You see what they can do, and they see what the work is like.

  3. Decide together, then keep it

    We review candidates with you at every stage and adjust the process where it falls short. Then it's yours. Clients have run it on their own over and over to fill roles successfully.

“Kokoro’s work-based samples made it easy to quickly and objectively evaluate candidates to see their actual capability. Kokoro has saved me countless hours and dollars in the process, delivering a high ROI.”
Bryan Feil, CEO, Lanna Coffee Co.
“Unlike other services, Kokoro provides hands-on support to coach and equip teams to implement and replicate the process independently.”
Anne Rasmussen, former Head of Sales, Copra (acquired by Vita Coco)
From the candidate's side
“This is the most beneficial hiring process I’ve ever experienced. I plan to stay here a long time.”
Morgan Meyers, hired through the process

Free · about 2 minutes

Before you post the job

Six quick questions about one role you're about to fill. You'll see how clear the role is, what a poor hire could cost, and what to fix before the post goes up.

Check your next hire

Protecting key roles

If your most important person couldn’t come in tomorrow, what would stop?

Illness, an accident, a family emergency, a resignation. It rarely comes with warning. When it happens, the relationships with clients and partners, the day-to-day operations, and the answers to “how do we handle this?” are stuck with one person.

You keep a spare key to your house with someone you trust. Most businesses have no spare key for what’s in one person’s head.

What our package includes

Here's what it looks like to get someone ready to step into a key role, whether it's yours or someone else's.

  1. Map the risks

    Also available on its own

    A conversation with you and short talks with two to four of your key people. You get a one-page map of the roles you'd struggle most to cover, who could step in today, and what to do in the next 30 days.

  2. Capture what they know

    Also available on its own

    We sit with your key person and write down how they make decisions, who they call, where things live, and what they do when something goes wrong. You get a playbook in plain language that anyone on your team can use to do the work. It also accelerates onboarding.

  3. Develop your successor

    We define what "ready" means for that role and give an honest read on where your person stands today. We help you identify stretch assignments that will mix watch, do and lead, to cultivate those skills and and provide targeted coaching. Make the readiness call: We objectively evaluate with you whether these people are ready, close to need more support

“Kokoro helped develop our most important team members who I’m cultivating for leadership. I witnessed them both grow in their ability to see more strategically, communicate effectively, and adopt more of a coaching posture.”
Matt Strmiska, CEO, Adaptiv
Talk through your key roles

Free · about 2 minutes

What if your best person left tomorrow?

Answer a few questions about one key role. You'll see how exposed the business is, what would suffer most, and get a backup plan for that role by email.

Check one key role

We also support teams with

Culture and valuesPerformance and feedbackPay and promotionManager coachingTeam relationships

In Japanese, kokoro means heart. It also means spirit, mind and soul: who we are at our essence.

About us

People tell us what they don't tell the boss.

Most of what keeps a small organization running isn't written down, and staff rarely share their immediate career plans with the person who signs their paycheck. We build trust with teams quickly, and that's how we surface the real issues and solutions.

Kokoro People was founded by Fujii, whose work began in rural Cameroon, co-founding a farming business with women farmers. A $100 start became a year-round operation, and the model was repeated with other groups. Since then she has spent more than 15 years helping organizations across Asia, Africa, Latin America and the US hire and develop their people, including The Global Good Fund, myAgro and Medic.

Organizations we've worked with

The Global Good FundAdaptivAmerican AmbulanceCopraLanna Coffee Co.Red Bay CoffeeStone SoupFood CommonsEvery Neighborhood Partnership
“Kokoro created and executed an application process to vet thousands of people worldwide to help The Global Good Fund select a handful of top-notch candidates. Kokoro knows what it takes to identify and engage top talent.”
Carrie Rich, CEO, The Global Good Fund
“Kokoro provided a clear way for us to be able to vet candidates. What's more, Kokoro gave us a replicable process we can deploy with future hires.”
Victor Thao, Board Chair
“In a department with poor morale, Kokoro helped me re-establish positive relationships with staff, improving communication, and enabling me to empower my team to drive changes to the work process.”
Donna Hankins, Director of Client Services, American Ambulance
“Kokoro is uniquely gifted to flesh out the needs of businesses and to match them with employee talent, on both a market and individual level.”
Scott Rhodes, COO, The Wonderful Company
“Kokoro guided us in realizing our true company values through systematic, empathetic exercises… We are now a more aligned and value-driven organization.”
Founder, IT company

Let's talk about what you're working on.

A short call to hear what's going on and whether we can help. We work with a few organizations at a time, so each one gets our full attention.

Book a call