Johnathen Evans-Guilbault

Bordeaux · Brunswick · wherever the work needs doing

Building employment infrastructure. Writing literary fiction. Twelve years inside HR, now working outside it too.

I’m Johnathen Evans-Guilbault. I lead HR work, found and run Open HR, and write novels. This site is a living record of all three.

Career

Twelve years of HR — federal, public health, enterprise delivery.

A consistent through-line: classification, compensation, organizational design, and HR systems. Reverse chronological — newest first.

  1. Nov 2025present

    Bordeaux, France

    Founder & President

    Open HR · SASU · Bordeaux

    Building an HR-technology platform (RefScore / ProScore) that algorithmically scores employment references using I-O psychology and psychometric methods. Leading all technical and commercial operations toward a 2026 launch across EU, UK, and US.

    • Recruited and manage a cross-functional technical team (Go, React, Kotlin, Swift, MongoDB)
    • Architected hiring processes for backend, mobile, and infrastructure roles
    • Built and shipped production software across five codebases
    • Designed GDPR / DORA-compliant data architecture on EU infrastructure
  2. Jun 2023Oct 2024

    Fairfax, Virginia

    Personnel Manager

    ASM Research, LLC · an Accenture Federal company · IRS contract

    Led a ten-person HR team delivering talent-management services across 27 business units and 90,000+ employees in eight states, on a $245M contract with the Internal Revenue Service.

    • Reviewed and classified 7,500 position descriptions in four months
    • Established eight KPIs for workforce metrics; translated data into hiring recommendations
    • Partnered with C-suite and five VPs on talent strategy and organizational effectiveness
    • Standardized charge letters and counseling — 25% faster case resolution
  3. Nov 2020Dec 2024

    Brunswick, Georgia

    Co-Founder & CEO

    SopHRa, LLC · HR-tech startup

    Founded an HR-technology startup focused on AI-assisted job analysis and compensation management. Led product strategy from concept to alpha in four months. Validated product–market fit for AI-powered HR tools through enterprise client research.

  4. Jan 2023Jun 2023

    Salem, Oregon

    Senior HR Analyst, Compensation & Total Rewards

    Oregon Health Authority

    Compensation redesign and Workday HCM implementation across a state agency.

    • Led compensation redesign for 18,000+ employees across nine job families
    • Benchmarked against Mercer, Radford, and Willis Towers Watson
    • Workday HCM SME during a twelve-month implementation
    • Conducted pay-equity analyses (gender and racial) informing hiring frameworks
  5. Sep 2021Jul 2022

    Washington, D.C.

    Senior HR Specialist (Classification)

    U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development · Office of Inspector General

    Agency-wide classification policy and a restructure projecting $5M annual savings.

    • Developed agency-wide classification policy impacting 500+ employees
    • Led restructure projecting $5M in annual cost savings
    • Designed payroll process — 5 days → 2.5 days, ~200 labor hrs/month saved
    • Designed and facilitated HR training for 100+ supervisors
  6. Nov 2019Sep 2021

    Savannah, Georgia

    Senior HR Specialist

    U.S. Army Corps of Engineers · Civilian Human Resources Agency

    Multi-disciplinary classification team spanning the full GS-1 through GS-15 range.

    • Managed a multi-disciplinary team of 13 HR specialists
    • Classified positions up to GS-15; evaluations sustained 95%+ by the regional office
    • Conducted FLSA audits across 500 positions
    • Counseled senior executives up to Three-Star General level on organizational design
  7. Apr 2013Nov 2019

    Brunswick, Georgia

    HR Specialist (Recruitment, Placement, Classification)

    U.S. Department of Homeland Security · Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers

    Entry point into the field. Six years of compounding specialization across classification, recruitment, and HRIS.

    • $250K HRIS implementation — 19% under budget, 25% ahead of schedule, 99% adoption
    • Automated job evaluation for 1,264 positions — 87% time reduction
    • Grew early-career hiring 50% via Pathways and student-volunteer redesign
    • Managed $500K Monster Government Solutions vendor relationship
    • FY18 Rating of Record: Achieved Excellence (4.54 / 5.00)

Selected work

Concrete artifacts, not just titles.

A short list of engagements where the deliverable shipped, the metric moved, or the artifact still lives in the organization.

Classification

2023–2024

IRS Classification Review

ASM Research / Internal Revenue Service

Led a ten-person classification team through a bulk-review cycle across 27 business units. Built an occupational-series logic table and classification criteria that kept throughput consistent across reviewers.

  • 7,500 PDs in 4 months
  • 27 business units
  • 10-person team

Policy

2021–2022

HUD OIG Organizational Restructure

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, OIG

Designed a new organizational structure using Excel and PowerBI modeling. Drafted the agency-wide classification policy that accompanied it. Built the financial model that sustained scrutiny at the leadership level.

  • $5M projected savings
  • 500+ employees affected
  • Agency-wide policy

HR Systems

2013–2019

FLETC HRIS Implementation

DHS / Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers

$250K implementation delivered with 99% user adoption. Subsequent automation of the classification process for 1,264 positions cut evaluation time by 87%.

  • 19% under budget
  • 25% ahead of schedule
  • 99% user adoption

Policy

2024

Lone Rider LLP Policy & Compensation Suite

Consulting engagement

Authored a complete employment policy suite (performance, remote work, unlimited PTO, compassionate leave, discipline and grievances, equity framework, global mobility, recognition / bonus), a job-family framework and compensation methodology, and a recruitment competency framework with scoring matrix and interview guide.

Product

2025–present

Open HR — RefScore & ProScore

Founder & President

An HR-technology platform applying psychometric methods to employment references and professional scoring. Built on a Go backend, React web, Kotlin Android, Swift iOS, MongoDB. Launching 2026 across EU, UK, and US.

Compensation

2023

OHA Compensation Redesign

Oregon Health Authority

Led compensation redesign for 18,000+ employees across nine job families, benchmarked against Mercer, Radford, and Willis Towers Watson. Served as Workday HCM SME during a twelve-month implementation.

  • 18,000+ employees
  • 9 job families
  • Workday HCM SME

The venture

Open HR is employment infrastructure, built in the open.

Visit open-hr.work

Employment references are the oldest signal in hiring and the worst-measured. HR software has modernized almost everything about the process — except the part where we ask people who have actually worked with a candidate what it was like.

RefScore

Multi-source reference scoring grounded in I-O psychology. Weights references by confidence, applies decay for older relationships, produces an adverse-impact-defensible composite.

ProScore

A professional-scoring companion: self-report and behavioral assessment data validated cross-culturally (D/S-loading measurement).

Compliance: GDPR, DORA. EU-hosted.

Launch: 2026 — EU, UK, US.

Stack: Go, React, Kotlin, Swift, MongoDB.

Writing

Literary fiction, in the evenings and on Sundays.

I write fiction outside of HR work. Influenced by Charles Frazier, John Steinbeck, and TJ Klune — writers who take people seriously and trust the reader to stay with long sentences.

Thread and Nail

Published

Thread and Nail

PLACEHOLDER — paste the Amazon publisher description here. Per the content composite, this is the second novel; literary fiction influenced by Charles Frazier, John Steinbeck, and TJ Klune.

Find on Amazon
TBD — first novel

Published

TBD — first novel

PLACEHOLDER — paste the Amazon publisher description here. The earlier of the two published novels.

Find on Amazon

References, scored

I built a reference scoring platform. Here’s mine.

Most reference checks are free-text and unvalidated. Open HR’s RefScore applies I-O psychology to multi-source references and produces a composite, percentile, and dimension breakdown — defensible against adverse-impact scrutiny.

The card below is a live snapshot of my own RefScore, pulled from the platform.

R

RefScore Snapshot

Johnathen Evans-Guilbault

As of

2026-04-28

How to read this

Composite
Normative T-score across all dimensions. μ=50, σ=10 — 50 is the population average; ±10 is one standard deviation.
Percentile
Share of the working population scoring below this composite, derived from the standard normal CDF.
Confidence
Reflects multi-source agreement and reference quality. “Good” means the composite has sufficient signal to trust.
Dimensions
O*NET-derived work styles and Big Five / HEXACO traits. Each is scored 0–100, normalized against the role.

Composite

56.5

T-score · μ50 σ10

74thpercentile

Occupation

Human resource managers

ISCO-08 · 1212

References

1

Good confidence · 80%

Calculated

2026-03-25

last reference completion

Top 5 strengths

  1. #1

    Stress Tolerance

    100.0

  2. #2

    Self-Control

    100.0

  3. #3

    Innovation

    100.0

  4. #4

    Social Orientation

    100.0

  5. #5

    Leadership

    100.0

Dimension breakdown

Work styles · O*NET

  • Stress Tolerance100.0
  • Self-Control100.0
  • Innovation100.0
  • Social Orientation100.0
  • Leadership100.0
  • Self-Confidence100.0
  • Adaptability/Flexibility100.0
  • Concern for Others100.0
  • Achievement Orientation92.5
  • Integrity92.5
  • Analytical Thinking92.5
  • Leadership Orientation92.5
  • Attention to Detail92.5
  • Dependability92.5
  • Independence92.5
  • Cooperation90.0
  • Persistence82.5
  • Initiative82.5

Big Five · HEXACO

  • Perseverance100.0
  • Agreeableness100.0
  • Openness97.5
  • Honesty-Humility97.5
  • Extraversion92.5
  • Emotional Stability92.5
  • Optimism92.5
  • Conscientiousness89.5

Issued by did:web:open-hr.work · Ed25519 signed

About RefScore →

Snapshot pulled 2026-04-28from Open HR’s production database. Anonymized — no referee names, no qualitative comments, no PII. RefScore composite is a normative T-score (population mean = 50, σ = 10); percentile is the standard normal CDF.

Contact

Let’s talk.

Available for HR consulting, fractional leadership, classification or compensation engagements, and Open HR partnership conversations.

Phone
+33 (0)6 86 91 78 83
Based
Villenave-d’Ornon · Bordeaux, France