The jobs must be created, or be expected to be created within a reasonable time, by the time Form I-829 is filed near the end of the two-year conditional period; a credible, evidenced hiring plan at filing and actual payroll at I-829 are what count.
Plan the hiring against the I-829 window, not against the petition date
At the petition stage a Torbay dentist's direct EB-5 investment needs a comprehensive business plan showing that ten full-time positions for qualifying workers will be created by the enterprise within roughly two years of the investor's admission as a conditional resident. At the I-829 stage, filed in the ninety days before the second anniversary of that admission, the enterprise must show the jobs were created, or will be within a reasonable time, using payroll records, tax filings and employee eligibility documents. Hiring that is behind schedule is not automatically fatal if the plan remains credible and the delay is explained, but a business that has hired three people and has no prospect of ten will fail.
The dentist should therefore ask the founding colleague for a hiring timeline keyed to the expected admission date, not to the filing date, and should monitor payroll quarterly. Investors who file before the capital is fully committed, or who let the enterprise change its business model without notice, create problems that surface at I-829.