Who: The a Method for Hiring

"Who" is an incredibly valuable book. It also is as much of a page-turner as any business book I've ever read. The authors take on perhaps the #1 challenge facing anyone in a leadership position: how do you find good people to successfully enact your institutional mission and vision? Based on their own consulting experience and exhaustive research among a virtual "who's who" of CEOs and managers, Mr. Smart and Mr. Street take the reader step-by-step through the how-to's and, perhaps even more importantly, the how-not-to's of effective recruiting and hiring. This book is engaging, compelling, and even entertaining. From their critique of what they call "voodoo hiring methods," to their very clear and actionable four-step process for recruiting (scorecard, source, select, and sell), anyone who employs people will find tremendous value. In reading "Who," I was reminded of a t.v. show in which a masked magician shares the secrets behind seemingly impossible tricks. The mask is necessary because of the presumed hostility that other magicians will feel towards someone breaching their code of silence. I hope that Mr. Smart and Mr. Street don't need to resort to wearing masks to protect themselves from aggrieved H.R. consultants, but their willingness to reveal the secrets behind their clearly successful methods will be much appreciated by anyone who makes the very wise investment in buying and reading this book.

Who: The A Method for Hiring is an amazing book that every business owner, manager, and aspiring leader needs to have on their bookshelf. I am very familiar with Geoff's methods and the TopGrading process in general - the program is use to use, easy to adopt, and produces great results for your organization. At my company, we use the program in conjunction with our hiring technology. By following Who's program, we have made some of the best decisions (both hire and no-hire) we have made since our launch. We have saved a lot of money and made even more. Buy the book. Mark Newman CEO, HireVue

I like this book because it sets out a clear point of view--that most of us have been neglecting a key component to business success: hiring in a rigorous manner. It then proceeds to offer a method for correcting this problem. I haven't yet tried the method itself, but I intend to. My preliminary reaction is that it makes intuitive sense, but that it's going to take a fair amount of time to implement successfully. The authors anticipate this response and argue that more time now saves an inordinate amount of time later. I'll add more once I've tried the method, but first response is positive.

I just finished reading a pre-release copy of the book Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street. Wow, it's good. Really good. Geoff and his father Brad Smart are well known as the team that popularized Topgrading, a thorough interview process that takes the success rate for new hires from the average of about 50% to just over 90%. I don't know of a business owner alive who wouldn't love to increase the effectiveness of the interview and hire more effectively. Smart and Street are experts in their field - they are paid huge sums of money to do this for some of the biggest and best companies in the world. Their research estimates that the average hiring mistake costs employers 15 times the salary of the incorrect hire. The number sounds absurdly high, but when you include salary, lost productivity and opportunity costs, it's plausible. Frightening. Who is a fast and simple read, but is heavy on content. It begins with a discussion of what they call voodoo hiring, or the process most business owners use during the interview process, and it was painful for me. I'm guilty of voodoo hiring and I'm guessing most of you are, too. Much of my process is guessing and gut feel, and is done over too short of a period of time. It's not hard to see the need for a change. Next comes a simple explanation of why hiring "A" players is so important. They define an "A" player as the right superstar for the job, a talented person who fits in well with your company culture. B and C hires cost you money; A's make you rich. The meat of the book is about the four keys to what they call the A Method : Scorecard, Source, Select and Sell. I can't do justice to the brilliance of the system in this short review, but here are the basics. The scorecard is your blueprint for the job - not a description, but the criteria you will be using to judge the person who is ultimately hired. Source is how you find your candidates, primarily referrals and recruiting. Select goes over the four interviews that need to be conducted - screening, Topgrading, focused and reference. Sell is important and often overlooked, selling your top candidate on taking the job. With great people in demand, you need to fight for your best people. Many of us have read Topgrading - it's a long read but describes the theory well. Even so, countless managers still have trouble implementing the system. Who bridges that gap and helps us see the whole process - then implement it well. This book just became required reading at Greenleaf Book Group, and the process is our new hiring process. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to improve hiring practices and remove a huge piece of the risk. Clint Greenleaf CEO, Greenleaf Book Group