3. The ability to make good decisions
regarding people represents one of
the last reliable sources of
competitive advantage, especially
since so few organizations are good
at it.
Peter Drucker
4.
5. NY Times Best Selling book âWho: Solve Your
#1 Problem, Geoff Smart and Randy Street.
Based on interviews with 20 billionaire and 30
CEOs of multi-billion dollar companies
80 CEOs of large and entrepreneurial
companies, Private equity investors,
Experience with 15,000 hires
University of Chicago did largest-ever
statistical study
6. Who mistakes happen when managers:
Are unclear about what is needed in a job
Have a weak flow of candidates
Do not trust their ability to pick out the right
candidate from a group of similar looking
candidates
Lose candidates they really want to join their team
20. Sourcing Challenge
Seeking referrals
⢠âWho are the most talented people you know that I should
consider hiring?â
⢠I will commit to calling at least one of these contacts a week
until I have called them all. (yes/no)
Recruiting Bounty
⢠I will consider offering employees a referral bounty for
recruiting of $___ and make a go/no decision by (date).
Deputize Friends
⢠I will consider offering external Recruiting Deputies $___ for
recruiting viable candidates by (date).
21. Sourcing Challenge
Seeking referrals
⢠âWho are the most talented people you know that I should
consider hiring?â
⢠I will commit to calling at least one of these contacts a week
until I have called them all. (yes/no)
Recruiting Bounty
⢠I will consider offering employees a referral bounty for
recruiting of $___ and make a go/no decision by (date).
Deputize Friends
⢠I will consider offering external Recruiting Deputies $___ for
recruiting viable candidates by (date).
23. T O R C truth serum
⢠Threat
⢠Of
⢠Reference
⢠Check
24. The Screening Interview
1. What are your career goals?
2. What are you really good at professionally?
⢠Please give me some examples.
1. What are you not good at or not
interested in?
⢠Please give me some examples.
1. Who were your last 5 bosses, and how will
they each rate your performance when we
talk with them? (1-10)? Why?
25. What are you not good at or not
interested in? Whatâs a weakness?
Donât let them off.
â˘Re-frame
â˘Re-phrase
â˘Re-ask
â˘Just shut up at wait
26. The Topgrading InterviewÂŽ
⢠Education (5 minutes)
⢠For each job in the past 15 years (20-30
minutes per job)
1. What were you hired to do?
2. What accomplishments are you most proud
of?
3. What were some low points during that
job?
27. The Topgrading InterviewÂŽ
4. Who were the people you worked with? Specifically:
A. Bosses: What was your bossâs name? How do you spell
that?
What was it like working with him/her?
What we he or she say were your
biggest strengths? Areas for
improvement?
A. Teams: How would you rate the team you inherited on
an A, B, C scale?
5. Why did you leave that job?
⢠What are your career goals for the future? (10
minutes)
28. Some push back on doing a three hour
Topgrading interview
3 hours on average, 5 hours for a CEO
For every hour in the Topgrading Interview
you save hundreds of hours by not dealing
with C players. The return on your time is
staggering.
29. How do you know if an accomplishment a
person tells you is great, good or OK or
lousy? The three Pâs Clarifying questions.
How did your performance compare to the
previous yearâs performance?
How did your performance compare to the
plan?
How did it compare to that of peers?
30. Push versus pull
Push âit was mutualâ
It was time for me to leave
My boss and I were not getting along
Pull: My biggest client hired me
My old boss recruited me to a bigger job.
The CEO asked me to take a double promotion
32. Reference Interview
First question is a conversation starter
The next two questions are exactly the same as the
screening interview.
The 3rd question is more powerful when you add: BACK
THEN.
They liberate a reference to talk about weaknesses that
existed in the past.
Surely, they might assume, the person has corrected those
weaknesses.
At least they can tell themselves they arenât being critical of
the candidate in the present tense.
33. Questions:
Can Candidates really get their former bosses to talk?
YES Since 1990 when candidates arrange the
interview 90% of the references are will to talk.
Definition of a high performer
Top 10%, Bâs are next 25% and Câs are bottom 65%
34. People arenât mutual funds.
Past performance really is an
indicator of future success.
35. RED FLAGS: The candidateâŚ..
does not mention past failures
exaggerates his or her answers
takes credit for the work of others
poorly of past bosses
Canât explain past job moves
Seems more interested in
compensation and benefits than the
job itself
Tries too hard to look like an expert
36. Questions: Turned to someone around you here that
you donât know and share your best guess
âWhat is the cost of the average hiring mistake in
terms of the employeeâs base salary?â
âWhat percentage of new hires turn out to be high
performers?â (25%)
Would you enthusiastically rehire everyone on your
team?
37. An A player top 10% of talent available,
At the given comp level
In that specific company, with a certain organizational
structure
In that particular industry
In that location
With specific accountabilities
With available resources
Reporting to a specific person
38. Jay Jordan, CEO of the Jordan
Company hired a guy who looked great on
paper.
While terminating the fellow asked why..
âI hired your resume. But unfortunately what I
go was you.â
Editor's Notes
You or the people you rely on make hiring mistakes. WSJ named this topic (HIRING) THE most important topic in business. Collins popularized the ideal that âWhoâ decisions are more important that âwhatâ decisions. Want you to walk away with 20 or more take-aways. What do other successful business owners & entrepreneurs do? Who problems are preventable.
Who not what
Art Critic When it comes to judging art, going on gut instinct sometimes works just find. A good art critic can make an accurate appraisal of a painting within minutes. With executive hiring though, people who think they are naturally equipped to âreadâ people on the fly are setting themselves up to be fooled big time. The Prosecutor Many managers act like the prosecutors they see on TV. They aggressively question candidates, attempting to trip them up with trick questions and logic problems. Chatterbox This technique has a lot in common with the âla-di-daâ interview. The conversation goes something like âHow about them Broncos.â You grew up in California? Me too...
The Suitor Rather than rigorously interviewing a candidate, some spend all of the energy selling the applicant on the opportunity. Suitors are more concerned with impressing candidates than assessing their capabilities. The spend all of their time talking and virtually no time listening. Fortune teller: Like to ask their candidates to look into the future regarding the job at hand by asking hypothetical questions âWhat would you do? How would you do it? Could you do it?â Fifty years of academic literature on interview methods make a strong case against using these types of questions. âIf you were going to resolve a conflict with a co-worker, how would you do it?â Trickster: There are interviewers who use gimmicks to test for certain behaviors. They might throw a wad of paper on the floor, for example, to see if a candidate is willing to clean it up, or take him to a party to see how he interacts with other partygoers.
Psyc tester: Would you rather be at a cocktail party or at work on a Friday night? is not useful though it is an actual question on popular psych tests. Aptitude: Should never become the sold determinant in a hiring decision. Use of screening but do not use in isolation. The Sponge A common approach among busy managers is to let everybody interview a candidate. The goal of this sponge-like behavior is to soak up information by spending as much time with people as possible. Unfortunately, managers rarely coordinate their efforts leaving everyone to ask the same, superficial questions.
Geoff Smartâs book NY Times Best Seller âWho Solve Your #1 Problemâ and the #1 ranked best seller on Amazon.
You canât outsource this activity. You canât delegate this.
I work too hard. I have too much urgency for results.
Only use Topgrading interview as the heavy artillery for the last 2 people.
Only use Topgrading interview as the heavy artillery for the last 2 people.