This is one of my favorite “business management” books even if it is a bit boring (just long) and presents a general concept that many of us innately understand.

The concept is “hire only A players in your company.”

By “A players” it’s referring to self-motivated, intelligent, efficient, influential and culture-fitting people who can excel your business without having to be micro-managed.

That general concept makes a lot of sense, however, the topgrading interview guide takes it to the next level by going into great details on how you should conduct the recruiting process (a.k.a interview process).

The Days of My 30 Minute “Gut” Based Interviews Are Gone…

Sure these kinds of short “I like this person” interviews may work in the beginning when you are small, but they won’t scale.

To scale, you need a system that every manager can “quantifiably” put in place - that system is the topgrading interview system.

What Does The Topgrading Interview Guide Teach?

Really the book is called just “Topgrading” - I am calling it the “Topgrading Interview Guide” because so much of being a topgrader revolves around how you interview.

The biggest change I am making moving forward is how I do my interviews:

1. Hold at least 3-4 separate interviews.
2. Don’t be afraid of having 3-4 hour interviews - REALLY dive into the person’s life and give them lots of time to talk about themselves.
3. Always have at least 2 people in the room listening.

The biggest “mind-shift” for me has been getting around the concept of hosting MULTIPLE 3-4 hour interviews. It seems like such over-kill, at the same time, I completely understand why it helps you learn more about a candidate.

After Evaluation, I Found Only ONE “Non-A-Player” In My Team…

I’m disappointed AND proud.

Disappointed to have to put this title on someone.

Proud because we have been able to grow so fast and by default have built an “A” team…

A part of me has always known that this person is not an A player, but Topgrading has forced me to face it. According to Brad Smart (author of Topgrading), I should take immediate action to either remove this person from the team or shift his/her role where they CAN be an A player.

I am right now thinking about whether I should try this person in a different role or whether their personality just does not lend them to being an “A player.”

By the way, how you judge someone as an A, B or C player has many elements in it (their role, their salary level and performance).

I’m not enjoying having to make this decision, but these are the exact types of tough decisions I need to make.

Topgrading is a pretty thick book to read (I’m only about 20% done), however, they do have a shorter “review” version that I started and finished in 2 days - it left me wanting more.

I highly recommend this book - pick up a copy, click here…

I’m going to immediately implement the advice of the topgrading interview guide, I suggest you do the same.

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Tags: brad smart, interviewing, top grading, topgrading

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 5:18 am and is filed under Book Reviews, Hiring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.