Who

The A Method for Hiring

By: Geoff Smart, Randy Street

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

It's happened to the best of us. You have a job opening to fill. You interview a range of qualified candidates and hire the best of the bunch - or so you think. You soon realize that the person who seemed like a perfect fit during the interview doesn't have what it takes to do the job.

In Who, Geoff Smart and Randy Street, of the management consulting firm ghSmart, combine their experiences training thousands of managers and executives with the most revealing and comprehensive research ever on the subject of how to hire successfully, as well as advice and stories from more than 20 billionaires and 60 CEOs. The result is a simple, four-step method for hiring with confidence, designed for everyone from the CEO on down. Who shows you how to avoid the most common pitfalls of hiring, how to identify "A Players" - people who can perform their job better than 90 percent of the candidates in their field - and how to make sure the best candidate will be excited to join your organization.

Hiring is every bit as important an element of successful business as other key principles, such as leadership and strategy. Who should be required listening for anyone in a management position.

©2008 Geoff Smart (P)2008 Tantor

Great Book & Problematic Narration

Excellent breakdown of how to properly interview candidates. Exceptional step by step instructions.

The narrator, however, made a hugely problematic choice when voicing the words of a non-american executive with a Spanish last name. Although his words and sentence structure are in perfect and grammatically correct English, the narrator uses affected English to communicate his assumption that the executive would speak accented, stilted English.

As a multi-lingual American I found this so exceptionally offensive and othering that it genuinely took me out of the book. It was extremely distracting, xenophobic and pointless. It was very disappointing and left me with a less than stellar feeling about the book - which the Authors do not deserve.

A peaceful vacation is now realistic

For 8 years I haven't had an uninterrupted vacation due to my business and the people in place. Now I actually think it's realistic to expect one in the next year or two.
Invaluable learnings from this book!

Excellent!

Great techniques to hiring your A team. Well thought out and perfectly presented. Great read.

Great Book

Very Helpful! Practical guidelines and a step by step approach. I feel confident that using these methods will help me build an A team

Clear outline of Who to hire

The concept for entrepreneurs of being the bottleneck in their own business emphasizes Who should listen to this book. “A” Players are key and no one, not even the founder or CEO can grow without hiring for their weaknesses.

This book is good for companies looking to go from contract 1099 employees to W2’s and all the way up to established companies in the Valley of Death trying to scale up through a change on the executive leadership team. Who is also aimed at middle managers and A-players in supervisory roles to encourage them to always be on the lookout for A-players.

A must “listen” for Entrepreneurs.

Well worth your time.

This book helps you take a more disciplined approach to hiring AND evaluating your own career. Very good book.

Practical guide for your hire/fire strategy

It all starts with people, and this book provides the most practical guide I've encountered for hiring top talent.
Using the book's jargon, instead of applying voodoo practices, apply these measurable practices to consistently source the people who really fit your vision and culture.
Yes, it's hard work, and it also makes perfect sense.

great read!

loved the examples used to describe tactics for winning in hiring. this book is very inspiring.

great read

This book is a common sense approach to personnel. It reveals the biggest mistakes managers make

Hire More People Like Your Best Employees

Think of the best person and second best person on your team. What would happen if they left? It would be a disaster. What would happen if everyone on your team was like them? You wouldn't have to worry about work because the right people are getting it done. The fastest way to improve a company's performance is to improve the talent of the workforce.

After getting past the first chapter of this book (which is a sales pitch on this method), it then goes into a lot of useful advice on hiring:
* Scorecard: Create a list of outcomes that the candidate would need to accomplish and list of competencies that the candidate need to possess (such as efficiency, honesty, integrity, intelligence, analytical skills, and commitment).
* Source: Stay connected with people you want on your team. So when there is a job opening, you have the right candidate in mind.
* Select: Conduct a series of structured interviews. Don't waste time with different individuals asking the same question or with trick questions (that is irrelevant for the job).
* Sell: Make the position attractive to the ideal candidate. If a candidate rejects the job offer because of a counteroffer from the current employer, you just lost the opportunity to hire an A Player.