Topgrading
Number of Pages: 352
Estimated Read Time
Slow Reader: 25 Hours 36 Minutes
Average Reader: 12 Hours 48 Minutes
Fast Reader: 6 Hour 24 Minutes
Estimated Listen Time: 10 Hours 33 Minutes
Amazon Description
Great companies, large and small, rise or fall because of their talent: The more high performers on your team, the more successful your organization will be. Of course, that’s easier said than done. Research shows that only about 25% of all new hires turn out to be high performers. But companies that have used Brad Smart’s Topgrading system over the past two decades have boosted their hiring success rates dramatically – sometimes even to 90%.
Three huge problems account for the typical poor results in hiring: dishonesty (via deceptive résumés), incomplete information (via shallow interviews), and lack of verifiability (via biased references). Topgrading shows how to solve all three problems. Instead of hiring by your gut reactions to résumés and interviews, you can start using a scientifically honed process that compels candidates to be totally honest. Smart, one of the world’s foremost experts on hiring, has personally helped hundreds of companies double, triple, or even quadruple their hiring success rates. His clients have ranged from global giants to small businesses in every field imaginable. Hundreds of thousands of followers have applied the lessons and tools of the first two editions of Topgrading.
The Topgrading system makes hiring easier, faster, and more successful than any other process. And it works at every level, from the front lines to senior management. For the first time in seven years, Smart has fully revised and updated Topgrading with many new tools, techniques, and case studies.
Topgrading isn’t just about hiring and promoting – it’s also about developing talent. It enables leaders to reward their A Players, coach their Bs to become As and weed out the Cs who are beyond improvement. Many great leaders know that Topgrading works. Find out how it can help your company gain a big competitive advantage.
TopGrading Introduction
TopGrading Introduction, page 1.
The one factor accounting most for individual and organizational failure is not flawed strategy, insufficient capital, lack of government protection or bailouts, bad luck, corruption, or technology.
More important than all of these factors is a failure to embed sufficient talent in the organization.
The single most important driver of organizational performance and individual managerial success is human capital – talent.
The ability to do what every company and every manager wants to do – hire and promote the best people available at every salary level – is what distinguishes premier companies, large and small, from mediocre firms.
And the ability to hire and promote the best talent available at every salary level explains why managers enjoy highly successful versus more ordinary careers.
Throughout the world, most companies do not have superior talent because they are poor at picking talent. They simply can’t figure out how to solve three huge problems in hiring:
Rampant dishonesty by weak candidates who easily get away with fudging their resumes and faking their interviews.
Insufficient information, because most companies use superficial hiring methods that enable candidates to control and hide what they share about themselves.
Lack of verifiability, as most reference checks are practically useless. Since most reference checks are fact checks with Human Resources, not done at all, or conducted with the candidates’ buddies as references, even the weakest candidates can get away with problem #1, dishonesty.
I’ve conducted 65,000 oral case studies with managers:
95% of managers said the “least enjoyable” aspect of the job was problems caused by their mis-hires.
80% of managers hired turn out to be mis-hires.
75% of people promoted turn out to be underperformers.
21% of CEOs are satisfied with their external search firms.
How Does Topgrading Solve the Three Biggest Hiring Problems?
High performers are generally truthful in their resumes and interviews, but low performers too often hype the positives and hide the negatives.
Topgrading hiring has a “truth serum,” where candidates understand that they will eventually have to arrange reference calls with former bosses.
Topgrading cures the “lack of information” headache because it covers the total career – every success, failure, key decision, and key relationship, for every job.
Topgrading cures the “lack of verifiability” headache by requiring candidates to arrange reference calls with former bosses and others you choose.
Topgrading brings truth and honesty, complete information on the candidate’s career, and, as frosting on the cake, everything a candidate claims will be verified through reference checks that the candidate arranges.
Chapter 2 – All About A Players
The ability to make good decisions regarding people represents one of the last reliable sources of competitive advantage, since very few organizations are very good at it.” – Peter Drucker
High performers – A Players:
Contribute more.
Innovate more.
Work smarter.
Earn more trust.
Display more resourcefulness.
Take more initiative.
Develop better business strategies.
Articulate their vision more passionately.
Implement change more effectively.
Deliver higher-quality work.
Demonstrate greater teamwork.
Prevent more problems.
Attract more A Players.
Find ways to get the job done in less time with less cost.
Some “A Player” Statistics:
Typical companies find that only 25% of people they hire turn out to be high performers…but Topgrading companies achieve 75%+ success.
Typical companies find that only 25% of people they promote turn out to be A Players…yet Topgrading companies achieve 75%+ success.
Typical companies have only 25% to 40% high performers in management…yet Topgrading companies achieve 75%+ high performers.
What is Topgrading?
Topgrading is to fill at least 75% of positions in the organization with high performers (A Players) by hiring and promoting people who turn out to be high performers at least 75% of the time.
The Need For Topgrading
Thousands of oral case studies confirm – managers typically inherit:
25% high performers and those with high performer potential.
50% “okay,” “adequate,” but marginal performers who lack the potential to be high performers and are not as good as others available for the same pay.
25% chronic underperformers.
Two Different Perspectives:
Glass Half Full – You have 75% “okay” or better talent.
Glass Half Empty – 75% of your talent lack even the potential to be high performers.
Among the 6,500 executives I’ve assessed, the A Players were and are not satisfied with the glass-half-full perspective, so they do everything they can to keep their As, and they replace the chronic low performers. In the meantime, A Players work extra hard to cover for the inadequacies of the Bs and Cs.
So, Topgrading means achieving 75%+ A Player/A Potential by using:
Topgrading Hiring methods to bring in high performers.
Topgrading methods to promote people who turn out to be A Players.
Topgrading coaching methods to develop A Potentials into A Players.
Definition of A Player
The simple definition of A Player is “high performer.”
A Player: Someone in the top 10% of the talent pool available.
B Players are in the next 25% and C Players are in the bottom 65%.
An A Player is “best in class,” in the top 10% of talent available, but what does that mean?
“Available” means willing to accept a job offer:
At the given compensation level.
In that specific company, with a certain organizational culture.
In that particular industry.
In that particular location.
With specific accountabilities.
With available resources.
Reporting to a specific person (A player candidates are more available to you if you are a positive A Player, not a negative C Player).
Everyone one of these factors affects “availability,” though “at the given compensation level” is the most important.
The Only Good Designations Are A Player and A Potential
Companies that initially Topgrade designate A, B, and C Players, but within about a year they focus on the designations that are most practical, most actionable:
A Player
A Potential
Non-A Player
Topgraders regard a chronic B Player (unable, despite training and coaching, to rise to A Player status and not capable of being an A in a different job) as undesirable as a chronic C Player.
Both C Players without A potential and B Players without A Potential must be replaced.
An “A Potential” is someone who is predicted to achieve A Player status, usually within 6 to 12 months.
Conduct Compensation Surveys
If an A Player is someone in the “top 10%” of talent “available” for compensation, you must do compensation surveys.
Organizations that Topgrade do not necessarily pay more for talent than their competitors.
In typical teams with Bs and Cs, the As devote a huge amount of time to preventing and fixing the problems of the lower performers. So As perform even better without having to “carry” Bs and Cs.
If you need A Players at a high salary level, Topgrade and you might be able to cut total compensation and pay more.
Topgrading companies, in contrast to their competitors, get disproportionately better talent for the total compensation dollars they spend.
A company that begins a serious Topgrading effort finds it easier to recruit top talent because the company suddenly has a brighter future.
A Players are talent magnets!
Picture this: The Topgrader has five sales reps, all high performers and highly paid, and the competitor has the same budget spread across 12 sales reps – three As, six Bs, and three Cs. Which sales force would you want?
A Player managers can still enjoy work-personal life balance because they can delegate to A Players who avoid most problems and who quickly fix the few problems that occur.
A Players, By Definition, Exist at all Salary Levels
Picture this: Why would an A Player accept a $30,000 job as Night Manager? Perhaps the A Player understands that her night manager job at a fast-food store is the highest-paying job where she qualifies amongst the top 10% of talent available. If she somehow were hired to manage a restaurant, a job paying $75,000, her lack of experience and training would likely doom her to C Player status, and she would likely fail. For now, she’s smart to take a job where, as an A Player, she can succeed and incrementally build her credentials for bigger, higher-paying management positions in the future.
Topgraders like to say that, theoretically, everyone can be an A Player. Almost everyone can be a top 10% performer in some job, though not necessarily in the job or at the salary level they want.
What are A Player Competencies?
For most jobs, you must immerse yourself, finding many ways to judge how much talent you get for the compensation.
Summary of Critical Competencies for Upper-Level Managers.
Problem-Solving – A “quick study” able to rapidly perform complex analyses.
Leadership – Executes needed change; highly adaptive and able to inspire the organization.
Energy/Passion – Very high energy level; fast-paced; 55(+) hour workweeks (plus home e-mail); driven to succeed.
Resourcefulness/Initiative – Impressive ability to find ways over; round, or through barriers; can-do attitude.
Topgrading – Selects high-performers and employees with potential; redeploys chronic underperformers.
Training/Development/Coaching – Coaches and trains each team member to turbo boost performance and personal/career growth.
Team Building – Creates focused, collaborative, results-driven teams.
Track Record – Consistently excellent performance.
Integrity – “Ironclad.”
Communication – Excellent oral/written skills.
Resourcefulness is the Most Important Competency
Resourcefulness is a composite of several competencies. It’s energy, passion, analytic skills, and persistence wrapped into one.
In common terms, resourcefulness is the brains and drive to figure out how to get over, and around, or through barriers to success.
A Players exude resourcefulness.
Coach them to look ahead, anticipate opportunities and problems, and figure out how to create success.
In Topgrading interviews, we advise interviewers, “In every response to every question, look for indications of resourcefulness.”
A/B/C Player Designations
Separate A/B/C designations for the current job From A/B/C designations for promotability.
All companies in a fast-growth mode are naturally interested in screening talent not just for the present but for future jobs, and promotions.
They want enough promotable people to fill a lot of positions with internal candidates, but not so many promotable people that many promotable are not promoted fast enough and quit.
It’s in your best interest to hire enough promotable people, but not everyone is equally promotable, so you can use the following scale:
A1: A Player, probably promotable two levels.
A2: A Player, probably promotable one level.
A3: A Player, probably not promotable.
A Topgraded organization expecting rapid growth has almost all A Players, including a lot more A1s and A2s than A3s.
A company’s succession plan usually includes a chart indicating who the A1s, A2s, and A3 Players will be for the next three to five years.
There is some confusion about the difference between a B Player and an A3 Player.
B Player:
Not promotable.
Works medium hard.
Delivers marginal results.
A3 Player:
Not promotable.
Works very hard.
Delivers A results for exactly the same compensation as the B Player.
Performance Management Systems
Performance Management Systems in Topgrading companies make “Meets Performance Expectations” the standard for A Players.
“High Performer” is a term a lot of people can relate to, but in a lot of performance management systems an employee who receives an “Exceeds Expectations” rating is considered a high performer, and one who receives a “Meets Expectations” is not.
Topgraded companies eventually raise the performance bar so that “Meets Expectations” is for A Players, high performers.
It makes no sense for “Exceeds” to be used for As, and “Meets” for Bs, when the goal is for everyone to be a high performer.
Can A Players Be Incompetent? Yes.
Maybe you’ve set the compensation too low.
They are being stifled by the boss.
A product or project is canceled, rendering the job of the A Player who ran it unnecessary.
If the performance bar is set so high that no one, not even the #1 A Player in the universe, could succeed.
When asked to assess and coach management teams, we often find many more managers with A Potentials than CEOs thought they had. The A Potentials who had not been performing well quickly perform at the A level when put in a job better matching their talents, or assigned to a boss who will unleash rather than stifle them.
A Players Can Become B and C Players in Fast-Growing Companies
An A Player can drop to B Player, and drop to C Player – not because their absolute level of talent has diminished, but because their talent has declined in relation to the salary they are paid, for the more complex and difficult job.
When to Overpay A Players
Forward-looking, growing companies will hire for the talent and compensation level needed three years from now.
Another situation in which it may be wise to “overpay” for an A Player at a high level of absolute talent is in a turnaround situation. Your pool of candidates may be too small and undertalented, due to the unattractiveness of the employment prospects of joining a troubled company.
A lot of companies have to “overpay” necessary talent to compensate for unattractive locations, a declining industry, or Chapter 11 bankruptcy status.
Also, if you have a negative reputation as a boss, you’ll have more difficulty attracting top talent.
When to Pay Less for A Players
You can pay less when there is an economic downturn. Be careful though. Don’t underpay your people too much, or when the economy turns around, your high performers who felt taken advantage of are apt to leave.
Early retirees sometimes offer a lot of talent, cheap.
Some talented people just want part-time jobs to raise kids or pursue other lifestyle preferences.
When to Hire Underqualified People
Sometimes firms hire high-potential people who will be superior performers in future roles but may seem underqualified initially. Clients label these people as “A Potential.”
Another example happens when a company is dissatisfied with prospects within their industry, and recruits outside their industry, seeking candidates with superior talent and potential but who will have to experience a learning curve as they transition into a new industry.
Get “Calibrated” to Correctly Judge A/B/C Players
If you are a manager who must consider investing in new equipment or software, it’s your job to get calibrated, to accurately judge the value of your investment.
It’s the same with people. Managers must become calibrated as a Topgrader to qualify as an A Player.
The TORC Technique “Truth Serum”
The TORC Technique “Truth Serum” (Overview)
A key concept that makes the “12 Topgrading Steps to Hiring” work is the Threat of Reference Check (TORC) Technique.
One of the most serious problems in hiring is dishonesty: weaker candidates fake their resumes and sanitize their interviews with hype, omission, and deliberate falsehoods, and they get away with it because hiring companies rarely conduct reference calls with former bosses of candidates.
It’s the TORC Technique that lets candidates know, at every step in the hiring process, that a final step in the hiring process is for them to arrange personal reference calls with former bosses and others their interviewers want to talk with.
TORC Scares away C Players.
High performers do get their former bosses to talk and are happy to make the arrangement.
How and When Do You Tell Candidates About TORC?
Tell candidates at every step in your hiring process.
Even before you begin the 12 Topgrading Hiring Steps, include it in the careers section of your website.
Short Explanation: A final step in the hiring process is for candidates to arrange personal reference calls with former supervisors as well as others we may choose.
Long Explanation: A final step in the hiring process is for candidates to arrange personal reference calls with former supervisors as well as others we may choose. There are three reasons for this:
Your development. Candid insights of managers and others can be used to help you move smoothly into your next job and can help you create a powerful Individual Development Plan.
Verification. Discussions with former managers and others will add credibility to the information you have provided throughout the hiring process.
Ease. It’s difficult to get former supervisors and others to talk with us, but high performers can arrange for those personal discussions.
What Are the TOC Questions in the Topgrading Interview Guide?
Supervisor’s name and title.
Where is that person now?
Would you be willing for us to talk to him or her?
What were the supervisor’s strengths?
What were the supervisor’s weaker points?
What is your best guess as to what he/she felt were your strengths and weaknesses?
What would he/she rate your overall performance?
Summary: How to use the TORC Technique Effectively
Announce TORC. Let candidates know about TORC at every step in your hiring process.
Tandem interviewers choose the references, after the Topgrading interview.
Call the references. Use the Topgrading Reference Check Guide (p. 168).
Compare notes. Share your reference-check notes with your tandem interviewer. Use the information to finalize your Executive Summary.
Hiring Step #1: Measure Your Baseline Success
HiringStep #1: Measure Your Baseline Success, page 62.
What problem does the measurement step solve? Managers who are not Topgraders almost always lack an understanding of how successful (or unsuccessful) their hiring and promoting methods are, and they don’t have a clue as to how much their mis-hires cost them.
Shouldn’t we be as rigorous in hiring as we are in capital spending?
Most companies wing it on the front end without creating a Job Scorecard and without specifying nearly enough competencies.
Most managers never go back to calculate the benefits of good hires or costs of mis-hires, and never systematically consider how to do better next time
Everyone knows that important items in business must be measured or the results will never be achieved and sustained. But most companies do not measure one of the most important things that can be measured in any business – success in hiring and promoting people.
Some companies I know have two main measurements of hiring success – how fast they hire people and how cheaply they do it…but they don’t know if their fast, cheap hiring produces superior or mediocre hires.
Four Topgrading Calculators
Baseline Hiring Success Calculator
Write the name of the people you have hired in the past three years.
Rate them a year after they were hired, either high-performer or a mis-hire.
Calculate % high-performers.
Calculate # Mis-Hires.
Now do the same exercise, but only do it for the people you’ve promoted.
This creates a company’s Pre-Topgrading Baseline.
When companies begin Topgrading, they measure their results annually to track their progress.
Topgrading Talent Projection Calculator
The Topgrading Talent Projection Calculator will tell you how many people you’ll have to hire (and fire) in order to achieve 90% success, given your present success rate (is it 25%?) and what your future success rates will be with Topgrading as you improve to 50%, 75%, and 90%.
Estimate your current number of people to be replaced.
Estimate your hiring/promoting success rate…your percent As and A Potentials after hiring and promoting people.
Use the Topgrading Talent Project Calculator to show the total number of people you must hire or promote in order to end up with 90% As, after replacing all those who turn out not to be As
You’ll quickly see how many people you will mis-hire (and fire) to end up with 90% A Players.
Success short of 90% is spelled out in the Calculator and it spells pain.
With a typical 25% success rate, for example, replacing 10 people to achieve 90% A Players would require hiring 36 replacements – and replacing 26 of them. No company could survive such a revolving door. And, by the way, what A Player would want to join a massacre-prone company?
Another important consideration is how long it would take you to replace people.
Dysfunction 3: Lack of Commitment
Hiring Step #2: Create a Clear Job Scorecard, page 77.
One of the problems Topgrading solves is vague job descriptions. Hiring managers and others who will be affected aren’t clear about what they are hiring someone to do and candidates get equally confused.
If you don’t know what high performers will have to achieve, how will you evaluate candidates?
Most job descriptions are typically so vague that most low performers can perform the stated responsibilities and still be judged a mis-hire.
I recommend you nail down the first-year measurable accountabilities and the numbers to be achieved, including the ratings to be achieved or the competencies, for the new hire to be considered a high performer.
Picture This Scenario for Hiring a VP of Sales
The President is most interested in boosting global sales.
The VP of Manufacturing wants to keep domestic plants closer to full capacity.
The VP of Marketing wants new product launches.
The VP of Finance wants profitable sales.
The goals for the new VP of Sales were never converted into actual numeric accountabilities.
No one realized how vague the job description was.
No one realized how mutually exclusive the various components were.
A year later the new VP of Sales could be frustrated, having been jerked in many different directions. He or she at best may have only satisfied one executive.
After being jerked in four directions, the VP of Sales would have been criticized by three peers for not Achieving Excellence, not being a good team player, and not communicating well.
On the other hand, a Job Scorecard would have nailed down the measurable accountabilities with actual numeric goals.
But without measurable accountabilities, the executive team and the new hire would all be unclear as to what the job is truly demanding.
The chances of a costly mis-hire are now higher due to such vagueness.
Start with a Job Analysis
Scorecard Components
Identify Mission and Strategy.
Identify Measurable Job Accountabilities (“what).
Identify Competencies (‘how”), linked to accountabilities.
Keys
All stakeholders agree on measurements that will differentiate A/B/C Players.
Be sure that competencies spell out the fit for the specific job.
Competencies are measures.
All the people who have a real stake in the success of the new hire have to agree on the accountabilities, including competencies. If not, there will be conflict and confusion later.
Competencies Are Measurable Accountabilities
How many times have you seen people achieve “the numbers” but be such lousy leaders or mediocre team players that they are fired?
Unfortunately, how people perform concerning competencies is typically not measured systematically, and new hires are not given vague feedback until they are let go.
How to Include Competencies in a Job Scorecard
Hold people accountable for up to 50 competencies for management jobs.
In the Job Scorecard, list the Minimum Acceptable Rating a candidate must achieve on all competencies, after all Topgrading steps, to be hired, and color code them.
Measure the new hire on competencies.
In our experience, too many companies list too few competencies, rarely define or measure them, and then fire someone for not exhibiting a competency.
Use the Job Scorecard as the Basis of Performance Management
It’s amazing – no, tragic – that in most companies job descriptions are vague, and it is only after the person is hired that the hiring manager and Human Resources figure out the accountabilities – what the person has to do to Meet or Exceed Performance Expectations.
It is smart to figure out all of the numeric accountabilities for the job and for the competencies to be exhibited before the person is hired.
Candidates should be fully informed of the complete Job Scorecard before they accept a job offer.
You do not have to anticipate every conceivable accountability, but as new or different accountabilities become apparent, rewrite the Job Scorecard accordingly.
Hiring Step #3: Recruit From Your Networks
Hiring Step #3: Recruit From Your Networks, page 86.
Now that you have a clear, thorough Job Scorecard, it’s time to recruit candidates
Everyone knows that it is best to recruit from your networks of high performers and others you know personally.
Most leaders and managers say, “We just don’t get as many referrals from our people as we want.”
A Players want to work with other A Players and are happy to refer A Players from their networks, but it just doesn’t happen often enough. Why?
The answer is usually, “because everyone is too busy to stay in touch with their A Player former associates.”
Topgraders have at least two types of Networks – A Players they have worked with and Connectors, people who know A Players they can refer.
We recommend that every manager build and maintain lists of 20+ A Players and 10+ Connectors, people not suitable for your company, but who know a lot of high performers you might hire.
The Connector group often includes:
Retirees who stay in touch with lots of talented people.
Vendors with an eye for talent.
Professional Associates.
Former peers who know lots of As.
Exercise: Create Your Network Lists
List 20+ A Players you know and who might go to work for you.
List 10+ Connectors who might refer A Players to you.
List all professional associations and clubs that could be sources of candidates and Connectors.
How Companies Boost Hiring Success Through Networks
Topgrading companies understand how to get busy, sharp high performers to allocate time to stay in touch with A Players and Connectors. Their strategies include:
Make recruiting through Network a Job Scorecard Accountability.
Require your team to submit regular updates.
Require managers to discuss their networks with their subordinates at least quarterly, to be sure subordinate networks are being properly maintained, and to report the results.
Require managers to recommend at least one person per year who is hired and who turns out to be an A Player a year later.
Pay bonuses (sometimes called “bounties”) for referrals.
Encourage high performers to use social networks (Facebook, Linked In, etc.).
Ask new hires for their network lists.
Make a point of encouraging networking, at least weekly.
Don’t rely solely on email; use the telephone, Zoom, and any method to have live, personal communications.
Attract A Players by having exciting web pages, careers sections, and job ads.
When visitors to your career section learn what Topgrading is all about, C Players will get the message and stay away, and high performers, wanting to join a company with other high performers, will be apt to apply.
What to do when Networks Aren’t Producing – Executive Search Firms
Get the Best Results with Executive Search Firms.
Favor boutique firms with 10 or fewer professionals.
Request a written list of clients they cannot penetrate.
Check references of key search executives before signing a contract.
Sign a fixed fee contract that removed the incentive for the search firm to find more expensive candidates.
Require thorough Job Scorecard plus several dozen competencies.
Require weekly updates.
Insist that they conduct Topgrading Interviews of all finalists.
For finalists, insist on written reports citing mistakes and failures, not just accomplishments.
For finalists, require candidate reports disclose six real weaknesses.
Require reference-check summaries that disclose negatives, not just positives.
Sign a contract requiring the search firm to not steal your company’s employees for three years.
Evaluate some resumes, Career History Forms, Topgrading Snapshots, and Telephone Interview Screening notes early on to be sure you’re on the “same page.”
Make yourself available to meet with candidates and search firm employees.
Hiring Step #4: Career History Form and Topgrading Snapshot
Hiring Step #4: Career History Form and Topgrading Snapshot, page 98.
Resumes are too often vague and include a lot of fluff, so it is difficult to differentiate between A Player candidates and Non-As.
Topgraders use the Topgrading Career History Form to get honest and complete information, and can instantly understand a candidate’s total career by looking at their Topgrading Snapshot.
Combined, the Topgrading Career History Form and Topgrading Snapshot solve the major hiring problems of dishonest (in resumes), incomplete information (in resumes and application forms), verifiability of what candidates say (TORC), and speed to sort through candidate information.
Screening from Resumes is “Garbage In, Garbage Out”
Companies mis-hire far too many people because popular culture considers it okay to fake resumes and interviews.
I created the Topgrading Career History Form so that clients would get more thorough and valuable information and be better able to screen candidates preinterview.
The Topgrading Career History Form is far more than an application form with TORC in the instructions.
It requests all the information you and I wish resumes routinely included:
Full compensation history
True reasons for leaving jobs
Likes and dislikes in jobs
Honest estimates of boss ratings of overall performance
Honest self-ratings of competencies
A self-appraisal
It causes C Players to drop out instantly.
A Players will eagerly complete the form and look forward to interviews and arranging reference calls.
The smart “one-two” punch is to use ATSs to cut the number of resumes, but then to use the Topgrading Career History Form to cut the stack to only sharp, honest candidates.
How Companies Use the Topgrading Career History Form and the Topgrading Snapshot
Topgrading does not talk with any candidate without having their complete Career History Form.
Do not waste your time studying fictitious resumes; only review resumes of candidates with impressive, revealing, and honest Career History Forms.
When candidates go to the Career section of your website, they are invited to complete the Career History Form online.
“Thank you for responding to our ad for [job]. We take pride in hiring the best. To move to the next step in the hiring process, please complete our application form by clicking [here].”
Topgrading Snapshot: Instant Insight Into Candidates
The Topgrading Career History Form scares C Players away and attracts A Players, and it enables you to only interview the best candidates. There is only one problem clients have asked us to solve, and the Topgrading Snapshot solves it. The problem is time!
Everyone is so busy that no one seems to have a full day to screen resumes/Career History Forms for one job.
For years clients have said it would be great if we could devise some way to screen completed Career History Forms faster, but not do it superficially.
In response, we created the Topgrading Snapshot, the picture of the most important and revealing parts of the Career History Form. With it you can honestly, accurately, and validly screen candidates in and out in only seconds.
The Topgrading Snapshot is a one-page picture (graphic image) distilling the most vital data elements from the completed Career History Form.
What to say to a candidate: “By taking the time to complete the Career History Form, you’ll give our interviewers a lot of valuable information about you, so all of the interviews will go smoother and your time will be more productive.”
Picture This…
You run an ad for a position and receive 30 resumes.
Your HR Professional sends an email to all applicants requesting they complete the Career History Form.
The TORC “Truth Serum” immediately scared away 10 candidates – the weakest ones.
The other 20 candidates completed the Career History Form.
You and your HR Professional receive 20 completed Career History Forms and 20 Topgrading Snapshots.
In just 15 minutes of looking at 20 Topgrading Snapshots, you cut the 20 candidates to 4.
You then study the Career History Form of those 4 candidates and select 3 for phone interviews.
You invite 2 candidates in for in-person interviews.
Topgrading Snapshot Example
Years go across the bottom.
This candidate only had two employers
He has been with his current employer since 1997 – not a job hopper.
Compensation is on the vertical axis.
His compensation has been moving higher across his career – a mark of a high performer.
You can see from his current compensation whether Erik is in about the right compensation range for the job being filled.
The Topgrading Snapshot also shows the reasons why a candidate left an employer.
Erik has left two employers and both were his choice – often the case for A Players.
Finally, the Career History Form requests boss ratings.
Erik says that his first boss would give a Very Good overall performance rating.
But all three bosses in the past 15 years would rate his performance as Excellent – indicating A Player status.
Companies report that they first look to see if the person’s current compensation is “in the ballpark,” and if not, rejection takes a couple of seconds.
Then they look for dark green boss ratings and reasons for leaving – and if they see a lot of red and blue, that’s not indicative of a top candidate. Green boss ratings are Very Good and Excellent, and green for Reasons for Leaving means it was 100% their initiative.
Hiring Step #5: Telephone Screening Interviews
Hiring Step #5: Telephone Screening Interviews, page 107.
Let’s pretend:
You posted an ad for a job and received 50 resumes.
You sent 30 candidates Career History Forms.
You received 20 back along with their Topgrading Snapshots.
You analyzed 20 Topgrading Snapshots in 15 minutes and cut the 20 to 5 candidates.
You studied the Career History Forms of the remaining 5 candidates, and rejected 2 more, leaving 3 excellent-appearing candidates.
If you invite the three candidates in for face-to-face interviews, you could spend hours with poor candidates who could have been screened out in a few minutes on the phone.
So the skill to learn is how to conduct Telephone Screening Interviews where you screen out weak candidates and invite only the best in for face-to-face interviews.
Conducting an Effective Telephone Screening Interview
Prior to the phone call, review the completed Topgrading Career History Form and Topgrading Snapshot.
Tell the candidate: “Thanks for completing the Topgrading Career History Form. In this phone call, I’d like to tell you a bit more about the company and job and answer your questions. I’d also like to ask you questions about your background and goals. Ultimately, before a job offer, we’ll ask you to arrange personal reference calls with bosses. Okay?”
Describe the company and position to the candidate.
Invite the candidate to ask questions about the job.
Review the following for the most recent two jobs (start with the second to last and then ask about the current or most recent job):
Successes
Failures
Boss’s appraisals of your strengths, weaker points, and overall performance
Reasons for leaving
Add two questions each from three competencies.
If you and the candidate want to move to the next step, it’s time to explain Topgrading:
As a Topgrading company, our hiring practices at Acme are unusually thorough. There are Competency Interviews but also a chronological Topgrading Interview in which we ask about your entire career – all your successes, mistakes, key decisions, and key relationships. And finalists are asked to arrange personal reference calls with former managers and others. The benefits to high performers who apply are many: (a) if you’re hired, you’ll go to work in a company with almost all high performers, (b) career opportunities with Acme are unusually good because so many high performers grow the company, (c) 90%. of the people who join us are happy on the job a year later and rated High Performer, and (d) within a couple weeks of joining us you will receive comprehensive coaching to help you assimilate smoothly into the company, perform very well quickly, and begin formulating your Individual Development Plan to help you grow.
Rating Candidates
After the Telephone Screening Interview, you can go to the Job Scorecard and update your tentative ratings, which are far from the final ratings.
After initially analyzing the Career History Form and Topgrading Snapshot, you entered an early set of “best guess” ratings.
Now, after conducting the Telephone Screening Interview, you’ll no doubt change some ratings, because this is how the hiring process works: after each of the Topgrading steps go to the Job Scorecard and revise your ratings.
As you get more and more revealing information, your ratings will be closer and closer to reality.
As long as your ratings exceed the Minimum Acceptable Rating, you will continue going through the Topgrading steps.
Hiring Step #6: Conduct Competency Interviews
Hiring Step #6: Conduct Competency Interviews, page 110.
You’re now ready to interview candidates face-to-face.
Of the 12 Topgrading Hiring Steps, this first face-to-face interview is the weakest.
Eliminate this step and your hiring success will probably not be affected.
Disadvantages of Competency Interviews
Competency interviews are far better than “tell me about yourself” chats.
The trouble is, Competency Interviews are weak predictors of job performance when compared with the Topgrading Interview.
Human Resource Executives of Global 100 companies said that Competency Interviews are the reason for 80% of their mis-hired managers.
The Competency Interview Model:
Analyze the job.
Write a list of competencies necessary for success.
Prepare a list of behaviorally anchored questions.
Structure the process with standard questions and note-taking.
Unfortunately, Competency Interviews generate maybe 100 data points to address maybe six competencies.
The Topgrading Interview (Step #7) generates thousands of data points to address dozens of competencies.
Competency Interviews fail because a typical competency question is, “Pat, can you give me an example of when you had a lot of passion for your work?” Of course, anyone can come up with an example and anyone can claim more passion than exists. Candidates are in total control of responses.
So, Why Include Competency Interviews?
Sharp candidates want to talk with a lot more people than just the Topgrading interviewers.
It lets candidates ask additional questions.
Some companies like the “inertia” of keeping this step.
Here’s How to create a Competency Interview Guide
Pick key competencies:
Most jobs have five or six “key competencies.”
Write four questions about each competency:
Two questions asking a candidate to describe situations in which the competency was shown.
Two questions asking a candidate to describe situations in which the competency was NOT shown.
Write as many culture-fit questions as there are interviewers:
Every competency interviewer will focus on one or more competencies, PLUS ask at least one question to try to determine how the person will fit with organizational culture.
Create a Competency Interview Guide:
Include questions and spaces for responses.
Choose the competency interviewers:
Typically four to six for a management job.
Typically includes peers of the hiring manager.
Typically a couple of people at the candidate’s level.
The hiring manager is not one of the interviewers for the competency interview but instead will be one of the tandem Topgrading interviewers.
The hiring manager sometimes greets the candidate at the beginning of the day, to essentially be the host for the day.
After the Competency Interview
The Hiring Manager meets with the competency interviewers.
The Hiring Manager decides whether to ask the candidate in for the Topgrading Interview.
Hiring Step #7: Tandem Topgrading Interviews
Hiring Step #7: Tandem Topgrading Interviews, page 117.
The tandem Topgrading Interview is the most powerful hiring tool.
It contributes more to improved hiring and promoting than all the other 11 Topgrading Hiring Steps combined.
The hiring world is chugging along on the equivalent of a 10-minute shallow, superficial online insurance physical exam.
However, the Topgrading Interview is like a Mayo Clinic five-day executive physical exam – identifying everything important.
If you were to read only one part of this book very carefully (not skim it), make this the section.
What is the Topgrading Interview?
A chronological interview starts with school years and progresses through questions about every job, starting with the first job and moving forward to the present.
Then, there are additional questions – Plans and Goals, Self Appraisals, and a few final Competency Questions.
Topgrading Interviews delve into every success, failure, important decision, and important relationship – particularly all boss relationships and boss ratings – for every job.
What is the Tandem Topgrading Interview?
It’s simply using two interviewers for managerial or professional positions.
The Two-Phase Topgrading Interview Learning Program
Phase 1: Try the Starter Topgrading Interview Guide
Use the Topgrading “Truth Serum,” the TORC Technique.
Ask candidates to complete the Topgrading Career History Form.
Ask a sharp person to be your tandem interviewer.
The two of you ask all the questions in the Starter Topgrading Interview Guide (Appendix E).
Ask the candidate to arrange reference calls.
Make the reference calls.
Phase 2: Learn and Conduct the Full Topgrading Interview, Using the Full Topgrading Interview Guide
When you are comfortable using the Starter Interview Guide, it will be time for you to master the full 30-page Topgrading Interview Guide.
Watch the free 47-minute video, How to Use the Topgrading Interview Guide, at www.Topgrading.com.
Use the Topgrading Interviewer Guide.
The only disadvantage of using the Topgrading Interview is that it takes longer than other interviews, and on top of that, there are two interviewers when interviewing managerial candidates.
With your improved hiring “batting average,” in the long run, you save an enormous amount of time, not only in the entire selection process but in managing A Players rather than B/C Players.
Advantages of Two Interviewers (The Tandem Topgrading Interview)
Using two interviewers of managerial candidates (not entry-level candidates) turbocharges hiring success.
Thousands of managers love the tandem model because they have a backup – a tag team with someone else to:
Help ask questions.
Probe deeper.
Offer insights from a different point of view.
Tone down biases.
Help analyze notes after the interview.
Give each other feedback on the interview technique.
Help provide feedback and coaching for new hires.
How Are Tandem Interviewers Best Matched?
To truly be effective with your tandem partner, pick an A Player, ideally someone trained in Topgrading.
Pick someone who is not your clone.
One interviewer will ask 75% of the questions and take fewer notes, while the tandem partner will ask 25% of the questions and take copious notes.
At least one of the tandems must be higher in the organization than the interviewer, to maintain control.
At least one of the interviewers should be an experienced Topgrading Interviewer.
How Do Tandem Interviewers Structure the Interview?
Both tandem interviewers review the candidate’s resume, Career History Form, and Topgrading Snapshot.
Tandem interviewers should meet before the interview and talk about how they want to structure the interview.
Generally, the hiring manager introduces the process and the tandem partner takes over as the principal interviewer for the first half (with the hiring manager taking most of the notes but chiming in with a question or comment periodically).
There is typically a break at the midpoint.
Then the hiring manager becomes the primary interviewer for the most recent (and relevant) half of the chronology, with the tandem taking more voluminous notes and periodically injecting rapport-building comments and asking questions.
Finally, both interviewers ask competency questions.
After the interview, both tandems review all notes and reach a consensus on rating all competencies.
How to Prepare for a Topgrading Interview
A couple of days before the Topgrading Interview, you and your tandem interviewer review the applicant’s Job Scorecard, resume, Career History Form, Topgrading Snapshot, and the notes from the Telephone Screening Interview and all Competency Interviews.
Sit with your tandem and the candidate’s Career History Form, and write on the Interview Guide a schedule for when to start each section.
With half the time remaining – say, two hours – plan to be discussing a job within the most recent decade.
It’s important to prepare for the Topgrading Interview. A 4-hour interview of a candidate with 15 years of experience is fast-paced – you must move it along, and not let the interviewee take control, avoid questions, or take you off on tangents.
Try to schedule time after the interview for the interviewee to ask you questions.
Be prepared to take copious notes. Interviewees say they very much appreciate your note-taking, particularly when they see you recording their accomplishments and interests.
Don’t ask permission to take notes. Taking notes shows you are conscientious and thorough.
The Interview
Opening
Two to three minutes of rapport building.
Explain the Topgrading process.
Education
To fully understand how the acorn became the oak tree with its strong parts and weak parts, you want to begin early, with the acorn taking root, and then you’ll come forward chronologically.
Have the candidate describe:
Schools attended and dates. (Don’t be afraid to start with high school.)
Grades
Degrees awarded
High and low points
People who influenced you – your career interests, personality, and values
Meaningful work experience during school years
Work History
This is the “guts” of the Topgrading Interview.
Comprises about three hours of a four-hour interview.
Each job title is a different job to cover.
Ask every question in the Work History section for every job:
Why you took the job
Your successes and accomplishments (and how you achieved them)
Your mistakes and failures
What you liked most and least about the job
(For management job) How many A, B, and C Player direct reports did you have when you entered the job…and at the end? What happened to change the talent mix – hiring, firing, coaching, etc.?
Name of supervisor, and that supervisor’s strengths and weaker points
To receive a job offer, we may ask you to arrange reference calls with supervisors you’ve had in the past 10 years. What’s your best guess as to what the supervisor would say were your strengths, weaker points, and overall performance?
What was the reason(s) you left that job?
Experienced Topgrading interviewers begin the Work History section of the Topgrading Interview Guide with another “smorgasbord” question. You learn more if an individual has to organize the entire career history and present it, emphasizing this, excluding that, and so on.
Self-Appraisal
Please list your strengths and weaker points, in detail.
First ask for pluses, since you are a positive thinker.
Ask for 10 to 12 strengths, and then go back and get elaboration, digging for specifics on ones that are unclear.
Then ask for shortcomings and weaker points, urging the person to produce at least that many.
Then go back and get specifics on the weaker points.
If they list “impatience” as a weaker point, challenge them on it.
A Players tend to list important strengths, but rarely list many.
A Players freely admit their weaker points and are willing to talk about how they plan to overcome them.
Plans and Goals
What are your goals for your next job?
What are your long-term career plans and goals?
Conclusion
Your tandem Topgrading Interview is over, and maybe you and your partner love the candidate and want to offer the job. Hold on! Your work is not done.
Topgrading Hiring Steps #8 through #12 remain.
Interview partners should give each other feedback on the other’s interviewing techniques (Step #8), analyze all information, and write a draft Executive Summary (Step #9), ask the candidate to arrange personal reference calls with former bosses and others (Step #10), and conduct those calls, all before hiring someone.
The “Smorgasbord” Approach
The “smorgasbord” question shows what you already know – the candidate’s background – so that will save time.
Asking for specific additional information lays out what you want, which will minimize tangents you don’t need to hear.
For interviewing managers, this smorgasbord question is most appropriate; for interviewing entry-level employees, asking one question at a time is usually best.
Example:
“Would you please expand on the Career History Form information and give us a brief rundown on your college years…particularly events that might have affected later career decisions. I see that you attended the University of Texas, got good grades, participated in the Business Club, and had two summer jobs. We’d be interested in knowing just a little about meaningful work experiences, what the school was like, what you were like back then, high and low points, and so forth. And we’d be interested in hearing about people who influenced you, people who helped you develop the personality, values, or career interests you now have.”
Work History Questions
Why you took the job?
If you hire the candidate, knowing her expectations going to work for you will be crucial.
Learn the pattern of why people took jobs and whether their expectations were met.
Learn about their values, due diligence, ability to assimilate into a new job, and overall performance.
A Players tend to take jobs at a higher salary but not for the money as much as for the opportunity to learn, meet challenges, earn promotions, and have fun working with sharp people.
C Players tend to take jobs just to get a paycheck.
Your successes and accomplishments (and how you achieved them)?
Ask for every major success and accomplishment, and especially for jobs in the last decade, dig in and ask how they pulled off the success.
Probe to see what lessons were learned from each failure, and note if the same mistakes were made in future jobs.
High performers give you specifics that show their drive, resourcefulness, persistence, and ability to work well with people.
Low performers are vague about their successes.
Your mistakes and failures?
High performers also admit to making mistakes but can explain how they learned from them.
Low performers avoid admitting mistakes, tend to blame others and circumstances for their failures, and tend to make similar mistakes in the future.
What you liked most and least about the job?
When discussing successes and failures, you’ll automatically learn what was most liked and disliked in a job.
But, if there is any doubt, ask them.
How many A, B, and C Player direct reports did you have when you entered the job…and at the end? What happened to change the talent mix – hiring, firing, coaching, etc.?
For all management jobs, ask this question.
Most A Players tend to inherit a “mixed bag” of As, Bs, and Cs, and struggle mightily to keep and grow the As, develop the Bs, and replace the Cs.
C Player managers tend to lose their A Players and stumble along with Bs and Cs.
Name of supervisor, and that supervisor’s strengths and weaker points?
Later, when you review your notes, you’ll pay a lot of attention to what the candidate liked or disliked in a boss, and whether it is compatible with you, the hiring manager.
To receive a job offer we may ask you to arrange reference calls with supervisors you’ve had in the past 10 years. What’s your best guess as to what the supervisor would say were your strengths, weaker points, and overall performance?
This will result in the candidate being remarkably honest in saying what previous bosses will say are strengths, weaker points, and overall performance.
High performers tend to get along with almost all good and not-so-good bosses well enough to be given Very Good or Excellent performance ratings.
Low performers tend not to like most of their bosses and describe them as unreasonable, hypercritical, lousy coaches, and so on.
This will allow you, the hiring manager, to naturally project yourself into the pattern and see if you’re a good fit.
What was the reason(s) you left that job?
The logical last question for every job is why they left it.
High performers tend to leave jobs because they were promoted or someone recruited them for a better position at another company.
Weaker candidates tend to leave jobs because they were laid off, “couldn’t stand” working for a boss, or were let go in a “reorganization.”
More Advice to New Topgrading Interviewers
Here are the most common suggestions to our trainees for how to make their first few Topgrading Interviews successful:
Follow the interview guide – follow the script.
Move the Topgrading Interview along faster – stay on schedule.
Don’t wimp out in the Topgrading Interview – ask the tough questions.
Don’t become discouraged – you don’t need to be perfect. The process is resilient and robust.
Hiring Step #8: Interviewers Give Each Other Feedback
Hiring Step #8: Interviewers Give Each Other Feedback, page 144.
Step #8 helps solve a big problem, which is that most interviewers are not very good at interviewing.
The solution is simple – immediately following the Topgrading Interview, the interviewers give each other a couple of minutes of feedback and constructive suggestions.
Interviewer training is not part of the management development curriculum in most companies.
Most interviewers struggle with the first half of the Topgrading Interview. They spend too much time on some things and not enough time on others, they don’t take enough notes, and they seem less warm than they will after an hour or so.
Step #8 Checklist: Giving and Getting Feedback After Topgrading Interviews:
We have published a Topgrading interview Feedback Form with 39 interviewing techniques. He is a few of the 39 interviewing techniques:
Greetings (warm, friendly, shake hands)
Rapport Building (necessary, but only for a couple of minutes)
All Interview Guide Questions Asked
Interviewers Took Copious Notes
Effective Follow-up Questions (reveal the “so what?”)
Warmth
Interviewer Controlled Interview
Interviewee Talked 90% of the Time
Breaks Taken
Inappropriate Humor Not Shown
Shock Not Shown
Points Summarized (every 15 minutes or so)
“Connecting” with Interviewee
Active Listening Used
Interviewers look at this list of interviewing techniques and ask, “How did I do on these and what suggestions do you have for how I could be a better interviewer?”
Clients report that interviewers do improve when they regularly get and give feedback.
Make it a part of your Topgrading process, part of your organizational culture, to assume that every manager can improve interviewing techniques and every manager will get and give feedback after every tandem Topgrading Interview.
Hiring Step #9: Write a (Draft) Executive Summary
Hiring Step #9: Write a (Draft) Executive Summary, page 147.
As each tandem Topgrading Interview is completed, you’re eager to get on with reference checks, but please push the pause button.
When communicating with A Player executives, the first principle is, “State the bottom line succinctly, first, and then make your case.”
The “bottom line” argument for completing this step is this: the value is in the careful analysis of candidate data, and now is the time to do it; writing the draft Executive Summary is just the byproduct.
There is an enormous amount of research showing that relying on gut feelings without systematically analyzing all available candidate data leads to bad hires.
Systematic analysis of the information you have about the candidate is the skill that allows you to arrive at valid, correct conclusions about all competencies.
As soon as a candidate reveals something so negative that you definitely won’t offer him or her a job, writing an extensive report is a waste of time.
However, for candidates that you are still interested in pursuing, you will improve your hiring batting average if you and your tandem partner analyze all the information you have so far, which is a lot.
Why Not Wait On Analyzing Information Until After Reference Checks?
The analysis sometimes leads to asking [the candidate] more questions before reference checks.
It sometimes requires analysis to figure out exactly which people you want the candidate to contact to arrange reference calls.
After systematic analysis of a seemingly good candidate, two other candidates might seem so much better, resulting in the rejection of this candidate.
By going through all the notes, the interviewers figure out how to probe for specifics, particularly regarding weaker points during reference checks.
Key Principles for Interpreting Candidate Information
Look for Patterns
Patterns revealed across an entire career, across 50 competencies, are what enable you to know what the person’s strengths and weaker points are today and are likely to be in the next few years.
The patterns of responses across the chronological interview reveal how a person evolved from high school to today.
By asking about highs and lows throughout the person’s life and career, by delving into every success, failure, key decision, and key relationship, it will be abundantly clear who the person is.
The patterns in all of the data, but mostly in the tandem Topgrading Interview, will reveal what people are strong or weak in and also what might be done developmentally to help you manage them toward improvement.
No one is an A Player with Excellent ratings on all competencies; it is extremely useful to understand a person’s complexity so that you can best manage people to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaker points.
The genius of the Topgrading Interview lies in the patterns it reveals across all of those dimensions – success patterns, failure patterns, patterns for decisions made, patterns for relating to people, and patterns for motivation.
Patterns across the candidate’s entire life and career make it easy to predict exactly how the person will function in the near future.
Any interview process that asks what a person did in only the most recent job, or what would be done under hypothetical situations, misses the boat big-time and will lead to costly mis-hires.
Just because a candidate gets along with one boss for reasons relevant to your leadership style does not tell you why they might not have gotten along with previous bosses in ways that do not bode well for your relationship. By asking for appraisals of all 10 bosses they have had, you’ll learn a lot more.
Suppose, in going through the details of a candidate’s entire career, he has nothing positive to say about even one of eight bosses? Such a constant disrespect for bosses, no matter how great potential bosses might be, almost certainly they will not be respected by the candidate.
In short, only the chronological Topgrading Interview uncovers all the job-relevant information and the emergent patterns and shows how the person has succeeded (or not) and learned from mistakes (or not).
Assume Strengths Become Weaker Points
The Topgrading Interview asks for accomplishments/successes and then failures/mistakes.
Candidates naturally reveal what they are good at, and you’ll note that for most people, strengths are at times overused and become weaker points.
Under pressure, we all tend to overuse our strengths, and they can become shortcomings.
During interviews, entertain this hypothesis frequently.
Understanding the Recent Past Behavior is the Best Predictor of Near Future Behavior
Just getting recent past behaviors leaves you with almost no patterns. It may lead you to shallow insights into the patterns you think you are seeing, but might be totally wrong.
By conducting the full Topgrading Interview, you see much deeper patterns and can predict what aspects of recent behaviors are likely to exist in the near future and which are not.
Deep patterns from the full chronological interview will reveal if someone has the same weaker point year after year…or if the person gains the self-awareness and motivation to actually change.
As you review an individual’s chronological history, weigh the most recent behaviors most heavily, but only if the recent past is fully convincing.
Understand Red Flags
“Red flags” are warning signals to the interviewer that something has gone wrong. Rapport suddenly declines, something changes in the interview to suggest that you have touched on a raw nerve. The signals are as follows:
Blushing
Suddenly complex responses, when previously they were more straight-forward
Loss of eye contact that had been quite good
A significant change in pace (speeding up or slowing down)
A significantly higher or lower voice
Inappropriate use of humor
Sudden changes in voice volume, pace (faster or slower), pitch (higher or lower), or pauses (more/longer or less/shorter)
Twitching, stammering, drumming fingers when there had been none of that behavior
Formality in style or vocabulary, when the candidate had been informal
Inconsistency between nonverbal behavior and words (saying, “I was very happy in that job” while frowning)
Heavy perspiring, when the person had been calm
It is the sudden change in the rhythm, style, and rapport of the interview that should tell you, “Pay attention, something is going on here.”
Take note in your Topgrading Interview Guide. Then go on a “fishing expedition,” using follow-up questions to get additional information.
“Could you tell me a little bit more about that?”
“Could you give me a specific example of what went on then?”
If it is early in the interview, don’t destroy rapport by probing too aggressively. You can always come back to it later in the interview.
Bet on People Changing When They Have Changed
Interviewers are suckers, believing people who look them in the eye and say, “I’ve learned my lesson, and believe me, in my next job I’m going to be a lot better.”
The thing is, the candidate is usually sincere and intends to change. But we all know change is difficult.
My Topgrading advice regarding interpretation is simple – believe people will change when they have shown they have changed.
Look for the pattern of their becoming self-aware, recognizing the need to change.
A Players open themselves up to change, request feedback, establish a plan, follow through, and get the results.
Which Competencies Are Easy and Hard to Change?
Tens of thousands of Topgrading Interviews by Topgrading professionals have given us terrific insights into how, when, and why people change.
Here is a chart of all 50 competencies, organized into three categories of ease of change.
In a new job, there will be higher pressures, and under pressure, people tend to resort to their familiar behavior style, not a new one.
So instead of people “turning over a new leaf” in a job, they usually try to be on their best behavior. When feeling a bit overwhelmed, they tend to resort to their old self.
It’s prudent to assume that people are most likely to change their behaviors when the competency is relatively easy to change, when their self-awareness is high, when they are highly motivated to change, and when they show a pattern of having overcome weaker points in the past.
Weigh Negatives More Heavily Than Positives
People succeed not so much because of the full utilization of their strengths but because of their not having significant shortcomings.
A candidate can be strong on all but one competency and be appropriately rejected if that person is Poor or Very Poor in one important competency.
Topgraders minimize costly mis-hires by, more than anything, understanding the persons’ weaker points. So as you sift through all the data, pay particular attention to the negatives.
How to Write a Draft Executive Summary
Read the Sample Executive Summary, Appendix G (p. 323).
Don’t be shocked by how long it is.
This is a combination final report plus a comprehensive Individual Development Plan (IDP).
Your Executive Summary will consist of:
Narrative Summary
List of Strengths and weaker points
List of developmental suggestions
Write a draft Executive Summary.
After reference checks, the final report will be written.
You and your tandem partner review the Job Scorecard.
You and your tandem partner review all your notes two times.
Once to “get out of the weeds” and see the overall picture. Is this an A Player?
You and your tandem partner compare ratings and notes and resolve any differences.
Finally, write your draft, modeled after the Sample Executive Summary (Appendix G).
Both tandem partners review the draft together and agree to any changes.
Hiring Step #10: Conduct Candidate-Arranged Reference Calls
Hiring Step #10: Conduct Candidate-Arranged Reference Calls, page 168.
The Topgrading method of reference checking is powerful, easy, and fun. You already know the general approach:
Use the TORC technique.
You and your tandem interview partner pick the people you want to talk with.
The candidate does the work of arranging all the calls.
It’s frankly fun, after the huge amount of information you’ve gathered about your candidates, to talk with their past and/or current bosses and others who know them best.
You will conclude that you know the candidate as well or better than any of them, almost all of your conclusions will be confirmed, and you will get sufficient additional insights to be able to manage your new A Player a bit better.
What’s the problem the Topgrading method solves? Even A Players can exaggerate positives and hide negatives.
Conduct the Most Revealing Reference Calls Ever:
Conclude the tandem Topgrading Interview with, “We’ll need to go through our notes to develop a list of people, mostly former bosses, we’d like you to arrange personal reference calls with. So we’ll call you probably tomorrow with the list.”
Perform Step #9 – analyze all the information to prepare a Draft Executive Summary, and while doing so specifically look for people you want to talk with.
Get back to the candidate with the list of people you want to talk with. The sharpest candidates arrange all calls within one day.
Follow the Topgrading Reference Check Guide (abbreviated version below). Do not delegate this important reference checking to someone else. The tandem interviewers know the candidate the best and only the two of you are sufficiently knowledgeable of the candidate to conduct revealing reference calls.
In the reference-check interviews, create the tone of a trusted confidant. Promise confidentiality and respect it.
Reference Call Introductory Comments:
“Hello, (name of the person contacted), thank you very much for accepting my call. As (candidate) indicated, we are considering hiring her, and I would very much appreciate your comments on her strengths, areas of improvement, career potentials, and how I might best manage her. Anything you tell me will be held in the strictest confidence. (Assuming concurrence…) Great, thank you very much. (Candidate) and I have spent _______ hours together. I have thoroughly reviewed her career history and plans for the future and I was particularly interested in her experiences when she reported to you. If you don’t mind, why don’t we start with a very general question.”
What are (candidate’s) strengths…and weaker points?
On a scale of Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, or Poor, how would you rate (candidate’s) overall performance?
Why did (candidate) leave?
Let me tell you more about the job(candidate) is applying for, and our organizational culture…
How would you think (candidate) would fit in such a job?
What would be your advice to me for how I could best manage (candidate)?
After the Reference Call
Meet with your tandem interviewer.
Share all your reference-check notes.
Decide on whether the candidate should be given an offer.
And if so, take the time to finalize your Executive Summary.
In the Executive Summary, include the Individual Development Plan (IDP) suggestions that you’ll share soon after the person starts the job.
Topgrading Hiring Step #11: Coach Your Newly Hired A Player
Topgrading Hiring Step #11: Coach Your Newly Hired A Player, page 171.
Congratulations, your newly hired high performer has just arrived in the new job! It’s time for coaching.
What? Most new hires get their first real coaching a year after they joined the company, after their first formal performance appraisal.
There are two problems when coaching is delayed, and they have been well researched:
Without help getting adjusted to the new job, sometimes even A Players become frustrated and quit
Remember, companies that had been recruiting your newly hired A Player might not have given up
If your onboarding doesn’t go well they might pirate away you’re a Player form you
There can be delayed productivity and development
A person is hired, the boss takes off on business travel for two months and the new hire, eager to get going, has little to do
Why wait weeks to unleash your new A Player’s talents?
Why wait a year to start coaching if someone is high potential, eager for feedback, and eager to follow through on developmental actions?
The best way to retain A Players is to offer them real challenges and active career development
New Hire Coaching Guidelines
Don’t delay
The hiring manager is the coach
Open the coaching session with a statement of the three goals (on-boarding, productivity, development)
It’s the new hires responsibility to take the Executive Summary and compose the Individual Development Plan (IDP), taking your suggestions and making it his/her plan
Review your Executive Summary with the candidate
Every strength
Every weaker point
Every developmental suggestion
Hand your new hire your Executive Summary plus Appendix G, the sample Individual Development Plan
Read and discuss the developmental activities included in your Executive Summary
Ask your newly hired A Player to create an Individual Development Plan (What, Why, When, How Measured)
Be sure the IDP includes quarterly reviews
Hiring Step #12: Annually Measure Your Topgrading Success
Hiring Step #12: Annually Measure Your Topgrading Success, page 175.
In Step #12 we close the loop on Topgrading – because we’re sort of doing what we did in Step #1 – we’re measuring hiring success and costs of mis-hires.
In Step #1 we measured pre-Topgrading results, a baseline, and the poor results motivated managers to Topgrade.
In Step #12 we measure success Topgrading, and we do it annually.
What is the Problem That This Step Helps Solve?
Without measurements there can’t be real accountability for yhe quality of hires.
Without accountability, even the best of best practices wither and die on the vine.
Step #12 is systematically measuring percent high performers hired and costs of mis-hires (and mis-promotions), pre-Topgrading and since Topgrading.
Companies use a lot of different measurements, here are some examples:
Start Step #12 A Year After Topgrading is Launched
Why? Because it usually takes a year to determine if a manager hired or promoted has turned out to be an A Player.
One year after the person is hired, the hiring manager, Human Resources, and two others who worked closely with the person meet for an hour.
The new hire’s Job Scorecard is reviewed and the four decide how the person performed in relation to the stated accountabilities.
If any 360-degree surveys were done, the results are reviewed.
A conclusion is reached and the new hire is told, “We consider you an A Player”… or not, and if it is “not,” the person is put on a performance-improvement plan.
Review Your Referral Program performance (At least) Annually
If only 5% of your hires come from referrals from your people, you will probably launch a program to increase the referrals.
By tracking the measurements annually, you and your team will know whether your referral program is working or not.
Chapter 4 – Advanced Interviewing Techniques
Chapter 4 – Advanced Interviewing Techniques, page 179.
Tip #1: Repeatedly inform candidates of the purpose of the thorough Topgrading hiring approach and of the TORC Technique
Tip #2: “Connect” with the interviewee
Call the person by name.
Be friendly and cordial.
Show sincere enthusiasm when the person discusses a major accomplishment.
Show your sense of humor.
Offer to take breaks every hour or so.
After using the Interview Guide a few times, you will loosen up.
Tip #3: Maintain control of the interview
Tip #1 (above) helps you maintain control. Candidates will realize that you have a thorough and very structured process, and when they hear they will have an opportunity to talk about every job, including every accomplishment, sharp candidates will realize that grabbing control will cause them to not get an offer
Tip #4: Probe, probe, probe to answer the big question: “SO WHAT?”
Perhaps the single most important technique in interviewing is getting underneath the words to understand the true meaning of what was said.
Every time a candidate makes a statement, make it your business to figure out the SO WHAT?
Particularly during the last hour of the Topgrading Interview, when you are discussing the most recent and relevant jobs, to “fully” understand the response will require more and more probes.
Tip #5: Have at least 20% eye contact, but no more than 50%
Tip #6: Constantly take notes, but be unobtrusive
Tip #7: Do a thorough summary at least every 10 minutes
Summaries are super rapport builders and powerful clarifiers.
When you summarize accomplishments, reasons for leaving, or whatever, it shows you’re listening, and a summary will commonly trigger additional thoughts.
Tip #8: Use active listening at least every 15 minutes
Active listening is incredibly powerful.
Active listening is more than an echo, more than just playing back the facts stated.
Active listening includes empathy, sensing what was not said but felt, and playing back to the person your understanding and feelings.
Tip #9: Know when and how to sell a candidate on taking the job
You “sell” every time the candidate sees you and your company, but most of the selling is indirect and subtle.
High performers are attracted to jobs when the following factors are evident:
Your company has a strong recruitment brand.
Your Web site and Careers sections are exciting.
Your Telephone Screening Interview includes a credible “pitch.”
The competency interviews are well organized and the interviewers are impressive.
You promise to provide feedback and coaching in the first few weeks.
You and your tandem interviewer are positive and professional and allow some time at the end of the Topgrading Interview for the candidate to ask questions.
High performers take the job when you satisfy them concerning the 4 F’s:
Family (Spouse employment, kids, sports, schools, etc.).
Freedom (Most A Players need to soar, to be empowered, to make things happen).
Fortune (Most A Players see comp as a symbol of success).
Fun (Pay attention to creating an exciting, fun culture).
Tip #10: Stay legal and valid by sticking with the Topgrading methods