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I cannot fault the rigor of the approach, which places a heavy burden of developing a very complete, and widely vetted, job description on the hiring organization -- which is in turn used to create quantitative metrics and comparative grading for candidates. This is a book about hiring. Bottom line, this is the way hiring might be done in a more perfect world, where people have more time and also agree more broadly about job requirements. The only weakness of the approach is that the proposed hiring approach seems to require perhaps a quadrupling of the time commonly spent on preparation and interviewing, and also an uncommon agreement on job requirements among all internal corporate stakeholders. It provides a systematic approach to hiring that the author convincingly claims to have been thoroughly field tested with great success. The book delivers all that extremely well.
They were great examples when the book was published, but lost a little credibility in an era of TARP bailouts. The "Get Curious: What, How, Tell Me More" section is a great example of the kind of value I found. To be fair, many of the examples they give involve selecting candidates for banks and investment firms. Who: The A Method for Hiring describes a complete hiring process, which is incredibly handy if you are an HR professional overhauling your procedures. Still, the advice presented in this book is sound and I would recommend it to any hiring manager. Like most good business books I've read, there's nothing complicated about the suggestions. Even if you are not that HR professional, you can still glean some helpful hints out of this book. The value is gained through putting the simple ideas together and illustrating the relationships.
It's a tremendously valuable tool and probably best implemented by a committed board or management working closely with a respected search firm. Yes, it would be time well-spent against the much greater drain of hiring the wrong person, but today's understaffed corporations often prefer to do it over rather than do it right the first time.Who is a short, quick read (although still longer than it needs to be) and if you are at the point in your career at which senior-level hiring, or even just being part of an interviewing team, is becoming part of your responsibilities, it should certainly be one of the books you read. However, any intelligent manager should be able to apply the principles in Who given enough time and attention; the Menkes' techniques are much more user-sensitive and would be hard to deploy without formal training that would almost certainly require hiring his firm. I'd like to see a debate between the authors of Who and Justin Menkes, who wrote Executive Intelligence.
Who may be a valuable book for certain businesspeople with limited exposure to modern hiring methods and no good search firm on retainer. But it should be used sparingly, to avoid demoralizing the team in place and in recognition of the time it takes any new executive to acclimate to a new corporate culture. Bringing in senior executives from outside a company keeps the insiders on their toes, freshens the gene pool, and brings combinations of skills and experience in new areas into a company where they may not exist. It is in places elementary and simplistic, and experienced interviewers and thoughtful hiring managers will find other flaws.
His method, I believe, is superior, and recognizes the time constraints on executives. Who isn't the whole answer, but it advances the discussion, especially for non-human resources professionals. The interviewing and evaluating approach described would be a big improvement for a number of companies but involves a huge commitment of hours that will prove too time-consuming for many. The authors' method will definitely result in better executive hires if put into practice.
They are mostly "what it is, why it should be done, how it must be done, and examples or quotes" and move on to the next topic.Reading Experience: 6/10: It is like reading a recruiting manual (a good one). Personally, I am sure that I will come back to this book many times in the future. We need a person that can get the job done, not an all-round athlete with a perfect resume but hangs around doing nothing.- Source: Generating a Flow of A PlayersThis chapter tells us how to have more and better candidates. The best method that the book suggests is "Referrals" from friends, partners, employess, etc. I agree with the author when they wrote "you are who you hire". Specific and tangible "Outcomes" are also necessary together with critical "Competencies". The subject is adequately explained and the contents are in order, Scorecard, Source, Select, and Sell.Distinction: 6/10: I have to admit that I do not read much on recruitment but things like scorecard is not new and we all know that referral is among the best methods of getting great candidates. Anyway, the scorecard needs to have clear "Mission" rather than vague job descriptions we normally see.
"In business, you are who you hire.""Who: The A Method for Hiring" by Geoff Smart and Randy Street (of ghSMART) is a book on recruting or hiring. A point is taken because the method will probably work best with the top-ranked hires rather than new graduates. Nevertheless, the critical distinction of the book is how things are put in nice and simple order.Practicality: 9/10: Forget rocket science theories on motivation and high intellectual psychology, this book cuts the waste and put you straight into action. It will be great if we have the data of the new recruits that actually outperform the scorecard, but measuring that will be tough.Insight: 5/10: Because the book is destined to be very practical and straight to the point, you will not see highly detailed information of those topics. The distant second and third are from recruiters and researchers.- Select: The Four Interviews for Spotting A PlayersInterview processes are "almost a random predictor" of job performance. That's the case with "traditional" interviews, author stated. During the global economic crisis, hiring is not less significant, it is more significant than ever. As the authors addressed that the who mistakes are pricey, most organisations are still implementing the voodoo hiring methods (the book says there are ten; pretty scary and they are true).
If you are hiring or going to hire someone in the future, this book is a must buy. If we are going to hire for the lower-rank candidates (that's the majority of the population by the way)., we have to simplify the method by ourselves.Credibility: 7/10: The author stated that the A method works and it works with hundred of clients. It tells you how to do the scorecard, how to source, how to conduct the interview, and how to convince the candidate. However, the success, as the author claimed, of the method is very sentimental; it is measured mostly by customer satisfaction, I believe. This is the best part of the book.- Sell: The Top Five Ways to Seal the DealThe authors elaborated The Five F's of Selling; Fit, Family, Freedom, Fortune, Fun and the Five Waves of Selling or the phase that you can convince the candidate.Now, I'll try to compare this book, Who, to the ideal business book or a book that is "easy to understand, distinct, practical, reliable, insightful, and provides great reading experience."Ease of Understanding: 8/10: "Who" is easy to understand.
Having more stories of clients will be more fun and engaging but I believe that's not the point of "Who".Overall: 6.8/10: If you are going to work alone for the rest of your career, skip the book (and you won't be reading this review anyway). Since I do not want to be a B or C player, I'll be looking for only A and The A Mothod sounds right to me. There are stories all over the book but they are in glimpses and flashes. The authors wrote the method, A method, that ghSMART (the authors' company) implemented with hundreds of clients and, as they claimed, the method has worked for them.Contents (The A Method)-Scorecard: A Blueprint for SuccessIt's a bit ironic that the authors always say "Who, not what" but the first step of the A method is the what. From the experience and quotes by clients and success stories; the method sounds credible.
The subject is very focused, "how to get the A player.". The scorecard will be the blueprint of the recruiting process. They wrote a series of four interviews; screening interview, Topgrading interview, focused interview, and reference interview.
Reading Who reaffirmed my belief that I need to find the RIGHT position, and I've been in "nearly right" enough times to be able to tell the difference.Now I need a book to help me incorporate "What am I really good at professionally" into a resume. If you encounter a hiring manager who is following these principles, it will be useful to be able to recognize the pattern. It's not a change-your-life book, but if you're currently unemployed and studying the hiring problem from the other side of the resume pile, Who is certainly worth hauling home from the library. It's an entertaining read and moves quickly.
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