Who The A Method for Hiring

Who argues that the most important decisions managers make are not 'what' decisions but 'who' decisions—who they put in place to run sales, build products, and lead. Drawing on ghSMART's work on over 12,000 hiring decisions, interviews with more than 80 billionaires and CEOs, and the largest-ever statistical study pairing CEO assessments with financial performance, Geoff Smart and Randy Street expose the failure of intuitive 'voodoo hiring' methods and replace them with the A Method for Hiring. The book walks readers through building a Scorecard that defines the mission, outcomes, and competencies of a role; systematically Sourcing candidates through referrals; Selecting them through four structured interviews (screening, Who, focused, and reference); and Selling the right person on joining using the five F's (fit, family, freedom, fortune, fun). Practical, story-rich, and research-backed, it shows any manager how to raise their hiring success rate to 90 percent and, in doing so, make more money, enjoy more time, and build a winning team.

What it argues

Who: The A Method for Hiring

Key ideas it contributes

• Scorecard Clarity — The degree to which a role's mission, three-to-eight ranked outcomes, and required competencies (including cultural fit) are explicitly defined and aligned to strategy before candidates are evaluated.
• Systematic Sourcing — The consistency and discipline with which a manager proactively generates a flow of high-quality candidates through referrals, employee networks, deputies, recruiters, researchers, and tracking systems before positions open.
• Structured Selection — The use of a consistent series of fact-gathering interviews (screening, chronological Who Interview, focused, and reference) that collect performance patterns across a career and rate them against the scorecard.
• Effective Selling — The sincere and persistent effort to attract and close a chosen candidate by addressing the five F's (fit, family, freedom, fortune, fun) across all five waves of the hiring process.
• Candidate Truthful Disclosure — The extent to which candidates and references reveal accurate, complete information about strengths, weaknesses, failures, and reasons for leaving jobs, elicited through techniques like TORC, reciprocity, and 'What/How/Tell me more' probing.
• Evaluator Predictive Confidence — The hiring manager's justified confidence (90%+) that a candidate can and will deliver scorecard outcomes, based on accumulated factual data rather than gut instinct—captured in the skill-will bull's-eye.
• Candidate-Role and Culture Fit — The match between a candidate's skill (ability to achieve outcomes) and will (motivation, competencies, and cultural values) and the requirements of the scorecard and organization.
• Cheetah Leadership Style — A leadership disposition characterized by moving quickly, acting aggressively, working hard, demonstrating persistence, and setting high standards while holding people accountable, contrasted with the collaborative, feedback-seeking 'Lamb' style.
• A Player Hire / Success — A completed hire of a candidate who has at least a 90% chance of achieving outcomes only the top 10% of candidates could achieve, resulting in the person delivering A performance in the role.
• Business and Personal Outcomes — The downstream results of building a team of A Players, including increased company value, superior financial returns, competitive advantage, plus the manager's greater income, career satisfaction, and time for relationships.