Topgrading

It is possible to hone your skills as a Topgrading interviewer and still not achieve the level of success in hiring and promoting you expect. “How could that possibly be?” you ask. If you do not spend some time early on in the selection process defining what A player performance is, you will still have a high probability of putting the wrong person into that job even if you do a fantastic job in the Topgrading interview.

Most managers jump into the selection process without ever clearly defining what an A player “looks like” for a given position. If you do not know exactly who you’re looking for, it is pretty difficult to know when you have found them. It is no wonder that most managers experience a dismal hiring and promoting success rate.

You can significantly increase your chances of hiring a high performer by spending an hour or two at the beginning of the selection process to specifically define the accountabilities for a given position and the mission-critical competencies an A player candidate will exhibit. You can think of it this way: the accountabilities are the results you expect the candidate to exhibit in the first 12 months on the job and the mission-critical competencies describe the manner in which you expect the results to be delivered.

For example, increasing revenue by 12.5% within 12 months may be an accountabilty for a sales manager. A few mission-critical competencies for that sales manager candidate may be resourcefulness, tenacity, redeploying B/C players, and customer focus.

Thinking about what results an A player needs to achieve and the behaviors you would like that person to exhibit will get you to your goal of having all high performers on your team quicker than you can imagine!