How the Top Grading Philosophy Drives Business Growth

Following the Top Grading system can help you move from only 20-30% A hires within your business to 80%—driving significant change in your culture and fueling a new level of business growth. This process will help eliminate wrong hires, avoiding the lost opportunities, and alienated clients that can cost significantly more than just one wasted salary.

Sounds easy enough, right? But with fierce competition over “A+” hires, finding the right people, and then recruiting them to join your team can be challenging. But, as we all know, the right people can make or break an organization, so we have four tips that will give you an advantage and build your team the right way.

Several steps can make your recruiting and hiring efforts more streamlined and effective, part of what’s called the Top Grading Hiring Process. These four easy changes can have a significant impact.

1 Know what you have already

Audit your existing staff and calculate who are A, B, and C players. You want to understand how your team looks, and who is succeeding. You will want to define what an A player looks like in your unique business. To accomplish that, complete a job scorecard so you have a clear overview of responsibilities and deliverables, and understand how success is defined for that role. TIP: Start with your CEO; every other scorecard should cascade down from that leader’s scorecard.

2 Inspire current A players to refer and recruit high-performance candidates

Smart, dedicated, capable people tend to network with similar personalities, so ask your best hires to consider who they may know. This option is the most under-utilized and under-funded recruiting tool, and easy to activate. You may be surprised at how easy finding amazing hires is once you’ve asked for help from A players you already have on your team. TIP: A simple bonus program can help inspire those connections.

3 Key questions to ask during screening interviews

There are four simple but essential questions you will want to ask during the first screening call with your candidates: What are your career goals? What are you really good at? What are you not so good at? Who were your last five bosses, and what would they say about you? A players will likely provide direct, thoughtful answers that reflect on their self-awareness. TIP: Use simple, straightforward language in your questions.

4 Use tandem interviews to your advantage

By using tandem—or two-person—interviews, you can turn a stressful meeting into more of a conversation, and that allows you to uncover how the person works and relates to a group of peers. Yes, it takes more time to arrange tandem interviews if you have a busy staff, but it is worth it. After all, the goal of this interview is to discuss the candidate’s failures and success, and the more inviting the atmosphere (read: relaxing and conversational) the more likely you will get to see the authentic candidate versus a nervous shell. TIP: After each step of the interview process, provide feedback quickly to the candidate.