Who: The A Method for Hiring

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In this instant New York Times Bestseller, Geoff Smart and Randy Street provide a simple, practical, and effective solution to what The Economist calls “the single biggest problem in business today”: unsuccessful hiring. The average hiring mistake costs a company $1.5 million or more a year and countless wasted hours. This statistic becomes even more startling when you consider that the typical hiring success rate of managers is only 50 percent.

The silver lining is that “who” problems are easily preventable. Based on more than 1,300 hours of interviews with more than 20 billionaires and 300 CEOs, Who presents Smart and Street’s A Method for Hiring. Refined through the largest research study of its kind ever undertaken, the A Method stresses fundamental elements that anyone can implement–and it has a 90 percent success rate.

Whether you’re a member of a board of directors looking for a new CEO, the owner of a small business searching for the right people to make your company grow, or a parent in need of a new babysitter, it’s all about Who. Inside you’ll learn how to

• avoid common “voodoo hiring” methods
• define the outcomes you seek
• generate a flow of A Players to your team–by implementing the #1 tactic used by successful businesspeople
• ask the right interview questions to dramatically improve your ability to quickly distinguish an A Player from a B or C candidate
• attract the person you want to hire, by emphasizing the points the candidate cares about most

In business, you are who you hire. In Who, Geoff Smart and Randy Street offer simple, easy-to-follow steps that will put the right people in place for optimal success.

From the Hardcover edition.

Our Top Reviews

Reviewer: Raul
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Outlines a structured approach to hiring
Review: I enjoyed reading this book. I like the structured approach it lays out for hiring, the commentary on common pitfalls, and specificity throughout. I hope to leverage what I’ve learned in this book at my company.

Reviewer: Jo
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Who works, but there’s a better shortcut
Review: This book ruined hiring for me in the best way. After Who, I can’t sit through a bad interview without cringing. Turns out, there’s something called Screened that runs Who-style interviews with AI, and honestly, it sounded almost human. If you don’t have the time to interview everyone, this tip alone is worth the book.

Reviewer: Viriya Taecharungroj
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Are you the A manager?
Review: “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. 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). 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. Anyway, the scorecard needs to have clear “Mission” rather than vague job descriptions we normally see. Specific and tangible “Outcomes” are also necessary together with critical “Competencies”. The scorecard will be the blueprint of the recruiting process. 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. 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. They wrote a series of four interviews; screening interview, Topgrading interview, focused interview, and reference interview. 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. The subject is very focused, “how to get the A player?”. 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. 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 tells you how to do the scorecard, how to source, how to conduct the interview, and how to convince the candidate. A point is taken because the method will probably work best with the top-ranked hires rather than new graduates. 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. From the experience and quotes by clients and success stories; the method sounds credible. However, the success, as the author claimed, of the method is very sentimental; it is measured mostly by customer satisfaction, I believe. 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. 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). There are stories all over the book but they are in glimpses and flashes. 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!). If you are hiring or going to hire someone in the future, this book is a must buy. Personally, I am sure that I will come back to this book many times in the future. I agree with the author when they wrote “you are who you hire”. 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.

Reviewer: David
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: “Who” changes everything…
Review: I picked up this book a few months ago and quickly realized that I needed to treat it as a text book or reference book. I took lots of notes, created scripts, developed processes based on this book. The result has been the most thorough interview process I could imagine and it’s leading to getting the right person for the role. We’ve already implemented it with the last 3 hires and keep getting better hires each time.If you’re hiring people, this should be a required reading. Even if you implement one chapter, you will be better off on your next hire. But you’ll save yourself lots of trouble if you get the book, the audio book, the ebook and take the time to fully implement every part of the process the authors lay out for you.Things we’ve specifically changed were-Scorecard development-Improved our sourcing methods-We stopped asking voodoo hiring questions-Structured the phone screening-Followed the Top Grading interview process exactly-Implemented the focus interviews by the teamWe’ve still got to do the reference interviews. We plan on getting to that soon.Our last 3 hires were 2 entry level positions and 1 manager.Following this process helped us to weed out people who are just good at interviewing but not great for the role. It also helped us to find people who were lying on their resume, exaggerating their work history, exposing their lack of knowledge about the role we were hiring for.Buy this book! Implement it!It’s going to be worth millions for you!!

Reviewer: Dylan Ng
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: amazing book
Review: Best 4 hours of my life in reading about recruitment. Hiring A players makes a great company great and this book gives clear methods and examples. Will get my whole leadership team to read it and also to implement it across my companies

Reviewer: f1shst1x
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: I probably would have liked this book more if the company I was working …
Review: I probably would have liked this book more if the company I was working for hadn’t tried to implement the information found here in a situation where it wasn’t very applicable. The main problem is that this book is mostly geared toward hiring for executive-level positions, and a lot of the principles aren’t transferable to hiring for other positions (an executive-level candidate might be OK going through 4 separate interviews, but your average Joe probably won’t stay in the process that long). If you’re hiring for the C-Level the this book is probably very useful; if not, you can still get some useful advise here, but don’t plan on restructuring your hiring practices based on that.

Reviewer: Cesar Aguirre
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Very useful book
Review: It’s a kind of manual of how to find the right person in the right job, made by the experience of several leaders in different industries. Very recommended for every executive or entrepreneur that want to have the best motivated and talented players in their teams.

Reviewer: MS3
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Solid Recommendations but Could Be More Concise
Review: “Who” offers solid recommendations for hiring, but it could benefit from being shorter and more concise. The content feels a bit dated, especially considering the rise of hybrid and remote work. Despite this, it still provides valuable insights for challenging-to-fill roles. Overall, it’s a useful read, but an update to address modern work environments would enhance its relevance.

Reviewer: d’arpa
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: une excellente methode pour recruter simple efficace pratique. pour l avoir mise en ouvre tres efficace

Reviewer: Martin Daniel Nilsson
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: A good read for managers and recruitment professionals early in their career. A lot of great and simply put advice and frameworks which provides the fundamentals of recruitment.

Reviewer: Anup
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Amazing book higly recommended for interviers.

Reviewer: cecilia
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Se siete alla ricerca di una strategia su CHI assumere per la vostra azienda. Questo libro vi fornisce la giusta chiave per indirizzare le vostre scelte sulla figura migliore per l’azienda.

Reviewer: Stefan Conic, the GTM studio
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: An incredible resource that teaches you how to hire A players, whatever roles you’re hiring, regardless of whether you’re an agency or an internal recruiter.

Price effective as of Apr 13, 2025 15:19:49 UTC

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