Topgrading (How To Hire, Coach and Keep A Players) Paperback – January 1, 2005

Top Grading is a concept for hiring only the very best - A players. The authors have given a great deal of thought to the process and use superior questions to obtain relevant information. The book is definitely worth the read.

The audiobook was somewhat tedious to listen to. Basically skip to the last chapter. Mostly hyping how wonderful the concept is and how they are going to prove how wonderful it is in the coming pages.... I have started using some of the questions along with basic idea of the approach in my interviews and it is helpful for sure.

Great read, worth it and it's a very quick read as well. You'll get through it in one sitting.

This book is ridiculous. As the top rated reviewer notes, this book is more of a marketing pamphlet for the author's services.Here's a tl;dr: Have multiple rounds of multiple hour interviews. This will weed out candidates who are not sufficiently committed to working for you.That's simple enough, and not an awful philosophy - if someone won't stay for a two hour interview, perhaps they are not the best fit for your company. However, there are no magic bullet, and in promoting this method, you may lose out on candidates who have better things to do than spend 10 hours interviewing for 1 company or firm. I was once subjected to topgrading, and far from creating the impression of competence and high standards, I began to wonder if the company knew what it wanted. Generally 10 minutes is all you need to know if you have a culture fit, and maybe another hour to sample knowledge-base. The authors would probably argue that it was implemented badly, but after reading topgrading, I can see they followed it to the letter.My advice is to be rigorous when interviewing, and look for a good culture fit. Someone who wants to and is capable of working with you will overcome gaps in knowledge with proper guidance. The advice given here is so-so at best.In the end, my biggest problem with the method is that the way the authors go about promoting and justifying their method strikes me as sociopathic at best.

Love this book, made me reevaluate my staff to decide if I have A players on my team. I had to do. Some rework

This a great book for learning how to be and to recruit A players. At the end of the day the leader must develop the managerial courage to pull the trigger when required. Brad Smart does a very good job of laying out the key processes.

This is a great book but it did not arrive in time for my needs so I returned it.

good summary. I used it to decide if it was worth going deeper into topgrading.