If you’re a Topgrader you already know this unique Topgrading “secret.” If not, you can start turbo-boosting your career by conveying to candidates, before anyone in your company talks with them, these priceless 17 words. Do this and you will dramatically improve your success
hiring high performers. I’ve personally conducted 6,500 in-depth interviews of candidates for hire or promotion to executive jobs. I’ve gotten the reports all digitized and will soon spend hundreds of hours sifting through them to glean more insights I can pass on to you. The first piece of wisdom I can share is how these 17 words changed my life and career and might change yours.
My Story: After completing my Ph.D. in Psychology, I joined a consultancy of psychologists that interviewed candidates for top jobs using 1-hour interviews and half a dozen tests.
Only 30% of the candidates they recommended for hire turned out to be what the client CEOs and heads of HR wanted: HIGH performers, A Players; not just “Okay” performers, and not just “Good” performers. I almost quit after a few months. It was obvious to all of us that the interviews and assessments the consultancy was using – which are still commonplace today – were not revealing crucial information we needed to be confident the candidates were right for our clients. Their resumes showed they had the necessary experience, and they had all the “right answers” in our interviews, but something was missing. We were not able to find or confirm the shortcomings that would prevent the candidates from being A Players for our clients.
The Solution: Luckily for me, two months into my career I interviewed someone who hired almost all high performers and he told me his method. This tip turbo-boosted my career and ever since I’ve devoted my career to alerting managers everywhere to the 17 words that would make them more successful.
- Thousands of leaders have told me that using those 17 words changed their teams from an average of 25% to over 75% high performers hired. Naturally, their A teams made them much more successful.
- Hundreds of CEOs and HR managers say their companies became more successful with the use of those words. For example,
- Jack Welch’s GE improved from 25% to 90% A Players hired and became the most valuable company in the world, and
- Aaron Patzer used the words when hiring for his start up Mint.com and he sold the company to Intuit for $166 Million.
17 Words to Turbo-Boost Your Career: Here they are. 17 words conveyed to all candidates for hire, for companies of all sizes in all industries everywhere: “
A final step in hiring is for you to arrange reference calls with managers you’ve reported to.” Candidates receive that message:
- on a company’s Careers section of their website,
- in the Instructions of Topgrading forms, and/or
- candidates might be told those words by an outside recruiter.
You will save a huge amount of time if candidates understand those 17 words before anyone in your company talks with them. Boom. Low performers remove themselves from the process so you can focus your time and energy on the high performers, who are happy to
arrange calls with bosses who they are confident will sing their praises. Those 17 words are not a bluff; you do ask candidates to arrange the reference calls., and candidates have done it a million times in the past four decades. When you speak with candidates’ bosses you’ll get accurate performance appraisals and the best possible verification of what the candidates have told you about their strengths and weaker points. As a result, you hire almost all high performers. Instead of having 25% high performers on your teams, throughout your career you’ll have 75%… 85%… 90% high performers. With your A Teams, your performance will skyrocket. You’ll get better and better jobs, and with your A Teams so powerful, instead of spending time preventing and fixing problems caused by C and B players, you’ll enjoy more personal time.
Improve your hiring success with Topgrading. Our proven hiring process will transform your selection methodology so that you get better hiring results. Our leadership and candidate assessment tools will help you assess, hire, retain, and grow outstanding team members. Contact us to learn more!