JOB BOARDS
You use job boards but you’ re overwhelmed with resumes that you know might be hyped, and your hiring success still … sucks, right? Job boards are flawed but there is one hiring approach that is truly best and most proven: Topgrading. Most of the Topgrading methods are simple, free, and explained in this article.
You’ ve seen the ads where a manager who complains about spending all day reviewing resumes signs on with a job board that supposedly generates more qualified candidates and saves the manager time. But that doesn’ t make sense. The job boards give you more resumes to review, not fewer, so you spend more time sorting through them.
And worse than that, the resumes might be fictitious. One study showed 58 % of resumes contained deliberate falsehoods. Every book I’ m aware of on how to get a job says to lie on your resume, lie in interviews, and if you need to supply references, give the names of your buddies. References, as you know, are usually worthless, so there is no way to verify if candidates conned you. It’ s socially acceptable for candidates to lie their way into your company. Yikes!
There you have it: hiring sucks because most candidates lie and get away with it. Also, you conduct interviews that don’ t reveal the really important things you need to know. The result: our decadeslong research with tens of thousands of managers suggests that more than half of all the people you hire turn out to disappoint you. I have met with the Human Resources( HR) executives of the largest one hundred companies in the world and they said 80 % of the people they hire turn out to be disappointments. Eighty percent mis-
hires by the most sophisticated companies! Frustrating, isn’ t it?
Now for the good news. The Topgraders in that HR conference said they achieved an 80 % rate of hiring high performers! General Electric adopted the Topgrading principles and improved its hiring success rate from 25 % to 85 % and became the most valuable company in the world at that time. Hundreds of thousands of managers in the same situation as you have tripled their hiring success. Dozens of CEOs( TopgradingCaseStudies. com) have said that Topgrading made their company more successful. In a recent case study, the CEO of E * TRADE said that without Topgrading, the company would have gone under. And Topgrading works for all companies— large and small, all industries, and all over the globe.
How can you“ Topgrade”? Let’ s get to the good stuff. Here are the four most important steps in Topgrading:
1. ADMINISTER THE TOPGRADING“ TRUTH SERUM.” Simply tell candidates before interviewing them that a final step in the hiring process is for them to arrange reference calls with the people you choose( all bosses in the past ten years, at least). Low performers and BSers drop out. Good— you don’ t waste time with them! If you think this simple approach won’ t work, think again. Millions of candidates have arranged calls with their ex-bosses and others. We have never— not once— heard of any negative repercussions as a result of the former managers of A Players giving reference calls.
Recruit candidates and, yes, use job boards, but don’ t expect to save time or hire better people unless you can identify candidates
you don’ t want to hire. So …
2. WEED OUT FAKERS AND LOW PERFORMERS WITH THE TOPGRADING SNAPSHOT. This takes you no time at all as it is the candidates who fill out the form. And then you see their Snapshots( topgrading. com / topgrading-software / what-is-tols /). Scott Clawson, CEO of Culligan, said,“ The Snapshot is amazing! Even before talking with candidates, you know their full salary history and how all bosses would rate their performance.”
Take just a minute to study the accompanying Snapshot. Since the Topgrading Truth Serum works, the information in the Snapshot is amazingly accurate. For example, the form asks candidates to guess how all their managers would rate their overall performance. Topgraders will learn that those guesses are accurate when they conduct reference calls arranged by the candidate( step 4).
3. CONDUCT THE FAMOUS TOPGRADING INTERVIEW. It is the most proven, the most revealing interview you will ever do with a candidate( go to Topgrading. com for a free e-book which discusses, among other things, this interview process).
The most common interview method is to conduct competency or behavioral interviews and ask questions such as,“ Sue, can you describe a time you were an effective leader?” Candidates can make up anything, confident that reference checks won’ t contradict them.
The Topgrading Interview is a chronological interview asking basic questions about every job, starting with the first and coming
Better Than
Job
Boards: Topgrading
22 | SPRING 2017