Who
The A Method for Hiring
by Geoff Smart & Randy Street
“Seventy percent of the game is finding the right people, putting them in the right position, listening to them, and alleviating what gets in their way. Whois a practical guide to making sure you get the right people to start with! Excellent advice and guide.”
Few business decisions carry bigger stakes—or bigger hidden costs—than hiring. A single bad hire can sap morale, slow execution, and end up costing ten-plus times the person’s salary. In Who: The A Method for Hiring, leadership advisers Geoff Smart and Randy Street distill insights from more than 20,000 executive interviews and thousands of hours inside boardrooms to replace “voodoo hiring” with a disciplined, highly repeatable playbook for securing elite talent. Their A Method revolves around four clear steps: Scorecard, Source, Select, and Sell.
1. Scorecard: Define Success Before You Interview
Most job descriptions read like vague wish lists—little more than recycled bullet points. Smart and Street argue that this fuzziness is the root cause of mis-hiring because you can’t hit a target you haven’t precisely drawn. Their solution is the Scorecard, a living document that spells out three elements:
Mission – a single sentence capturing why the role exists.
Outcomes – three to eight measurable results the hire must deliver, such as “Reduce customer churn from 12 percent to 6 percent within 12 months” or “Launch two new products within the first year.”
Competencies – observable behaviors that predict high performance in your specific culture, like analytical rigor, calm under pressure, or team leadership.
Because the Scorecard is outcome-based, it aligns everyone—CEO, hiring manager, HR—on what “great” actually looks like before a single résumé crosses the desk. It also becomes a north star for onboarding, performance reviews, and compensation discussions. Smart and Street define an A Player as someone in the top 10 percent of available talent for a given role, salary, and location; the Scorecard makes that standard concrete and measurable.
2. Source: Build a Bench Before You’re Desperate
Most companies scramble for candidates only after a vacancy opens, leading to rushed compromises. The A Method flips the timeline: you should be courting talent all year, so you’re never forced to settle. The authors recommend a weekly “talent review” rhythm in which leaders discuss pipeline health and share fresh leads. They highlight four dependable channels:
Personal networks – Ask colleagues, investors, board members, and customers, “Who are the most talented people you know?”
Employee referrals – Pay meaningful bonuses and recognize staff who introduce A Players; high performers tend to know other high performers.
Specialist recruiters – Deploy head-hunters or researchers surgically for hard-to-reach niches, but keep ownership of the Scorecard and interviews in-house.
Inbound magnetism – Publish thought-leadership content, showcase culture on social media, and speak at events so that like-minded candidates seek you out.
Every lead—whether passive or active—gets logged and lightly screened against the Scorecard. Over time you create a bench of semi-vetted prospects, so sudden departures or growth spurts don’t throw you into panic mode.
3. Select: Four Interviews, Zero Guesswork
Most hiring errors happen during interviews, where unstructured “chemistry chats” allow biases to run wild. Smart and Street replace those free-form conversations with four deliberate interview types, each with a clear purpose:
a. Screening Interview (30 minutes, phone or video)
This quick call weeds out obvious mismatches. Typical questions include, “What are your career goals?” “Why are you considering a move now?” and “What do you know about our company?” You verify basic fit before investing more time.
b. Who Interview (three to four hours, in person or video)
The backbone of the A Method, this chronological deep dive explores every full-time job the candidate has held. For each stint you ask five repeatable prompts:
What were you hired to do?
What were your most significant accomplishments?
What were your mistakes or low points?
How would your manager rate your performance in that role?
Why did you leave?
The pattern of answers reveals whether the person consistently drives results or repeatedly blames others for setbacks.
c. Focused Interviews (45 minutes each, usually two to four interviews)
Different interviewers drill into the top competencies on the Scorecard. Using the STAR prompt—Situation, Task, Action, Result—you request concrete stories such as: “Tell me about a time you negotiated a complex deal under tight deadline pressure. What exactly happened, what did you do, and what was the outcome?” STAR keeps anecdotes specific and comparable.
d. Reference Calls (approximately seven conversations, 20 minutes each)
References are not optional; they are the final quality gate. Ask for former bosses, peers, and subordinates the candidate hasn’t supplied. Then dig into questions like, “What were this person’s biggest accomplishments?” “Where could they improve?” and “Would you enthusiastically hire them again?” Because candidates know you will verify claims, they tend to be more candid upfront—a dynamic the authors call TORC (Threat Of Reference Check).
Immediately after each interview, every interviewer rates the candidate against the Scorecard’s outcomes and competencies. Stack-ranking while memories are fresh prevents halo effects and groupthink.
4. Sell: Win the Candidate’s Heart and Head
Elite performers usually weigh multiple offers. Selling is not about inflating compensation; it’s about matching the role to what truly motivates the individual. Smart and Street organize their pitch around the Five F’s:
Fit – Show exactly how the candidate’s goals map to the Scorecard mission.
Family – Address practical concerns like relocation, commute, or school options early.
Freedom – Clarify decision-making authority, resources, and growth pathways.
Fortune – Present fair pay with upside tied to Scorecard outcomes, reinforcing the performance culture.
Fun – Give candidates a taste of daily life: dinners with future peers, office tours, or exposure to company rituals.
Selling begins at first contact and continues through onboarding; think of it as nurturing a relationship, not closing a one-time transaction.
Common Hiring Pitfalls—and How the A Method Prevents Them
Voodoo questions like “If you were an animal, what animal would you be?” sound playful but reveal nothing predictive. STAR-based behavioral questions replace them with hard evidence.
Cloning yourself—hiring people who think just like you—breeds blind spots. Because the Scorecard emphasizes outcomes over personality, you balance strengths rather than duplicate them.
Desperation hiring happens when you start sourcing after a role opens. A standing bench reverses the timeline.
Overvaluing résumés or credentials can lure you into ignoring cultural fit. The Who Interview uncovers performance track records that paper qualifications might disguise.
Skipping references lets hidden performance issues slip through. TORC-backed reference calls surface reality before day one, not after month six.
Implementing the A Method in 90 Days
Smart and Street close the book with a rollout blueprint:
Align the leadership team. Run a two-hour workshop to draft Scorecards for every key role.
Install weekly talent reviews. Each manager reports on Scorecard creation, pipeline activity, and time-to-fill metrics.
Train interviewers. Hold mock interviews and audit adherence to STAR questioning.
Integrate with performance management. Turn Scorecard outcomes into quarterly OKRs so expectations stay visible after the honeymoon.
Measure quality of hire. At six and twelve months, compare each hire’s results to the Scorecard and tie manager bonuses to percentage of A Players hired and retained.
Strategic Payoffs of a Talent Engine
When 90 percent of critical seats are filled with A Players, Smart and Street argue that companies experience several compounding benefits:
Faster growth. High performers hit targets sooner and spot opportunities others miss.
Stronger innovation. Diverse, top-tier thinkers challenge ideas constructively and iterate faster.
Lower voluntary turnover. A Players want to work with other A Players and self-select for cultures that prize excellence.
More strategic leadership bandwidth. Executives spend less time rescuing underperformers and more time on growth, culture, and vision.
Final Takeaways
Clarity beats hope. A rock-solid Scorecard prevents ambiguity from sabotaging the search.
Hiring is a process, not an art. Rigor and data trump hunches and shiny résumés.
Top talent seeks mission, impact, and autonomy—then money. Sell all four.
Reference checks predict reality. If you skip them, you gamble with culture and results.
Great teams are built in advance. Sourcing never stops; it’s a weekly habit baked into leadership rhythms.
By embedding these practices, Who turns hiring from a roulette wheel into a systematic, evidence-based discipline. The payoff is a self-replenishing talent engine—one that continuously feeds the organization with high performers who enlarge its capacity to innovate, execute, and outpace competitors.
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