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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 Booklist

Think of Who as the literal and figurative son of TopGrading (2005), by Brad Smart. Coaches and consultants Smart and Street have broadened the how-to-hire process from interviews to a 360-degree perspective on recruiting A players. It’s a compelling read for many reasons: the research is solid and expansive, based on actual work, CEO/top-management interviews, and statistics analyses from a top graduate business school. It’s simple: instead of 6 reasons here and 10 steps there, the authors boil down their recommendations into a 4-step process, from scorecard and source to select and sell. Who wouldn’t like to read stories from well-known CEOs like George Buckley of 3M, opening up the mysterious method of executive hiring? And finally, it’s a book laced with humor; anecdotes about interviewees who’ve told their stories all too well are not only laughable but memorable, too—for all the right reasons. Like the candidate who bugged his boss’ office because he never received any performance appraisals. Intended for executive readers—and human resources’ follow-through. --Barbara Jacobs

Review

“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.”–Robert Gillette, president and CEO, Honeywell Aerospace

“Geoff Smart and Randy Street have done an amazing job distilling the best advice from some of the world’s most successful business leaders.”–Wayne Huizenga, founder, Blockbuster Video

“A great read–it really is all about finding, keeping, and motivating the team.” –John Malone, chairman, Liberty Media Corporation

“The key point in this book is that those of us who run companies should include who decisions near the top of the list of strategic priorities.”–John Varley, group chief executive, Barclays

“Whois the only book you need to read if you are serious about making smart hiring and promotion decisions. It is the most actionable book on middle- and upper-management hiring that I’ve read after twenty years in HR.”–Ed Evans, executive vice president and chief personnel officer, Allied Waste Industries

“I wish I had this book thirty years ago, at the beginning of my career!”–Jay Jordan, chairman and CEO, the Jordan Company

“This book will save you and your company time and money. In business, what else is there?”–Roger Marino, co-founder, EMC Corporation

“You’ ll find yourself nodding yes, saying ‘That’s right,’ and thinking, Oh, I’ve been there, all the way through this grand slam of a book. Whether you’re starting a company or running a part of a big one, the level of success you achieve is almost always a result of choosing the right people for the right jobs at the right time. It’s all about the who!”–Aaron Kennedy, founder and chairman, Noodles & Company

From the Author

Please find our newly-released Who and Power Score tools and templates at geoffsmart.com/smarttools.
And to polish your skills for hiring talented teams and then running them at full power, bring your team to SMARTfest 2016 Denver. Register at geoffsmart.com/smartfest.

About the Author

Geoff Smart is the chairman and CEO of ghSMART, the management assessment firm for CEOs and investors.

Randy Street is the president of ghSMART Executive Learning and a top-rated international public speaker.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Your #1 Problem

What does a who problem look like?

Remember the I Love Lucy episode where Lucy and Ethel ﬁnd work at a candy factory? They’re supposed to be wrapping chocolates, but they can’t keep up with the pace. So instead of letting the candy pass them by, they start shoving it into their mouths, down their shirts, and anywhere else it will ﬁt. That’s when a supervisor looks in and congratulates the new hires on the empty conveyor belt. Then she calls to someone in the next room, “Speed it up!” And with that the chaos really ensues.

You could spend countless hours trying to optimize the line, but that wouldn’t get to the heart of the matter. The supervisor didn’t have a conveyor problem. She had a Lucy problem.

The Lucy problem is a who problem, but chances are yours is neither as funny nor so far down the chain of command. As an engineering friend of ours often laments, “Managing is easy, except for the people part!”

In an October 2006 cover story, “The Search for Talent,” The Economist reported that ﬁnding the right people is the single biggest problem in business today.* We doubt that surprised most readers. The fact is, virtually every manager struggles to ﬁnd and hire the talent necessary to drive his or her business forward.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all heard the horror stories of the CEO who sank a multibillion-dollar public company, the district manager who allowed his region to fall behind competition, even the executive assistant who couldn’t keep a schedule. Most of us have lived those stories and could add dozens more to the list.

Even we have made bad who decisions. A few years back, Geoff and his wife hired a nanny we’ll call Tammy to look after their children. Unfortunately, Geoff had what his six-year-old calls a “space-out moment” and neglected to apply the method this book describes when he hired her.

Not many months later, Geoff was on the phone in his home ofﬁce when he saw his two-year-old running naked down the driveway. He immediately hung up on his client and raced outdoors to stop his daughter before she ran into the street. Fortunately, the FedEx truck was not barreling up the driveway at that moment.
Then Geoff went looking for Tammy to ﬁnd out what had happened. All she could say was, “Well, it’s hard to keep track of all of the kids.” It is, but as Geoff explained to her, that’s exactly what she had been hired to do. Sometimes a who problem can mean life or death.

Needless to say, Geoff’s next nanny search commenced immediately, involved the method presented in this book, and resulted in a much better hire.

The fact is, all of us let our who guard down sometimes. We realize how inﬂated resumes can be. Yet we accept at face value claims of high accomplishment that we know better than to fully trust. Due diligence, after all, takes time, and time is the one commodity most lacking in busy managers’ lives.
George Buckley grew up with adoptive parents in a boardinghouse in a rough part of Shefﬁeld, England, went to a school for physically handicapped children, and worked his way up to becoming the successful CEO of two Fortune 500 companies, including 3M, where he works now. It’s the sort of background that breeds a healthy skepticism about resumes.

When we met with Buckley, he got straight to the point: “One of the hardest challenges is to hire people from outside the company. One of the basic failures in the hiring process is this: What is a resume? It is a record of a person’s career with all of the accomplishments embellished and all the failures removed.”

Jay Jordan, CEO of the Jordan Company, told us how he once hired a candidate who looked great on paper but failed in the role. The executive demanded some feedback from Jordan on the day of his termination. Jordan didn’t want to add insult to injury, but ﬁnally couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Look, I hired your resume. But unfortunately, what I got was you!”

Due diligence is also lacking in what Kelvin Thompson, a top executive recruiter with Heidrick & Struggles, calls “the worst mistake boards make–the ‘la-di-da’ interview: nice lunch, nice chat. They say this is a CEO, and we cannot really interview them. So you have a board who never really interviews the candidates.”

The techniques you will learn in the pages that follow will help everyone–boards, hiring managers at every level, even parents hiring a nanny–ﬁnd the right who for whatever position needs ﬁlling. The method will do the due diligence for you. It lets you focus on the individual candidates without losing sight of the goals and values of your organization.

Before our method can work to its optimal level, though, chances are you might have to break some bad hiring habits of your own.

* The Economist, October 7—13, 2006.

Review:

4.7 out of 5

93.85% of customers are satisfied

5.0 out of 5 stars practical and realistic views

S.M. · April 19, 2025

5.0 out of 5 stars "Who" changes everything...

D. · September 20, 2024

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!!

4.0 out of 5 stars Are you the A manager?

V.T. · February 21, 2009

"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.

5.0 out of 5 stars Outlines a structured approach to hiring

R. · March 19, 2025

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars Who works, but there's a better shortcut

J. · March 4, 2025

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars amazing book

D.N. · February 23, 2025

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

3.0 out of 5 stars I probably would have liked this book more if the company I was working ...

f. · August 22, 2017

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.

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid Recommendations but Could Be More Concise

M. · July 27, 2024

"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.

une methode de recrutement top

d. · February 18, 2024

Easy-read that gives you fundamentals to recruitment

M.D.N. · October 21, 2018

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.

Amazing book

A. · March 3, 2024

Amazing book higly recommended for interviers.

Spunti interessanti

c. · March 28, 2021

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.

Tactical process for hiring A Players

S.C.t.G.s. · August 10, 2023

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.

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Who

Name: Who
Brand: Geoff Smart (Author), Randy Street (Author)
SKU: U0345504194
Price: 8.25 BHD
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Rating: 4.5 (13 reviews)

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