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The Right & Wrong of "A-Players" by Luke Eaton
Note: We are putting out a small excerpt from this great article by Luke Eaton. For the full version and to comment, click on this link. Luke's article was inspired by Who: The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart and Randy Street (website).
The Rights of the A-Method
- Building objective success criteria for a role is a good idea in any talent acquisition strategy.
- Instances where the A-Method falls down is when this first step is not successfully completed or correctly governed and trained into the stakeholders.
- If the scorecard isn't being used consistently, any candidate is subject to the arbitrary biases of each stakeholder’s own definition of "A-Player"
- Yes Yes Yes. Sourcing is a core component of any talent strategy focussed on finding high calibre candidates consistently, with the lowest level of effort. I would only argue that the book doesn't go far enough. I always advocate for an always on sourcing model, where sourcing is decoupled from individual roles.
- Sourcing is a capability of your TA team that should be ritualised daily and used, yes to fill open roles, but also to engage high skills candidate pools for future roles, to discreetly build warm lists for future exec hiring, and to load balance volume across individual recruiters. It can even be used for sales and M&A in some instances.
- Always on Sourcing for the win.
The Wrongs of The A-Method
- Topgrading interviews can last up to four hours. It is fundamentally disrespectful to a candidate's time, particularly the passive, high-caliber candidates your organization is seeking. The Topgrading process involves extensive, often lengthy interviews that can feel repetitive and exhausting for candidates. This can lead to frustration, especially for high-performing candidates who may find the process unnecessarily intense. Topgrading requires interviewers to conduct detailed, chronological interviews that can introduce considerable unconscious bias, particularly if interviewers aren’t well-trained.
- The A-Method assumes interviewers can objectively evaluate each career stage, which isn't true. However, untrained interviewers may misinterpret career decisions or performance, leading to inaccurate conclusions. If interviewers are inconsistently trained or don’t understand the structured approach, they may provide varied or subjective feedback. This lack of standardization can lead to an unreliable evaluation process and contribute to hiring decisions that don’t align with the defined Scorecard.
Congrats to Amy Wood and Anastacia Flores for being named to the Talent100 List
Always great to see RecOps folks on this list! You are awesome Amy and Anastacia.
Articles / Industry News
Articles/Graphics/Podcasts/Posts On Our Radar (sorted by type - Bolded denotes individuals)
Product News (sorted alphabetically with type parenthesis)
Permanent Articles
Job Search
Here is the list of previously listed jobs, which may or may not be available.
Additional Resource
Boolean Strings for Specific ATS Job Search
We’ve consolidated our list of boolean search strings for RecOps professionals to make them more accessible for everyone. Check out the list here. Kaitlyn Elting also built a generator for you if you are worried about your attention to detail.
Thank you to Steve Levy for contributing so many beautiful and Gabi Preston-Phypers for QA help. Follow both of them for excellent boolean and sourcing content.
#YourNextHire / People Looking In the RecOps Community
Are you a RecOps professional looking for work? If you have 5 minutes, take the opportunity to complete this quick questionnaire. Not only will you be featured in an upcoming Roundup, it will also help us mention your name when people ask for referrals.
Here is a Google Sheet View for a list of people who were previously featured and are still looking.
Events
🎉 Reminders and Disclaimers 🎉
- If you’d like to contribute a job, an article (one you found or wrote), or you are a company and have a product update you want featured, contact Jeremy Lyons.
- Please use this form if you or someone you know would like to be featured in our #YourNextHire section. The only condition is you are a RecOps professional.
- Disclaimer #1: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and they do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis do not reflect the position of any entity other than the author. As critically thinking professionals, these views are always subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time. They are not to be held in perpetuity.
- Disclaimer #2: We are sponsor-free. No company below has paid us to advertise their products or share their open jobs. If that changes, we will deliberately call out where we stand to benefit. Additionally, sharing these opportunities and information should not be read as support for these companies or their practices. Regarding jobs, we share these opportunities with the community and only post roles from the company's website. We encourage possible candidates to research each one, as their inclusion does not mean we support the companies or their values.
Until next week, Regulators 😊
Thanks for highlighting our experts forum on the future of TA! The recording should be up on our site by the end of the week!
Recruiting Coordinator Professional & Owner
1moSunday reads! Thank you Jeremy A. Lyons
Thanks for the shoutout on our new feature drop! Jeremy A. Lyons
Thank you so much for sharing our webinar write-up!
Talent @ ᴚ◖˥⊥ | Hype Man ✌️
1mo“Topgrading”……. *shivers*