Topgrading Interview – The Key to Accurate Assessment

Most companies rely on short “round robin” competency (behavioral) interviews -- but candidates can easily fake their way through. Or, when promoting people, too much weight is given to the opinions of the person’s manager.

Accurate assessment is key, and the Topgrading Interview is the silver bullet. The Topgrading Interview is:

Chronological: You go job by job through the candidate's entire career history.
In-depth: You get detailed information about every success, failure, key decision and relationship. There are no fluffy “what if” questions that let candidates off the hook.
Structured: You follow a structured interview, a “road map,” that keeps you on track and ensures you get all the relevant data.

How Do You Conduct a Topgrading Interview?

Is the Topgrading Interview a secret? No. You can read the full Topgrading Interview Guide in Appendix A of Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching, and Keeping the Best People (Portfolio, 2005).

Sign up for Topgrading Tips, a free monthly newsletter. As a bonus, we'll immediately send you a white paper listing the 7 essential Topgrading Interview questions.

Why is the Topgrading Interview so much better than behavioral or competency interviews?

The Topgrading Interview is actually the best competency (behavioral) interview. It includes the basic questions (plus follow up questions) about every full time job, so it reveals details about every success, every failure, every key decision, and every important relationship. The Topgrading Interview produces clear patterns of how the person evolved across dozens of competencies.

What’s wrong with round-robin competency interviews?

It is easy for anyone to fake answers to typical competency questions such as, “Tell me about a time you were a good team player,” or “Tell me about a time you could have been a better team player.” Typically only half a dozen competencies are addressed, with an interviewer asking questions about one competency for 50 minutes. Although responses are supposed to be “behaviors,” any interviewee can be selective, hyping positives and hiding negatives. That’s why even global 100 companies report more than 75% mis-hires.