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From the Desk of Brad Smart: How to Hire the Right, Ambitious, Hard-Working “Young People”

In our experience, with hundreds of clients in dozens of countries, the reality is not that bad.  Watch Shark Tank (CNBC nightly) and you’ll see amazing young entrepreneurs who are sincerely passionate about growing their business that truly helps customers. They are extremely dedicated, hard-working, smart, and resourceful – they figure out how to overcome obstacles. 

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From the Desk of Brad Smart: Ken Griffin Praises Topgrading

Citadel CEO Ken Griffin embraced Topgrading in the early 2000s. A few years later the company had blossomed, and Ken was nice enough to record over an hour of praise for Topgrading. The video is a bit old, but there is no expiration date for Topgrading!

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From the Desk of Brad Smart: How to Evaluate Different Hiring Methods

Are you an executive who is not satisfied with your hiring success? You’re not alone. A global survey of CEOs showed a chronic concern of CEOs is “bad hires.” In our practice assessing and coaching senior executives, we ask them detailed questions about every job, and the #1 most common failure across 12,000 executives, who had an average of 10 managerial jobs, was 120,000 versions of “bad hires.” Costly bad hires.

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From the Desk of Brad Smart: 11 Recruitment Tips to Find the A Players You Seek

Recruitment tips are nothing if you’re not sure what makes an A Player an A Player. This blog could list 1,000 recruitment tips, and it wouldn’t help if your top team members are not on the same page regarding what, specifically, A Player competencies are. Competencies that should be spelled out in every hire’s Job Scorecard.

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From the Desk of Brad Smart: The Most Revealing Hiring Question

At Topgrading, Inc. our main business is interviewing — interviewing candidates for hire or promotion to senior jobs, where the costs of bad hires/promotions are what you know to be HUGE! One bad mis-hire of a CFO or COO in a small company can push it to bankruptcy. Learn our most revealing hiring question.

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From the Desk of Brad Smart: How Executives Stay in Shape

Most A Player executives exercise regularly because they believe:
No Pain, YOU Gain!
In my practice of interviewing candidates for executive jobs, I have asked more than 2,000 high performers about the exercise they get. Years ago I started taking careful note of executives who were “on again, off again” fitness buffs, but who finally managed to stick with an exercise program.

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From the Desk of Brad Smart: Retaining Employees with Huge Praise Failed: Here’s a Better Way

If you’re a CEO/President/COO or Head of HR, you’ve been partially mis-lead with the non-stop advice on how to retain employees. You know all about The Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting. You’ve read Wall Street Journal’s “research” (hearsay) that suggests you suck as a leader – “78% of people quit because they dislike their manager.” You’re not “every manager” but as CEO those “every managers” report to you, so you’re to blame. You raised pay to keep people while being scolded, “Raising pay will not convert employees who don’t like you or your organization “culture” into loyal, motivated team players.”

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From the Desk of Brad Smart: Are Traditional or ‘Virtuoso’ Teams Best?

Harvard Business Review published a widely read and controversial article based on a study of 20 leading companies. The article highlights how success was snatched from the jaws of defeat with geniuses stimulating competition on their teams for creative “ideas,” not just the performance of tasks like producing results.

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From the Desk of Brad Smart: How a CEO Successfully Navigated Through Incredibly Tough Mental Health Challenges

Topgrading supporter and Scaling Up coach, Kevin Lawrence, sent us an interview he did with a CEO who, with pandemic challenges mounting, discussed how he was able to transition through the lowest of mental health lows successfully. 

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From the Desk of Brad Smart: Are Your Interviews as Revealing as Speed Dates?

If you’re new to Topgrading, this blog will give you a hint that will make all of your hiring interviews the most revealing and honest of your career. Topgrading’s “secret” takes seconds to use and you’ll immediately know that the interviewee is being real, authentic and is not ‘BS’ing you.’ It’s like playing the roulette wheel and knowing in advance if the ball will land on red, black, or green.

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