“Every company has its share of awesome employees, like our own Penelope, and … walking disasters like Bob.”

Really?  Is that true?  

Having a Bob on your team is a great way to ensure your practice doesn’t thrive.  There’s a basic rule of building awesome teams:

Awesome employees, your A-Players, don’t put up with walking disasters, your C-Players.  

If you’d like to build your dream team, drive a thriving practice, and create more freedom, then learning how to hire A-Players is incredibly important. 

What is an A-Player?

The concept of A-players comes from Topgrading by Dr Bradley Smart. 

A-Players are the top 10% of candidates for the role, who are also a great fit in your corporate culture.  

They’re the unicorns that you hear spoken of by your peers.  That perfect person for the job who raises the performance of everyone around them.  

The more A-players you have on your team, the more of a dream team you have.  

One important thing to understand about A-Players:  An A-Player in your organization may not be an A-Player elsewhere.  Why? Because FIT is a core element of A-Players.  People fit into different organizations differently.  That fit can dictate the difference between an A, B, or even C Player!

This is great news, as it means there’s more potential unicorn A-Players (with rainbow manes) for you to choose from!

How do you hire A-Players?

There’s a mystical art to hiring A-Players.  It takes years of training to get good enough at it.  For everyone else, it’s really luck of the draw. 

Well, that wouldn’t make a very good blog post, would it!  

Thankfully, there’s a very scientific methodology.  Yes, it takes more work than a standard recruiting process, but the results make it worthwhile.  It’s called Topgrading.  

While Topgrading by Dr Bradley Smart is the bible on hiring A-Players, we only recommend it to HR people.  Why?  It’s thick and slow.  It’s perfect bedtime material (drop it on your head if you have insomnia).  

Instead, we recommend reading “Who” by Geoff Smart, Dr Bradley Smart’s son. It’s much more approachable for any business leader.  

Your A-Player Hiring Checklist

• Create an exciting job description that embodies who you are as an organization.
• Create a job scorecard for the role.  This is how you’ll evaluate the candidates.
• Post the job description in all the normal places. 
• Talk to all the A-Players in your industry you know and let them know who you’re looking for.  
• Create and execute an interview plan based on the Topgrading methodology.
• Leverage other top performers in your organization to ensure cultural fit.
• Make a great job offer.  If this is truly your unicorn, compensation should match. 

Cultural fit or Technical Knowledge? 

This is a question every office manager asks themselves.  The answer is simpler than you may think.

You’ve hired Bob because he was top of his class.  He checked all the technical boxes and seemed very professional (if a bit arrogant) in the interview.  The most proficient dental hygienist you’ve ever seen.  Outstanding.

But as Bob spent time with patients, you started hearing grumblings about his lack of bedside manner.  Sure, he cleaned teeth well, but patients simply didn’t like him.  Some even started asking for a different hygienist when they booked their appointments. 

The overall feeling of the office started to change too.  There was less laughing and socializing.  More tension and conflict.  

Then, one of your top performers tendered their resignation.  

We’re not exaggerating, we’ve seen this happen so many times.  That’s why we hire for cultural fit, behaviors, and a base technical skill set.  Skills can be learned, but you can’t change who a person is.  

I Need Help Hiring

Does the concept of recruiting A-Players still seem overwhelming?  Don’t worry, you’re not alone.  Hiring using the Topgrading methodology is a specialist skill.  

While anyone can do it, those with experience will be more successful at finding the A’s and filtering out the C’s.  

There’s not a lot of Topgrading recruiters out there.  Our own co-founder Andrea Roberts is one of them.  Reach out to her!