Where to Start with Geoff Smart & Randy Street
Geoff Smart and Randy Street are a business author duo whose work focuses on the science of hiring great people. Geoff Smart is the chairman and CEO of ghSMART, a management assessment firm that advises CEOs and investors. Randy Street is the president of ghSMART Executive Learning and an internationally recognized speaker on talent management. Together they wrote “Who: The A Method for Hiring” (2008), which became a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek bestseller. The book is based on more than 1,300 hours of interviews with over 20 billionaires and 300 CEOs, and the A Method it presents has a reported 90 percent success rate. The Wall Street Journal named it a top seven “Best Advice” book for leaders in 2011, and Canada’s Globe and Mail called it the number one business and management book of 2009. Smart has also authored “Power Score: Your Formula for Leadership Success” (2015) and “Leadocracy: Hiring More Great Leaders (Like You) into Government” (2012).
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Who: The A Method for Hiring
Geoff Smart & Randy Street · 208 pages · 2008 · Easy
Themes: hiring method, talent acquisition, interview techniques, leadership, A players
The book that turned hiring from a gut-feel gamble into a repeatable process. Geoff Smart and Randy Street distill more than 1,300 hours of interviews with billionaires and CEOs into a clear, step-by-step method for getting the right people into the right roles.
Why Start Here
This is Smart and Street’s defining work, and it remains the most practical hiring book ever written. The A Method breaks the hiring process into four steps: create a scorecard defining success in the role, source candidates through a systematic pipeline, conduct four structured interviews to separate real performers from polished talkers, and sell the opportunity to the person you want. Each step is explained with enough detail to implement immediately.
The research behind the book is unusually rigorous for a business title. Smart and Street conducted the largest study of hiring practices ever undertaken, and they report a 90 percent success rate among organizations that follow the full method. The examples span every industry and company size. Whether you are filling a C-suite position or your first customer support role, the framework applies.
What to Expect
A brisk 208-page read that wastes no time on filler. Smart and Street write in plain, direct language, and each chapter ends with actionable takeaways. No prior HR knowledge is needed. You will finish the book with a complete, ready-to-use hiring system.