If you haven't noticed, there's a war for talent going on.  As 76 million Baby Boomers retire over the next decade or so, you're going to be competing for top talent.  That makes your hiring decisions that much more important...

Over the past year, I've hired some tremendously talented purchasing staff.  In fact, the past few hiring decisions I've made are some of the best I've made in my entire career.  The most recent "A player" I hired was the one and only candidate I interviewed face-to-face (out of over 200 initial applicants).  You may think I've been incredibly lucky or I'm naturally good at hiring great staff.  I've certainly never been lucky and, based on some past bad hires, I'm no natural.  So what's the difference between the past year and the hit-or-miss of years' prior?  A disciplined technique, which shifts the burden of sourcing and hiring from HR to the hiring manager, and definitely requires more work and focus for the hiring manager.  But, what an unbelievable difference great staff can make.  In 2007, my department crushed its performance goals—and the only real difference year-over-year was new staff.

The technique is called "topgrading," and was developed by Brad Smart, who wrote a book called, not surprisingly, "Topgrading."  Out of that larger book, a small handbook was written by Brad and Geoff Smart called "Topgrading: How to Hire, Coach, and Keep A Players."  An executive in my organization got a hold of the handbook, and influenced the rest of the management team to adopt the hiring portion of the topgrading philosophy.  It trickled down from there.

Unlike many other management books, topgrading is not a "technique of the month" that's all flash and no substance.  Instead, topgrading is a meat-and-potatoes, rubber-meets-the-road, practical technique.  It's labor-intensive and time-consuming for the hiring manager, but so is counseling poor performers before you finally have to boot them out the door.  This is short-term pain for long-term gain.  From here on, I'm going to butcher the fine work of Brad and Geoff into how I've interpreted and applied the topgrading technique...

In my mind, topgrading is all about the hiring manager, no one else, being responsible for the hiring of his or her staff.  No more consensus interviews and consensus decision-making: The hiring manager is the sole decision-maker for the hire.  And no more multiple face-to-face interviews.  The topgrading technique usually results in just one or two face-to-face interviews.  Interviewing only one or two candidates may seem risky, but when the recruiting steps have effectively screened out non-qualified candidates, the remaining candidate or candidates who proceed to the face-to-face interview step are likely to be highly qualified.

The first step of the technique is to find and recruit the right candidates.  Simply putting a job posting on an Internet job site and sitting back to wait for the resumes to start coming in is not enough.  You really need to network and make it known that you have a position open.  There are a number of national purchasing organizations and associations with local chapters and national events.  Attendees of these chapters and events are prospective employees.  Speakers at industry events and authors of relevant articles or other publications are also good potential candidates—you at least know they have a passion for the purchasing profession.  Recent law school graduates are also an excellent pool of candidates to tap into.

If the recruiting step has been managed properly, you should receive on-point resumes.  However, as you may be painfully aware, an on-point resume may not necessarily accurately represent the actual candidate.  Also, a resume is a pre-staged, hopefully well-developed, work product that best positions the candidate.  Therefore, you should never take the resume at face value and should seek to "learn" the candidate behind the resume.  However, writing is a critical skill for purchasing staff.  If I find more than a couple of major typoes or bad grammer in a resume or any other writing from a candidate, I don't care how qualified the candidate is, the resume is electronically trashed. 

Also, check out the social websites like Facebook and MySpace to make sure you're not dealing with some kook.  P.S.  I don't care what people say about the "privacy" of their information on those types of sites.  If you put your information out there on the Internet for the whole world to see, don't cry when people actually act on your information and questionable pictures.

Following the receipt of a viable resume, the next steps are basically a pre-qualification of sorts: a traditional HR department phone screen, completion by the candidate of a questionnaire (that you developed), and a phone screen by you (if the questionnaire is on-target).

Assuming that a candidate passes the HR phone screen, your HR would then send the candidate a job-related questionnaire.  The purpose of the questionnaire is to probe beyond the candidate’s resume to determine if the candidate does indeed have the basic qualifications for the position.  The questionnaire you develop should seek to measure a candidate’s thought processes, writing ability, and contract drafting ability.  It also measures the interest of the candidate in the position.  If the candidate declines to complete the questionnaire or only provides cursory responses, you should wonder how that same candidate would perform when on the job.  The questionnaire also serves to provide talking points for the phone screen to be conducted by you, if that happens.

Upon evaluation of a candidate’s questionnaire, you can then determine whether the next step of conducting a phone screen is warranted.  If so, use information gleaned from the candidate’s resume and questionnaire, as well as a set of standard phone screen questions (again, that you develop), to further probe the candidate’s qualifications.  However, at this point of the screening process, no specific “technical” questions are asked—you're more listening for a candidate’s ability to express himself or herself verbally.

Assuming that a candidate passes your phone screen, you would describe the in-person interview process at the end of the phone screen.  Unlike interviewing by consensus, where many different interviewers are involved in conducting short interviews, you will conduct an in-depth interview that should take no less than three hours.  Sounds crazy, huh?  But it works...  Plus, you'll spend many more hours working with an actual employee, so it makes perfect sense for you to spend three or more hours with a candidate to understand whether or not the candidate is a good fit for the position. Further, unlike other interviewing techniques, there are no multiple interviews with the same candidate—a candidate is interviewed once and a hire or no-hire decision is made.

Over the approximate three-hour period, you will evaluate a candidate’s technical, professional, and social skills.  At the beginning of the interview, the candidate should be presented with a contract that contains a number of errors and omissions (again, that you have developed—or have gotten from my VMO book).  The candidate should be asked to suggest hand-written changes in the margins of the hard-copy contract.  The candidate should be permitted approximately 30 minutes to redline the contract, after which you review the suggestions with the candidate and ask the candidate’s reasoning for the changes. (An example contract that can be used for this purpose is included as Appendix II in my VMO book).

You would then continue the interview with the candidate over lunch.  Among other things, this allows you to observe the social skills of the candidate.  This may not seem entirely relevant, but it should be your expectation of purchasing staff to build relationships with their customers and vendors, and to participate in industry functions.  This expectation necessitates that a candidate have the necessary social and interpersonal skills.  During this phase of the interview, you would ask prepared questions of the candidate, which include information gleaned from the questionnaire, the phone screen, and the contract review that the candidate just completed.  These prepared questions should focus on customer service skills and negotiation techniques and style.  As much as possible, the candidate should be encouraged and reminded to provide specific past examples based on their personal experiences as responses, not conceptual responses unless that is the only method of responding to the question.

Following the lunch interview, you would describe in detail the expectations for the position, emphasizing the importance of customer service, and answer any questions that the candidate may have.  If you believe that the candidate is a fit for the position, you (not your HR) should contact the candidate’s references.  The references should include at least one past supervisor and one vendor.  Clearly, the candidate will submit only the most positive references, which dilutes the value and purpose of the reference check.  Despite this bias, if you use open-ended questions, you are likely to get some amount of good information from the references.  You should listen carefully to the reference: The tone of voice and pauses in speech may say as much or more as the words spoken—hesitations and measured responses indicate the reference may be trying to hedge or be diplomatic.

Assuming that the references did not uncover any material problems with the candidate, you should feel confident that the candidate is the right person for the position and should proceed with making an offer.  You, not your HR, should personally extend the offer and congratulate the candidate for making it through the rigorous recruiting process.

Again, I've used this technique multiple times—successfully—and am convinced that it really works.  Sure, it takes more of your time, but your awesome new-hires will make you look like a genius.

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