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A-Player A-Players Austin Baseline Selling Brad Smart career history chris mursau Dave Kurlan EO Fame Family Fortune Fun generation Y geoff smart hire better hiring hiring manager Interview interview training job description Joe Navarro Kurlan Objective Management Group OtherInbox proactive recruiting recruit don't absorb Recruiting Reference Check Retention Scorecard smarttopgrading social networking talent acquisition Topgrading topgrading interview topgrading methodology TORC tweets Twitter unemployment unemployment rate verne harnish virtual bench who the bookCommon Characteristics of A-Players Defined
I’m a huge fan of Chris Mursau. He’s been working inside of the Smart & Associates organization for over a decade and knows Topgrading as well as anyone (even including Brad Smart!).
There aren’t many blogs that I read on a regular basis but when Chris writes on the Topgrading Blog it’s worth a read. On April 10th, he tried to do something that has always intimidated me. He sat down and looked at the thousands of Topgrading Interviews he’s personally conducted as well as those that the company has been involved in and come up with a list of absolute “must haves” for someone to be classified as what the book Topgrading considers an “A Player”.
Here’s the list. To read the whole blog post you can click here.
- Smart (raw intellect and business savvy)
- Driven to succeed
- Trustworthy
- Passionate
- Consistent high performer
- Able to adjust to many different personalities
- They Surround themselves with High Performers (Topgraders!)
- Very hard workers
- Resourceful, overcome obstacles
- Effective leaders, inspiring commitment to a clear vision
- Tough-minded, they hold people accountable
- Down-to-earth and well-grounded, self-aware, humble
What I like the most about Chris is he’s always willing to go even further and make a point even stronger by saying that one thing that drives the point home. The statement he used on this blog post that did that (because let’s face it, this list shouldn’t shock you) was:
“Use this list of characteristics as a ‘rule of thumb’ when creating scorecards and analyzing the data during each step of your assessment process. If a candidate is weak in even one of these areas, consider it a major “red flag” and question whether that person is really an A player candidate.”
What do you think? Would you add anything else to this list? Anything on here that you don’t believe should be?
Tags: A-Player, A-Players, Brad Smart, career history, chris mursau, competencies, competency library, hiring, Interview, Recruiting, Scorecard, Smart & Associates, smarttopgrading, talent acquisition, Topgrading, topgrading methodology
[...] is the first impression we provide to prospective A-Players when they come on-site to meet [...]
[...] In all the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve NEVER seen a situation where an A-Player hasn’t maintained a great relationship with their managers of the prior 10 [...]
[...] In all the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve NEVER seen a situation where an A-Player hasn’t maintained a great relationship with their managers of the prior 10 [...]
[...] Ensure that you’re very clear on what your needs are when hiring and then make sure you can “smell the right person from a mile away”. Cameron used the example of going duck hunting with his grandfather as a child. Early in the morning, as the sun was coming up, small V’s of ducks would appear on the horizon and even as they were just specs a mile away Cameron’s grandfather would be able to tell whether or not they were the right ducks for them. “Nope, put your gun down” he’d say. When pressed to explain why he would clearly describe wingspan, formation of the flock and altitude. The business application isn’t a hard jump to make: it’s easy to get excited when you’re in the thrill of the hunt but you have to be very clear about what you’re hunting. [...]
[...] is the first impression we provide to prospective A-Players when they come on-site to meet [...]
[...] In all the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve NEVER seen a situation where an A-Player hasn’t maintained a great relationship with their managers of the prior 10 [...]