A forward-thinking and enlightening view of hiring practices.
The co-founders of human resources software firm Greenhouse Software make a strong case for systematizing talent acquisition.
“Hiring is the mother of all variables,” write Chait and Stross in a candid debut that’s directed not at HR managers but at business leaders who “must become the Talent Maker and catalyst for [their] team.” Their fervent belief that senior executives need to be more engaged in the staffing process, rather than simply delegate it to human resources, is the cornerstone of their approach, which aims to help readers to identify, attract, and retain the best talent. This message is conveyed in a tightly organized work comprised of three logical parts: Part 1 walks the reader through the reasons why a “structured approach to hiring” makes sense (“The ‘Why’ ”); Part 2 addresses four specific hiring competencies (“The ‘What’ ”); and Part 3 lays out the tactics for becoming a “Talent Maker” (“The ‘How’ ”). Each section contains observations based on the authors’ experiences with scores of organizations. In addition, Chait and Stross include insights by senior HR experts that validate the book’s emphasis on involving leaders at every level in the process. In Part 1, the authors introduce their company’s “Structured Hiring Framework,” which references concepts that are explained in further detail later in the book, including “Employee Lifetime Value,” the “Hiring Maturity Curve,” and “The Four Competencies,” which include “Finding talent,” “Hiring experience,” “Decision making,” and “Operational excellence.”
The Hiring Maturity Curve is particularly intriguing because it identifies HR practices on a spectrum that ranges from “Chaotic” to “Strategic.” Chait and Stross use lively, appropriately detailed descriptions to effectively contrast what operations look like at each point in this curve; “Chaotic,” for instance is defined as “the Wild West, or a free-for-all,” in which “hiring painfully gets done when circumstances force the issue.” The bulk of the book is in Part 2, in which the authors explain the concept of structured hiring in detail—from the corporate brand that attracts prospective candidates through the job posting and application process and, finally, onboarding. Not surprisingly given the authors’ professional positions, one of this section’s strengths is its lucid discussion of data usage and analytics. Another strong point is the vital emphasis on diversity in acquiring new employees. Part 2 also offers a useful template for a “Scorecard” that can be used to objectively evaluate job candidates. Part 3 defines the term Talent Maker and describes some of the key attributes of a person who wants to become a “talent leader” and eventually develop into a “talent magnet” and a “talent partner.” The authors close the book with an excellent overview of issues surrounding organizational change. Chait and Stross make the point that using HR software—even theirs—is less important than approaching the process in a systematized manner, and they conclude that, for those organizations who figure out how to recruit and hire effectively, “the ability to hire great talent at will is very much a competitive advantage.”
A forward-thinking and enlightening view of hiring practices.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-119-78527-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Wiley
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman’s perspective.
Two distinguished technology executives share the methodology behind what made Google a global business leader.
Former Google CEO Schmidt (co-author: The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business, 2013) and former senior vice president of products Rosenberg share accumulated wisdom and business acumen from their early careers in technology, then later as management at the Internet search giant. Though little is particularly revelatory or unexpected, the companywide processes that have made Google a household name remain timely and relevant within today’s digitized culture. After several months at Google, the authors found it necessary to retool their management strategies by emphasizing employee culture, codifying company values, and rethinking the way staff is internally positioned in order to best compliment their efforts and potential. Their text places “Googlers” front and center as they adopted the business systems first implemented by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who stressed the importance of company-wide open communication. Schmidt and Rosenberg discuss the value of technological insights, Google’s effective “growth mindset” hiring practices, staff meeting maximization, email tips, and the company’s effective solutions to branding competition and product development complications. They also offer a condensed, two-page strategy checklist that serves as an apt blueprint for managers. At times, statements leak into self-congratulatory territory, as when Schmidt and Rosenberg insinuate that a majority of business plans are flawed and that the Google model is superior. Analogies focused on corporate retention and methods of maximizing Google’s historically impressive culture of “smart creatives” reflect the firm’s legacy of spinning intellect and creativity into Internet gold. The authors also demarcate legendary application missteps like “Wave” and “Buzz” while applauding the independent thinkers responsible for catapulting the company into the upper echelons of technological innovation.
An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman’s perspective.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1455582341
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Business Plus/Grand Central
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A declaration worth hearing out in a time of growing inequality—and indignity.
Noted number cruncher Sperling delivers an economist’s rejoinder to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Former director of the National Economic Council in the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the author has long taken a view of the dismal science that takes economic justice fully into account. Alongside all the metrics and estimates and reckonings of GDP, inflation, and the supply curve, he holds the great goal of economic policy to be the advancement of human dignity, a concept intangible enough to chase the econometricians away. Growth, the sacred mantra of most economic policy, “should never be considered an appropriate ultimate end goal” for it, he counsels. Though 4% is the magic number for annual growth to be considered healthy, it is healthy only if everyone is getting the benefits and not just the ultrawealthy who are making away with the spoils today. Defining dignity, admits Sperling, can be a kind of “I know it when I see it” problem, but it does not exist where people are a paycheck away from homelessness; the fact, however, that people widely share a view of indignity suggests the “intuitive universality” of its opposite. That said, the author identifies three qualifications, one of them the “ability to meaningfully participate in the economy with respect, not domination and humiliation.” Though these latter terms are also essentially unquantifiable, Sperling holds that this respect—lack of abuse, in another phrasing—can be obtained through a tight labor market and monetary and fiscal policy that pushes for full employment. In other words, where management needs to come looking for workers, workers are likely to be better treated than when the opposite holds. In still other words, writes the author, dignity is in part a function of “ ‘take this job and shove it’ power,” which is a power worth fighting for.
A declaration worth hearing out in a time of growing inequality—and indignity.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-7987-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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