Hiring Smart!: How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading Game [Paperback]

Pierre Mornell (Author), Regan Dunnick (Illustrator), Kit Hinrichs (Designer)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 7, 2003

Now in Paperback!People are the most valuable asset in today'¬?s fiercely competitive workplace. In HIRING SMART, now available in paperback for the first time, Dr. Mornell delineates 45 simple strategies for "people reading"-observing a candidate'¬?s behavior and predicting what they'¬?ll be like in the workplace-that virtually guarantee hiring the best possible candidate for any job.

An authoritative guide to hiring job candidates from one of the world'¬?s leading experts in human resource development.

The hardcover edition has been translated into eight languages and has sold more than 40,000 copies.

Editorial Reviews

Review

While there are many books that help select the best people, my top pick is HIRING SMART by Pierre Mornell. -- Publishers Weekly, July 28, 2003 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

PIERRE MORNELL is a psychiatrist who helps companies evaluate and hire key people. He has lectured in IBM’s Advanced Management Seminar and International Executive Programs; has acted as the first dean of the University Faculty for the Young Presidents Organization; and has led programs at the Stanford and Harvard business schools. He has served as a consultant to the presidents of organizations as diverse as Intuit, Kinko’s, Canada’s Northern Telecom, American Gold Corporation, Hellman & Friedman, and the Institute for the Future. Currently he speaks about executive evaluation and managing change at conferences worldwide, and writes a column on hiring people for Inc. magazine.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Ten Speed Press (October 7, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580085148
• ISBN-13: 978-1580085144
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.6 x 10 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #853,911 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an incisive, engaging business book -- not to be missed, June 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: 45 Effective Ways for Hiring Smart! : How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading Game (Hardcover)

In the course of the year, many business books pass across my desk, and HIRING SMART is one of the most memorable of 1998/1999. With skill and wit, Dr. Mornell transforms the seemingly dry topic of hiring into a primer on how to read people and, in the process, invest in your company's most valuable resource-- its people. His thesis -- that a mistake in hiring can exact a toll on a company not necessarily apparent in the short run, but potentially devastating in the long run -- is developed through examples culled from his years as a hiring consultant to major corporations.Dr. Mornell breaks down the fundamentals of the hiring process into easy-to-grasp stages, and most importantly for those charged with hiring responsibilities, equips the reader with the information needed to immediately implement his 45 techniques. No person involved in the hiring process should be without this resource!

I should add that the last reader's take on the book is a classic example of missing the forest for the trees -- the admittedly unconventional interview questions that he/she mentions appear in the appendix, and, as most critical readers would realize, are meant only to inspire out-of-the-box thinking, and not to be simply regurgitated. Regardless, they make up one-tenth of one percent of the book's content -- dismiss it on such grounds if you like, but you'll be missing out on a book that Tom Peters, Stephen Covey, and George Gendron (Editor-in-Chief of Inc.Magazine) have called the best hiring title on the market.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for people who do a few critical hires, January 19, 2005

By 

Texas Techie "Code Slingin' Cowboy" (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hiring Smart!: How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading Game (Paperback)

I bought this book because it was written by a Psychiatrist and looked like a methodical, psychological approach to hiring. It is a good book, but it has some limitations.

The book is organized temporally by stages of the interview process. There are forty-five topics that present ideas for how to interview candidates at each stage. The book covers all the common interview processes, but also presents creative and original approaches that are intended to reveal personality or character. One example I really like is meeting the spouse. I have asked to go out to dinner with potential bosses and their spouses to see what kind of people they are (and they get to meet my wife, too, which has frankly been to my advantage).

Overall, the strategies presented are good, but many people would say they are too time consuming for use in hiring a lot of people. I would be surprised if a Fortune 500 company used the complete strategy for routine hires. But most of us are not hiring a lot of people, so that is not an excuse for not using good ideas. Hiring key people, such as executives, should be a methodical and careful process. So should hiring just one programmer to add to your six person team.

I have two concerns about the strategies presented. The first is that foreign-born people may respond differently than expected to psychological things. For example, if you ask some people the meaning of the phrase "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones," they will misunderstand the question because it is culturally linked. By the same token, one question in the book abstractly described playing the game Monopoly, but some people would not understand because they know nothing about parlor games. Because of America's rapidly growing multi-culturalism, I am hesitant to employ some of these strategies.

The other danger of being too sophisticated is that we may reach beyond our qualifications to interpret the results. I would be very interested in employing the services of Dr. Mornell to interview an executive candidate since he is an experienced and knowledgeable Psychiatrist. I would be wary of trying to draw too many conclusions myself about the psychological make-up of a candidate. It is also true that a certain amount of finesse and talent is needed or else you will not get meaningful results.

The approach presented in this book is intellectual and requires a great deal of effort. If you are looking for an easy road to hiring great people, I wish you luck, but this book isn't it anyway. If you have the time and determination to implement these ideas, you might get good results with the caveats I pointed out above. I can say that I certainly enjoyed reading the book and got some great ideas from it.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good read, nothing new, essential for current job seekers, August 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: 45 Effective Ways for Hiring Smart! : How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading Game (Hardcover)

Overall, the book is an easy read, literally (double spaced, 14 pt type?), the anecdotes are interesting and it will make a contribution by helping people think about the hiring process. The book offers 45 "strategies" which are more accurately activities. Most are conventional "#18: Identify strengths and weaknesses"; some are a bit off the beaten path, "#26: Travel with the candidate," and others are dubious, "#31: Use handwriting analysis." All of the "strategies" are practical and mostly useful, but if you're looking for something fundamentally new, it is not in this book.

The author focuses on finding reasons not to hire a candidate, the universal hiring/interview strategy. For example, exclude all candidates without cover letters or with resumes that have a typo or misspelling. (On that basis, the book should be ignored; mine had a typo on page 138 and virtually every page had a glue stain)

The limitation! to the book is its perspective. The book is written for, and from the perspective of an executive hiring from a position of strength. The hiring firm/executive sets the agenda, dictates the terms of the interaction, and commands performance. Only after the decision to extend an offer to a candidate is made is there any concern for their interests. A questionable approach for recruiting the best candidates.

Based on the recent publicity the book has received (Inc. Magazine & Harvard Management Update), anyone who is actively searching for a job should read the book as a defensive strategy. Anyone new to HR recruiting should also find it useful.