What is Topgrading? The hiring method, its interview and what the evidence shows

Topgrading is a hiring method created by the psychologist Bradford D. Smart and promoted by his firm, Topgrading, that aims to fill roles only with "A Players", defined as the top 10 percent of the talent available for the pay. Its core tools are a detailed career history form, a long chronological "Topgrading Interview" that covers every job the candidate has held, and the "Threat of Reference Check" (TORC): candidates are told up front that they will arrange reference calls with their former bosses. As of October 2026, the evidence for the method as a whole comes almost entirely from its originators' own case studies.

This page describes the method from Topgrading's own published material, then sets out what the evidence does and does not show, the legal points to check, and which parts are worth borrowing even if you never run the full process. For the broader research on interview design, start with what is a structured interview.

Where does Topgrading come from?

The method is set out in Bradford D. Smart's book Topgrading. The current edition, Topgrading, 3rd Edition, was published by Portfolio on August 16, 2012. The publisher's description says only about 25 percent of new hires turn out to be high performers, names deceptive resumes, shallow interviews and biased references as the reasons, and says the edition features 40 companies.

Topgrading's own account of its origin is that General Electric adopted the method under Jack Welch in the 1980s. A Topgrading blog post from March 6, 2020 says GE leaders struggled to conduct the long interview alone, so Smart added a second interviewer, and the "Tandem Topgrading Interview" became standard.

How does Topgrading work, step by step?

Topgrading describes itself as a twelve-step process. The list below is the version tabulated in Michael S. Lorence's 2014 dissertation at Georgia State University, which takes it from Smart's 2012 book:

1. Measure your current hiring success rate (the share of hires who turn out to be A Players).
2. Write a job scorecard: the outcomes and competencies the role requires.
3. Recruit from networks.
4. Have candidates complete the Topgrading Career History Form.
5. Run telephone screening interviews.
6. Run competency (behavioral) interviews.
7. Run the Topgrading Interview, in tandem for management roles, using the Topgrading interview guide.
8. Use advanced interviewing techniques.
9. Analyze all the data and draft an executive summary of the candidate.
10. Have the candidate arrange reference calls with bosses, then finalize the summary.
11. Coach the new hire in the first weeks.
12. Measure hiring success every year and compare it with the rate before Topgrading.

Steps 1 and 12 are what make Topgrading unusual among hiring methods: it asks the company to count its mis-hires before and after. Most selection advice never asks for that baseline.

What happens in the Topgrading Interview?

The Topgrading Interview is chronological. According to a Topgrading post from January 21, 2020, it covers education and asks "10 basic questions about every full-time job", and it takes about 3 hours for a sales representative, 4 hours for a managerial candidate and 5 hours for an executive. Topgrading's hiring page (checked October 2026) describes it as a structured, chronological approach designed to maximize evidence, with sample questions such as how important decisions were made and which mistakes became learning opportunities. The point is to see patterns across a whole career rather than judge a few prepared stories.

Before the interview, the candidate fills in the Career History Form. A Topgrading post from February 6, 2018 says it asks for full salary history "except where prohibited by law", the true reasons for leaving each job, and how the candidate thinks each boss would rate their performance, on a scale from Excellent to Poor.

What is the Threat of Reference Check (TORC)?

TORC is the step Topgrading is best known for. Candidates are told, at the start and throughout the process, that a final step is for them to arrange personal reference calls with former managers and others they worked with. The hiring manager and HR then make those calls together. A Topgrading post dated August 17, 2013 calls it a "truth serum" and recommends mentioning it on the careers page, on the application form and at the start of every interview. The same post acknowledges that some former bosses refuse to talk because of company policy, and that current employers are usually not contacted.

The logic is simple: a candidate who knows their former boss will be asked "how would you rate them?" has little reason to inflate their record, and the candidate's own prediction of that rating, given on the Career History Form, can be checked against what the boss says. Our candidate reference call script and how to verify employment history cover the mechanics of the calls themselves.

What does Topgrading mean by A, B and C Players?

Topgrading sorts candidates and employees into A, B and C Players. A Topgrading post from September 6, 2016 gives three working definitions of an A Player: a high performer; someone rated Excellent or Very Good rather than Good; and the top 10 percent of performers at a given salary level. The salary qualifier matters. In Topgrading's terms an A Player is defined relative to what you can pay, not as the best person in the industry.

What does the evidence show?

Three kinds of evidence exist, and they are not equally strong.

The honest summary is that Topgrading's headline numbers have not been tested independently. A before-and-after comparison reported by the executive who championed the method, inside companies that kept using it, will tend to look good whether or not the method caused the change. That does not mean the method fails; it means the claim is unproven.

Some components do rest on solid research. In the largest recent re-analysis of selection research, Sackett, Zhang, Berry and Lievens (2022, Journal of Applied Psychology) ranked structured interviews first, with a mean operational validity of .42, against .19 for unstructured interviews. A Topgrading Interview that asks the same questions about every job, for every candidate, and is scored against a written scorecard has some of that structure. One that becomes a loose four-hour conversation does not.

What are the main criticisms of Topgrading?

• Time. Three to five hours per finalist for the chronological interview, often with two interviewers, plus reference calls. That is affordable for executive hires and hard to justify for high-volume roles.
• Salary history. The Career History Form asks for full compensation history. Many states and cities now prohibit employers from asking for it; see salary history bans by state. Remove the field wherever you hire into a covered location.
• Age signals. Starting from education means collecting graduation dates, which reveal approximate age. The federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act protects people who are at least 40 years of age (29 U.S.C. 631); collect dates only where they are needed and keep them out of the evaluation. Age discrimination in hiring under the ADEA covers the risk.
• Reading the history during the interview. The chronological interview is built on the candidate's own history document. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management's structured interview guide (September 2008) warns that interviewers who look at resumes during an interview may rate candidates with strong resumes more favorably. Prepare from the form, then score the answers.
• Reference calls arranged by the candidate. The approach depends on former bosses being willing and allowed to talk, and it asks a lot of candidates who are still employed. Candidates with a hostile former manager need a fair alternative, such as a different former supervisor.
• The labels. Calling people B or C Players is blunt, and "A Player" judgments can slide into general impressions. Score competencies against the scorecard, not the person against a letter.

The legal points above are general information as of October 2026, not legal advice; check the rules where you and the candidate are located.

Should you use Topgrading, or parts of it?

The full method is most defensible for senior roles where a mis-hire is expensive, the candidate pool is small and two interviewers can spare an afternoon. For most roles, three parts travel well without the rest:

1. Count your mis-hires. Decide what a successful hire looks like at 12 months, and record it for every hire. Without a baseline, no hiring change can be judged. How to measure quality of hire has the method.
2. Write a scorecard before recruiting. Outcomes and competencies agreed in advance are the foundation of any structured interview. See what is an interview scorecard.
3. Tell candidates about reference checks early. Saying at the first interview that you will speak to former managers costs nothing, and a candidate's own prediction of what those managers will say is a useful question.

If you do run the chronological interview, keep it structured: the same questions for each job, the same depth for every candidate, notes of what was said, and ratings made against the scorecard after the interview rather than during it. The bias controls for structured interviews apply just as much to a four-hour interview as to a forty-minute one.