Over the years at Headstar, one of the recurring frustrations we’ve seen from business leaders is how difficult it can be to consistently hire the right people.
Not just capable people who interview well, but people who genuinely fit the culture, behaviours and standards needed to succeed long term.
That challenge is one of the reasons we’ve partnered with Simon Hartley, Founder of Be World Class, to launch Hire Great People – a practical CPD-accredited methodology designed to help organisations recruit on character, not just credentials.
Why traditional hiring methods often fall short
Most organisations already understand the cost of getting recruitment wrong.
What’s harder is understanding why it keeps happening.
Many hiring processes still rely heavily on CVs, interviews and instinct. Whilst those things can be useful, they often tell you very little about how somebody will actually perform once they join the business.
A strong CV doesn’t always translate into strong performance. Neither does interviewing well.
At Headstar, we’ve seen plenty of technically capable people who looked impressive on paper but ultimately weren’t the right fit for the team or environment around them. Equally, we’ve seen people with less conventional backgrounds go on to become some of the strongest performers in the business because they had the right attitude, resilience and behaviours.
The organisations that tend to hire most effectively are usually much clearer on what “great” actually looks like within their business and far more intentional about how they assess for it.
That’s the thinking behind Hire Great People.
A practical methodology built around recruiting on character
Hire Great People is a CPD-accredited online learning programme built around a practical five-step hiring methodology.
It’s designed to help organisations:
- define what “great” actually looks like within their business
- attract the right people more intentionally
- reduce reliance on CVs and interviews alone
- assess behaviours and long-term potential more effectively
- develop strong hires into long-term high performers
The methodology combines world-class performance principles with practical recruitment experience and has been refined over years through real organisational implementation, workshops and leadership sessions.
Importantly, this isn’t theoretical HR content or generic recruitment advice.
Everything is designed to be practical, usable and easily applicable to any organisation.
How world-class performance principles apply to recruitment
Hire Great People has been developed in partnership with Simon Hartley, Founder of Be World Class and a globally respected sport psychology consultant, performance coach, award-winning professional speaker and published author.
For almost 30 years Simon has worked with Olympic gold medallists, world record holders, top five world-ranked professional athletes and championship-winning teams.
Simon specialises in applying proven principles of sport psychology to real-world organisational challenges including recruitment. This has included projects with some of the world’s leading corporations, such as adidas.
The Hire Great People programme has been developed in partnership with Be World Class, combining world-class performance thinking with Headstar’s real-world recruitment experience.
Headstar has worked closely with Simon for several years, delivering joint events and embedding these principles into our own recruitment approach.
At Headstar, our internal recruitment success rate improved from around 45% when hiring “normally” to approximately 89% when hiring more intentionally around character and long-term fit.
Beyond the numbers, we also saw the impact on culture, collaboration and long-term team development.
Better recruitment decisions shape stronger organisations
Most organisations already know poor hiring decisions are expensive.
In fact, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), replacing a poor hire can cost up to five times their annual salary once you factor in recruitment costs, lost productivity, onboarding time and wider team disruption.
What’s often underestimated is the wider impact recruitment has on culture, performance, retention, leadership standards and long-term organisational capability.
The best organisations tend to approach recruitment very intentionally.
They know what great looks like. They define the characteristics that matter most. Then they build hiring processes around those characteristics consistently.
That’s exactly what the Hire Great People methodology is designed to help organisations do.https://www.headstar.co.uk/great/
What’s included in the Hire Great People programme:
• Three live group coaching sessions with Simon Hartley
• 45+ bite-size video lessons with a comprehensive interactive workbook
• 14.25 hours of recognised CPD learning
• Signed copy of Simon Hartley’s best-selling book, Hire Great People
More importantly, the programme is designed to help organisations:
- Improve hiring success rates by recruiting more intentionally around character
- Reduce the cost, disruption and frustration of poor hiring decisions
- Build stronger cultures and higher-performing teams
- Create a more consistent and repeatable recruitment process
50% introductory discount currently available using code: HireGreatPeople50
Learn more here: www.headstar.co.uk/great
