Book excerpt: This timely professional development guide reveals what it takes to recruit—and retain—quality talent by providing smart hiring techniques for interviewing, assessing, and screening applicants. One of the most important jobs of any manager is hiring the right people. Even in organizations with a human resources department, the final hiring decision often falls on a manager who has never been trained in effectively assessing a candidate's character or skill set. Additionally, the interview process itself is fraught with legal pitfalls, making this seemingly simple task one that could become costly and problematic if mishandled. This book teaches the critical techniques for selecting the right person for the job and the strategies that eliminate expensive hiring mistakes. Hire Smart and Keep 'Em: How to Interview Strategically Using POINT lays out a proven method—the POINT process—for recruiting and retaining high quality employees. A renowned business coach, Joan C. Curtis illustrates how interviews can be strategically conducted, demonstrates how illegal interview situations can be avoided, and explains how the latest technology can be implemented to make the whole process go smoothly.