The phone screen is making a comeback, as well it should. We talk extensively about the sequence in which a strong sales hiring process occurs. Step 3 is the phone screen which comes before the in-person interview. The main thrust of this approach is to neuralize the candidate’s advantages while placing them in a sales prospecting scenario.

What is one strength that is almost universal in all salespeople? Rapport-building. Granted, there are some who lack even this ability but the vast majority of salespeople have some skills in this area. Unfortunately, even the bad salespeople can have enough of this ability to make themselves appear stronger than they are in the interview. A salesperson with little selling ability (i.e. prospecting, qualifying, closing) but strong rapport-building skills is your basic schmoozer. They are all hat and no cattle.

The schmoozer’s best move is to land an in-person interview with the hiring manager. This meeting allows them a chance to size up the manager while using their excellent in-person skills. As socially gifted as they are, this skill does not automatically lead to success in selling.

The phone screen is a terrific neutralizer. The schmoozer still has tools to use on the call, but they are greatly reduced. The phone screen is a difficult call for a highly skilled salesperson but it truly handcuffs the schmoozer.

Some important aspects of a well-crafted phone screen:

• Use pressure that matches the pressure found on a typical prospecting call
• Observe their style, articulation, warmth and poise
• Rapport and bonding (still an important aspect of selling)
• Ask questions that reveal their selling process
• Use vague statements or questions to see if they qualify for clarity

There are many facets to a successful phone screen that we wrote about in a newsletter from last year. Try adding a structured phone screen to your next sales hiring process and see how strong a qualifier it is.

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I read Perfect Score = Perfect Job? a few days ago on Forbes.com and am catching up to comment on it now. It is a good read with many excellent points in support of assessments. I previously posted about an article that discussed the ability of candidates to refuse to take the assessments. This article goes a long ways in articulating the purpose and results of effective, validated assessments.

…the process benefits both sides by matching the employer’s needs with the candidate’s skills and interests.

To put a sharper point on it, assessments measure the candidate’s skills, aptitudes, style and motivations to the specific needs of the position for which they are applying. Again, I cannot understand why a candidate would not want to discover if their abilities are a strong fit for this position. A desire to avoid that discovery seems quite disingenuous to me.

The article descends into a theoretical discussion due to the misguided focus on one particular word:

But this raises a few basic questions: What is personality? Can it be measured? If so, can it be reduced to a score? Does personality relate to job performance? If so, how?

The short answer is: Who knows? But many employers find such testing helpful and use it as one part of the hiring process.

Assessments that focus solely upon personality are quite limited in their results. Our focus is directed towards communication which speaks to personality in a limited scope. However, no one will argue that communication is not important in the workplace. Communication style does relate directly to job performance. We measure a candidate’s communication style but weight it as the least of our different assessments (hence its placement above the water line in our assessment graphic).

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Stepping Into the Role of a First-Time Manager (link is gone) is a quick read article with practical advice for employees making their foray into management. My first foray into management left me with many bruises as I did not follow one of the suggestions in this article. I attempted to change many things in a short amount of time. My approach led to some significant changes but it triggered many management meetings with the other departments. Let’s just say those were quite candid meetings.

Much of our focus is on hiring, but we have another side to our business where we assess existing teams. In some ways, this work is more satisfying. We get to know the team members and we get to assist the manager in producing a development plan for each employee. This approach is focused on communication which is the first piece of successful management.

From the article:

“If you treat your staff with respect through communication, you will be more effective as a leader. Leading is not about daily control and direction. It’s about vision and being able to share that vision with others. It’s about being persuasive and making others feel included in setting and owning the stakes.”

Sales & Marketing Management comes through in timely fashion with some statistics from the Ken Blanchard Companies’ survey regarding successful (and unsuccessful) management:

* 43 percent of those in the survey said communications skills are the most critical to those in leadership roles; 41 percent said poor communication is a leader’s most common mistake.

* 27 percent cited over- or undersupervising as a problem for leaders.

* 15 percent identified empathy and emotional intelligence as a key factor for leadership success.

* Top failures by leaders include: failure to provide appropriate feedback, praise, or redirection; failure to listen; failure to set clear goals and objectives; failure to train and develop people.

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