From a sales cover email: I can sell direct to consumers, or to “C-Level” executives. That pretty much covers everyone. I don’t know about you, but I instantly think jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none.
Continue ReadingEsteem vs. Empathy
Successfully hiring strong salespeople involves many facets, but I want to focus on a particularly important item. Sales requires a fine-tuned blend of self-esteem and empathetic outlook to be effective. First, let’s define these terms for the context in which we are using them: Self-Esteem – The ability of a person to realize and appreciate their own unique self-worth. They base these feelings on internal factors as opposed to external ones.Empathetic Outlook – This is the ability to perceive and understand the feelings and attitudes of others – to place oneself in-the-shoes of another and to be able to view a situation from their perspective. Each of these two aptitudes… Read More
Continue ReadingYahoo and the Newspapers
Here is an interesting development – Newspapers will partner with Yahoo. I find it surprising that we are quickly approaching 2007 and the antique newspapers are finally making a serious adjustment towards an online focus. The dinosaurs of the newspaper industry may have made the move too late – it is hard to say. The younger generations are not newspaper readers. Instead, they consume their news in an electronic format. Suffice to say, it is a move in the right direction. One piece of information stands out for our business: The consortium said its first move would be to bolster Yahoo’s HotJobs online classified service, allowing advertisers to post job… Read More
Continue ReadingHow To Stand Out
We are sourcing many different positions right now so my antennae are up regarding resumes, phone calls and emails. At times, the responses can be overwhelming. Or underwhelming. Just yesterday I received a stammering voicemail about a position in which the candidate said they were going to send an email with their resume. I’m still waiting. I received another call a couple weeks ago in which the candidate wanted to fax a resume to me for a technical position. I told him he could email it to me instead. He said he doesn’t have email. It seems apparent to me that their is no more odd time in a hiring… Read More
Continue ReadingAnecdote – Online Dating? Part 3
He’s back! Back in August I first posted on this employment ad respondent and then just a month later he emailed me again. I hadn’t heard a peep out of him for 2 months when out of the blue I received another email. This time he wasn’t inquiring about a position, but it seems I have made it onto his distribution list for garbage emails. I have received several emails (more than I care to count) about the latest sick child that AOL will donate 32ยข for every email forwarded to Microsoft will pay you $245 for every email you forward. You know, this is the glamorous side of sourcing… Read More
Continue ReadingDoin’ Time On The North Side
Minnesota is not only a beautiful state to live in, we apparently have a popular federal prisons up here too. Jeffrey Skilling of Enron “fame” is going to do his time up here. According to the Pioneer Press, we have had some other infamous prisoners in the state: Former television evangelist Jim Bakker (convicted of bilking followers) Richard Miller, the first FBI agent convicted of spying Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, terrorist linked to Osama bin Laden Presidential fringe candidate Lyndon LaRouche (fraud, tax evasion) Comedian Tim Allen (cocaine trafficking in his early 20s) I don’t think that list is going to make it to the Chamber of Commerce literature.
Continue ReadingCandidates With Blogs
All right, we posted on Candidates with Personal Websites yesterday and now today we come across this Selling Power article – Blogs: Are You There Yet? This phenomenon is more than a fad, it appears to be a growing trend: “Blogs are, generally speaking, genuine,” says Krane. “A blog is one person’s voice. How someone blogs is probably an indication of how that person speaks and conducts him or herself in general.”Many prospective employees also keep blogs as a portfolio – especially in this town [San Francisco],” says Krane. “Having a blog shows that you are on the cutting edge of Web 2.0. It’s commonplace for a job candidate to… Read More
Continue ReadingOne of Them Must Be Wrong
A quote from my post on Tuesday: And don’t assume its about money. When someone quits her job, 89 percent of managers assume it was over money, whereas 91 percent of the workers who quit say it was anything but, Murphy said. From a CareerJournal article titled Opportunity Knocks, And It Pays a Lot Better: Managers like to say employees leave companies because of bad bosses or lack of career growth. A new report suggests a more straightforward reason: money.In a survey of about 1,100 U.S. employees, 71% of top performers listed pay among the top three reasons they would consider leaving their employer. Yet in a sister survey of… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Handling Stress
You could argue that this week’s aptitude – Handling Stress – is a key component in almost every job. In sales, it is critical because the typical sales position involves multiple levels of stress. Whether it be presentations in front of many Directors and VP’s or dealing with an irate customer, sales presents a wide variety of stresses. Handling Stress This is a person’s ability to balance and defuse inner tensions and stresses which, if allowed to build up, could interfere with a person’s ability to perform up to their potential. It is not the person’s ability to handle stressful situations, but rather their ability to appropriately separate themselves from… Read More
Continue ReadingPowerPoint Muggings
I must fall in the masochistic side of PowerPoint – I actually enjoy PowerPoint presentations. CareerJournal offers this article – Tips for PowerPoint — Please Spare Us – which comments on many pet peeves regarding Microsoft’s presentation software. Despite the barbs: …there are an estimated 30 million PowerPoint presentations given each day around the world… Some times I think people prefer to simply be contrarians to the status quo. 30 million presentations can’t be wrong, can they? PowerPoint proponents say slideware doesn’t bore people, people bore people. Oh do I agree with that statement. I wouldn’t castigate the program just because some people use it poorly. I have sat through… Read More
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