I’ve run into this resume issue many times and have realized I may be missing the boat here. When I look at a resume, here is what I believe I can learn:

-Work History – Obviously, where they have worked, positions they have held, successes they have achieved, how long they have earned a paycheck in an industry. Oh, and it is probably embellished. And next-to-impossible to completely verify.

-Education – I can find out where they attended college, what degrees they earned and whether they graduated magna or summa cum laude. And this is the section that contains the most falsehoods on any given resume. The information must be verified.

-Organization of Thoughts – I like to see how the candidate presents their employment information. Structure is well-defined here. They may have paid for resume-writing services so I cannot assume it is their creation.

I suppose if I wanted to be snarky, I could mention that I can learn their contact information too. But what else?

By now, you probably get my point. A hiring manager can assume many aspects of a candidate from their resume. But the actual data that you collect to support your assumptions about that person is minimal. And that is the trap of overreaching on pre-interview decisions based primarily on an applicant’s resume.

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From the rumor mill:

Setting the stage for a possible bidding battle, Microsoft Corp. is mulling an investment in Facebook Inc. that would value the rapidly growing online hangout at $10 billion or more, according to a report published Monday.

Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal said Microsoft is holding preliminary discussions that could culminate in a $300 million to $500 million in Facebook, a Palo Alto social-networking site founded just 3 1/2 years ago.

Interesting, but here is the information that caught my attention:

An outright sale of Facebook is considered unlikely. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s 23-year-old co-founder and chief executive, has repeatedly expressed his desire to remain independent. He rejected a $1 billion acquisition offer from Yahoo Inc. last year.

23-year-old CEO is remarkable.

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There are many methods for writing sales employment ads, but many companies seem to fall into the trap of wanting their ads to fit a predefined mold. I think this is a mistake. Certainly there are key points of information that much be placed in the ad. But how you frame the information can be the difference between attracting strong candidates vs. wasting money.

I recently read an ad posted by a recruiting company looking for a VP of Sales. I realize there are certain criteria they are looking to fill. But look at these bullet points:

• 4-year BS degree in engineering (preferably mechanical or chemical) with an MBA being a big plus.
• 8+ years of successful experience in complex sales of technical products
• 6 to 10 years of successful sales management experience

I always like to ask our clients what they are looking for in a candidate who has earned a degree versus one who has not. There should be a reasonable explanation for the requirement. If there isn’t one, remove it.

I personally think one of the most dangerous words in writing an effective ad is the word “successful.” The description sounds descriptive but lacks definition. Notice how it is used in back-to-back bullet points. But what does it mean? There are no qualifiers to it. I am certain previous success is germane to this position, but a clear definition of that previous success would help this ad to define the best candidates.

In the end, your ad should define instead of describe. A distinction without a difference you say? Let’s take the final bullet point from above:

6 to 10 years of successful sales management experience

A description at best. If you asked 10 people to define what that line means, you would get 10 different answers. But what if it read this way:

6+ years of managing a geographically-dispersed sales team focused on gaining market share in specific technical product niches

Granted, that is a much finer net for sourcing, but we rarely use the “you must have” line in our ads. I prefer to define the achievements clearly rather than describe the experience ambiguously.

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From the “this may only interest me” file – Yahoo offers Number of Lefties Bounces Back:

While lefties currently make up about 11 percent of the population, earlier studies found only 3 percent of those born in 1900 were left-handed.

…

“Left-handedness is important because more than 10 percent of people have their brains organized in a qualitatively different way to other people,” McManus said.

Half my family is left-handed so I am always keen to these articles.  And I can confirm that left-handers have a completely different way of thinking.  I often tease my left-handed wife that she has laid out a left-handed kitchen since I often get confused about where utensils, pans, etc. are located.

Her response involves my right-handed lack of memory ability.

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I hadn’t heard about this case until reading the short Inc.com article. Unbelievable:

The owners of a dry-cleaning shop that successfully fended off a $54 million lawsuit over a pair of pants are being forced to sell their business as a result of costly legal fees.

Soo Chung and Jin Nam Chung, the owners of Washington-based Custom Cleaners, were sued earlier this year by a customer for allegedly losing his pants.

While the case was eventually dismissed, the heavy legal expenses have since forced the Chungs out of business, according to the couple’s lawyer.

It is embarrassing to have a legal system where a $54 million lawsuit can be litigated over a pair of lost suit paints.

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I’m a big fan of online purchases mainly because I can get exactly what I want, click to order and forget about it.  I’m not a big tracking guy either – I pick the slowest, cheapest method for shipping and the stuff usually arrives within 1 week.  Fire and forget.

Now Inc.com offers up Ever Wish You Could Read Your Customers’ Minds?  Get a load of this new software:

Proclivity is a consumer predictive engine technology that is able to analyze a customer’s online activity and identify their interest in certain types of merchandise.

…

For example, if an online clothing retailer wants to launch a campaign around jeans, Proclivity will quickly generate a list of customers based on the analyzed data that predicts how many customers would buy jeans and how much money the company would make in a given amount of time. The company can then decide how much to invest in certain campaigns.

I may be in the minority here, but I don’t mind if they track my visit.  I personally enjoy having items of interest to me appearing on the site.

This would be an interesting tool if it could be used by B2B companies too.

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Time to suspend the recession talk for one more week. From CNNMoney.com’s Unemployment claims down:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in seven weeks, an unexpected sign of improvement for the job market.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications for unemployment benefits totaled 311,000 last week, a drop of 9,000 from the previous week.

It marked the lowest level for jobless claims since July 28.

The decline came as a surprise to economists, who had been forecasting a rise in claims of about 6,000.

As I have said before, our day-to-day activities at Select Metrix are showing a robust hiring market.

UPDATE: Maybe I spoke too soon – Research group says economy will lose steam

UPDATE 2: Obviously, way too soon – Holiday retail sales growth could disappoint

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According to a recent article in Workforce Managements Newsletter, almost as many employees are discharged for poor performance as those who leave for better pay or for personal reasons.

The National Association of Professional Employer Organizations, an Alexandria, Virginia-based group found about 70 percent of companies say job candidates omit relevant background information €œoccasionally or frequently.€

A fairly high rate especially if you are not conducting some type of background check. We have been very consistent here at The Hire Sense encouraging you as an employer to run background checks on all final candidates. If you aren’t performing background checks today, I hope the latest statistic will prompt you to start.

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I’ve been swamped of late and am still trying to catch up on my RSS reading. I did just read this hilarious post from GL over at What Would Dad Say. You have to read the whole thing – it is excellent. I’m still laughing as I type. The content primarily discusses what not to do in a layoff The post is written from the recently laid-off employee’s perspective.

The line that got me laughing (emphasis mine):

1. Include an obvious misspelling or two in the letter €” ideally, something that would slip past a spell checker but be caught easily by anyone who bothered to proofread it. Suggestion: €œIf you have nay questions . . .€

Unemployed people like to see the kind of flamboyant incompetence that still draws a paycheck.

Oh man, have I been there. I know exactly what the author is experiencing.

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Another managerial trait this week that we measure when assessing sales manager candidates.  A critical aspect of successful sales management is the manager’s ability to hold salespeople accountable.  At times that can be like herding cats, but it is still mission critical to developing a top-notch sales team.

Correcting Others
This ability confronts controversial or difficult issues in an objective manner while having non-emotional discussions about disciplinary matters. This trait is directly related to the manager’s balance in their ability to evaluate others and be empathetic.

A manager with strength in this trait can usually provide constructive criticism to another in a way that it is not received as insulting or degrading. The balance they exhibit in weighing the needs of the situation versus the needs of the people involved allows them to address both adequately.

A manager with a low ability in this capacity could either tend to be too insensitive or harsh in such correction, or be too sensitive and not willing to provide the necessary criticism or positive discipline required to develop an employee. As to whether they tend to be too harsh or too sensitive, a correlation can be made based on their score in the empathetic ability trait. Over attention to their empathetic ability may tend to result in someone who is so sensitive to the feelings of others that they place that person€™s emotions over the needs of correcting a problem. Under attention to this same ability can result in a person who views others more as functional work units rather than  individuals. They tend to discount other€™s emotions in comparison to the importance of correcting a problem.

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