I have a weakness for lists -they make good link bait, too.  CNNMoney.com offers up 10 dumbest job-interview moves.  It is a quick, entertaining read.

A sample:

The job hunter…

5. “… drafted a press release announcing that we had hired him.”

7. “… delivered his entire cover letter in the form of a rap song.”

9. “…brought his mother to the interview and let her do all the talking.”

My mouth is still agape after reading number 9.

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From the title of an online resume:

Not the best…but NOT the worst…

I would describe that title as inspiring.

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I posted on No Email Fridays back in March of this year.  Well, now it appears a revolt has occurred at that company.  According to CareerJournal.com’s Employers Try ‘No Email’ Days, But Workers Are Fighting Back:

When U.S. Cellular’s chief operating officer, Jay Ellison, imposed a “no email Friday” rule at his company, he thought it would ease workers’ overload.

Instead, he got a rebellion. Among many irate responses, Kathy Volpi, a marketing director, confronted Mr. Ellison and “just ripped me,” he says. “She really gave me a piece of her mind.”

This borders on hyperbole:

But withdraw it even for a day, and some employees fight back like recovering smokers in a nicotine fit.

and this:

Psychologist Ken Siegel classifies the email habit as “a dependency.” Cut off from their habit, employees at first may become hostile and critical, says Dr. Siegel, president of Impact Group, Los Angeles management consultants.

To me this all seems like a fix for something that isn’t broken.  Productivity is at a premium today and email is a valuable tool so limiting it is bound to have repercussions.

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Part of our service to our customers is to help them write an effective offer letter to their top candidate. We adjust some words based on the candidate’s style, motivations and rewards to make the offer talk more directly to their preferences. One thing crossed my mind recently in regards to sales titles.

Many times we see some of our smaller-sized customers providing “big” titles for the new salesperson. The obvious goal in some instances is to provide more title and less money. That works in banks but not so much for B2B salespeople.

Nonetheless, here is an example of where the title can cause trouble. We have a customer who is hiring a business development salesperson. The salesperson’s job will be to find, qualify and close new customers. His title will be VP of Business Development.

The trouble is that he will be cold calling and prospecting for much of the day. With a VP title. The big title defeats the role in some regard when it could be avoided. A Business Development Manager title would be just as effective, if not more. Many of the prospects will discount a VP who is cold calling. My first impression will be that the company is tiny.

The worst example of this overstated title I have seen was at a previous employer with multiple owners. Each owner wanted a big title. The majority owner was fairly active in his referral network and often cold called into companies.

His title – Chairman.

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Another sales management trait this week.  Have you ever worked for a tyrant?  Someone who had to have it his or her way only?  Did you have to adjust completely to them?

Understanding Motivational Needs
The ability to understand the needs and desires of employees enough that this knowledge may be used to motivate them to succeed. The ability to encourage a self-starting, active pursuit of goals and objectives.

A strength in this area is indicative of a manager who understands that everyone is unique and motivated by different things. They value individual desires and take the time to get to know an individual’s specific motivators.

A manager with a weakness in this trait will tend to discount the importance an individual€™s desires and needs play in managing or motivating that person.

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Honestly, I thought this was a joke – Is that your phone or your imagination? From the article:

Many mobile phone addicts and BlackBerry junkies report feeling vibrations when there are none, or feeling as if they’re wearing a cell phone when they’re not.

…

Research in the area is scant, but theories abound about the phenomenon, which has been termed “ringxiety” or “fauxcellarm.”

The article is obviously a bit tongue-in-cheek and there are some good lines in it including this one:

He also claims to “pre-feel” a new message or call. “I’ll feel it, look at it. It’s not vibrating. Then it starts vibrating,” he said. “I am one with my BlackBerry.”

The guy’s name is Yoda.

Ok, maybe not.

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Ok, I have a weakness for these types of surveys.  From CareerBuilder:

“Workplace Taboos” is a new CareerBuilder.com survey, conducted by Harris Interactive of more than 5,700 workers. The most common workplace taboos that workers admitted to taking part in include:

1. Falling asleep at work (45 percent)
2. Kissing a co-worker (39 percent)
3. Stealing from the office (22 percent)
4. Spreading a rumor about a co-worker (22 percent)
5. Consuming alcoholic beverages while on the job (21 percent)
6. Snooping after hours (18 percent)
7. Lying about an academic background (4 percent)
8. Taking credit for someone else’s work (2 percent)

I laughed at number 1 since I used to work at a company where the customer service manager would fall asleep at his desk every afternoon.  He had it down to a science – he could sleep with his hands on the keyboard while sitting up.  Eventually his head would nod down, but it took some time.  It really was remarkable.

To top it off, he was promoted.  And later fired.

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The US Senate designated October as National Work and Family Month back in 2003 in hopes that it would engage employers into sponsoring work/life programs for their employees. We’ve posted about this topic before, but as more and more Gen X & Y’ers fill the roles of the retiring Baby Boomers, this subject will require attention by everyone who plans on hiring.

Gen X & Y’ers consider work/life balance a very important topic, often reporting it as important as money. As we posted earlier this year, a survey of recruiters showed that 85% of them have seen candidates reject a job offer because it was misaligned with their work-life balance. So you have 2 choices, the first is to maintain the status quo and ignore the importance of life outside of work. The second is to look at ways that you can help your employees maintain a good balance.

An example: Deloitte & Touche, which in 2004 launched a program that allows qualifying employees to leave for up to five years to focus on personal goals, such as family. Now I’ll admit that is a fairly significant program and not every company is able to implement a comparable program. As an employer the question you need to ask is how balanced of a life do my employees have and, more importantly, what do they expect? I think you may be surprised at the gap.

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I had an interesting, quick call this morning with a suspect who was interested in our assessment tools.  His question involved cloning, specifically, why not clone his top salespeople for a benchmark.

We don’t benchmark in our hiring process or assessments.  The presumption is that you can find a clone of your top people.  Bad assumption since people are the ultimate variable.  Beyond that, there are other variables that affect this approach.

1. The Ideal Sale.  We start all assessments by profiling your typical sale along with your ideal sale.  The present-day realities of a typical sale must be defined.  However, we also profile what would be ideal in your sale.  Now, we often get the one-call close, triple profit margin requests, but reality sets in and we determine what is attainable with a strong salesperson in the role.  It is of great importance in hiring salespeople to define your ideals.

2. The Market.  The criteria you used to hire your top performers was based on the information you had at that time.  The market has changed since then, sometimes to the point where  your top salespeople would not be good hires in today’s marketplace.  We have a customer whose top salesperson resides in the top territory in corporate’s backyard.  The salesperson has easy entry into local accounts and he is their number 1 revenue generator.  If we used him as a benchmark for a position halfway across the country where their largest competitor resides, we will skew the data in a direction away from what is needed.  Simply put, markets matter.

3. The Team.  We assess sales teams as a whole and look at the aggregate results.  The strongest teams have a variety of salespeople within them.  The principle is simple; a team consisting of clones has the same strengths and weaknesses.  Though the similar strengths may be beneficial in the short term, a change in market conditions can have an adverse effect.  Also, a cloned team will work best with a specific type of customer but will struggle with others due to a lack of variety in sales skills.  Think of a basketball team made up solely of 7′ centers – they would be good at a limited aspect of the game.

I have to confess, we did complete a sales benchmarking project at a previous employer.  Our results (from a sample size of 40 salespeople) identified 2 common traits amongst the top performers – traits we knew were important to success.  Yet, we were not able to identify any specific threads that ran through the top performers.  Each was different in their skills, aptitudes, motivation and style.

Next time, profile your sale to establish the baseline for your sales assessing.

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Here is a sales management question for you – in terms of coaching and developing your sales team, is it best to focus on your top performers to make them better or your bottom performers to build them up? I have recently read articles that argue from each side of this equation. It’s a good question.

My position would be to manage top-down with a focus on your top performers. The main reason I take this position is retention. I would qualify this position by assessing the top salespeople and adjusting my management style slightly to match their preferred communication, motivation and reward pattern. Simply put, some top salespeople are prima donnas and enjoy much adulation, some prefer an engaged sales manager who is involved in the selling process and others prefer to take a bit of a lone wolf approach.

I would focus on these top people and ensure that they are growing in their roles and supported in their goals. I wouldn’t say I would want to pamper them or overmanage them, but I would want to keep their path as straight and smooth as possible.

The worst scenario would be for the top performers to think they are underappreciated to the point where they leave the company for a new opportunity elsewhere. Just like your top customer is your competitor’s top prospect, in this present employment market, your top salesperson is your competitor’s top candidate.

Now, I’m not focusing on the top performers to the exclusion of the bottom dwellers. Obviously, I would spend time with them and attempt to neutralize their weaknesses and develop their natural strengths. But my priority would be to the top salespeople first.

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