Earlier this week I posted about a totalitarian culture. Now today I just caught up to a post from GL over at What Would Dad Say that provides a view of a completely different culture.

I’ve recently invested in and joined the board of a fast growing software company comprised of mainly geeks, but cool geeks. They work hard and they play even harder. I’ve seen many of them passed out from doing keg stands and beer drinking relay races (at company events) . The culture isn’t for everyone, but the really smart, hard working, competitive types (who can also drink a lot) who don’t like a lot of corporate bs seem to last and do well . People who don’t fit this profile tend to last 1.5 days or so.

Last week I called the CEO at 5:05 p.m. and got his assistant. She said Wayne is here right now but he is busy fixing the Kegerator (for those of you not familiar with this unique piece of office equipment, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegerator). People pay for a glass or two or seven with “chits” they can earn based on performance. You can’t buy them with cash so it is a performance based drinking system. If you don’t work hard, you don’t get to play hard. For some reason, this animal house style approach makes sense to me and it works for them.

An animal house culture – that’s funny.

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The latest numbers are out and the experts are…drumroll please…”surprised.” From Reuters:

Employers added a surprisingly strong 166,000 new non-farm jobs in October, well ahead of forecasts in an early sign that consumer incomes may be better supported than thought heading into the fourth quarter, according to a government report on Friday.

The Labor Department said the national unemployment rate in October was unchanged at 4.7 percent. It revised September hiring to show that 96,000 jobs were added instead of 110,000 it reported a month ago and said 93,000 new jobs in August instead of 89,000 that it previously reported.

Don’t buy the hype about a bad economy. The 166,000 number will be revised over the next month or two, but the main point is that the hiring market remains strong.

Trust me, as a company that spends much of the day sourcing candidates, this market is strong which puts the candidate in a stronger position. I almost think a bit of a cool down would help us in our sourcing activities that have become extended in this roaring economy.

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One question we would love to hear more often from our customers is this, “What factors make this candidate a strong fit for our sales position?” This is the best question to ask when first viewing a candidate’s information. Unfortunately, we hear many customers resort to their old method for measuring a candidate – what does their resume contain?

I often wonder if hiring would improve if resumes were removed from the process. I know it will never happen, but it would force hiring managers to take a more comprehensive approach to their decision-making. The focus would move from prejudging viability based solely on a sheet of paper to interviewing the candidates…truly interviewing them. How do they communicate? Are they articulate? Persuasive? Conversational? What questions do they ask? Is there a patter to their qualifying and what is it? Could you see your prospects buying from them?

These questions are not answered by reading a resume.

We preach this approach often, but it bears repeating – the more objectivity you can insert into your hiring process, the more reliable the process will become. Subjectivity, when unchecked, is detrimental to the hiring process.

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How about this thought – many bad salespeople are good interviews because they have much practice. We have seen many salespeople do well on the phone but once we dig into their history, we find a consistent pattern of 2 year stints.

But man do they say the right things on the phone.

For this reason, we tend to run a difficult phone screen to weed out the pretenders. In fact, just this week we received a resume from a candidate with whom we are familiar. He worked for one of our customers 3 years ago and displayed flamboyant incompetence. As they say in the Wall Street Journal, it wasn’t long before he was “free to pursue other opportunities.”

The interesting point here is that this guy’s recent approach to us was notably strong. We were impressed, but his name was naggingly familiar. We dug through our files and, sure enough, found his information from 3 years ago. Yet, one thing was very different.

His resume.

He had omitted some positions and glossed over his time at our customer. I should say he glossed it over by taking his previous job and doubling his tenure there to twice what it actually was. Instead of being at the previous employer for 2 years, he simply made it 4 years as to hide a large gap in his employment record.

Remember, this guy sounds quite impressive on his approach. According to our customer he interviewed well, too. They finally flushed him out when they ran a background check/employment verification. Yes, after he was on the payroll which is another post for another day. His employment history on his resume was a complete fabrication.

This candidate was basically a con man who used an elaborate scheme to secure a sales job and then hang on as long as he could. He was a bad salesperson who had mastered the art of interviewing well.

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I am sourcing for a mid-level account executive for a complex, custom manufactured product for businesses. I had one candidate contact me via voicemail who stated that he has decades of experience in this market. Ok.

So I called him back late in the afternoon to go through a phone screen.

First off, he didn’t remember me. After I explained who I was, he remembered the company. Next, I told him, “I was hoping to take a few minutes of your…”

He interrupted me at that point to say he only had 5 minutes to talk since he had to get to Dominos to deliver pizzas.

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We interviewed a candidate yesterday for an outside sales position who comes with a different background to our client’s company. The purpose of the interview was to further discuss his abilities before putting him in front of our customer. We were pleasantly surprised that his sales skills and history are even stronger than we first expected.

Here’s why – he took over a territory in a complex, technical sale in which his employer had a bad reputation. The reputation was deserved. The task for this salesperson was daunting…and he succeeded in turning the territory around.

Overcoming a bad reputation in the marketplace is more difficult than new business development with a clean, or even unknown, reputation. We have seen this first-hand with one of our national accounts that completely alienated a market in Texas. They are working to reestablish themselves, but the wounds are too fresh. The salespeople have yet to get traction with that market so they are focused on other markets for now.

I’ve personally sold in both situations within the same industry and I can attest to the difficulty of overcoming a bad reputation. The customers were dogmatic and skeptical at every turn. And, of course, I stepped in it a few times since my employer did not share all of the history in the account. That was nice.

The main points I learned in these situations:

1. Time – it takes time for the emotions to calm down. It takes time to attempt to work your way back in to the market. Expecting a quick fix, fast turnaround only exasperates the problem. Cordial perseverance is the best approach.
2. Humility – it is tough sledding and the sales rep best not be cocky. I ate a lot of humble pie while rebuilding a bad territory that I inherited, but it worked.
3. Sacrifice – some accounts will be lost for good. I wasted much of my time trying to secure a previous customer that was too far gone. There has to be some tough decisions made about which accounts to pursue and which to put on a “drip” list. As a sales rep, this was a tough meeting to have with my sales manager (“Why can’t you get them back?”).

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Today we wrap up our year-long Sales Traits Series with the final installment. This week’s trait is one that provides us insight into a candidate’s soft skills when relating to a prospect or customer.

Sensitivity To Others
The ability to be sensitive and aware of the feelings of others, but not to allow this awareness to interfere with objective decision making.

A salesperson with strength in this trait will respond to the concerns of others even if they do not relate to the situation at hand.

A weakness in this area is indicative of an inability to identify and relate with others on a personal level. Such a person has a difficult time empathizing with the needs and concerns of those with whom they deal.

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