Yahoo HotJobs has a story out today titled Recession-Proof Jobs in 2008.  First, I love this old media trick:

Economists at Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley say the U.S. is heading for its first-blown recession in 16 years, and a recent CNN poll found that 57 percent of the public believe the U.S. is in a recession already, with the economy topping the list of voter’s worries.

16 years?  How about 8 years ago with the tech bubble?  Are we in a recession if CNN does a poll and people say we are?  Please, I would prefer to read what measurements show that we are in a recession today.

Enough of that.  Clearly the economy is slowing down from it’s torrid pace just as it always has and always will.  It is cyclical.  I am intrigued by the title of the article and when you get past the opening propaganda, you come to some interesting positions (my editing):

However, many employment sectors are expected to remain strong despite a possible recession, and job-seekers may have more success if they focus on recession-proof professions.

* Education. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has historically shown teaching to be relatively recession-proof. But demographics are important: High-growth areas like the Sun Belt offer much better prospects than the Rust Belt.

* Energy. “This is a major issue for the global economy, and jobs related to oil and gas, alternative energy and even nuclear are likely to see strong growth,” Challenger said.

* Health care. Almost half the 30 fastest growing occupations are concentrated in health services — including medical assistants, physical therapists, physician assistants, home health aides, and medical records and health information technicians — according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

* International business. “If you have a strong knowledge of other cultures, and an ability to work in another country, you’ll find plenty of opportunities,” according to John Challenger. “If you’re first generation Chinese, with business skills and Chinese language skills, you’re in good shape.

* Environmental sector. There is a huge and growing industry geared to combat global warming. “Not only will professionals with skills in sustainability issues be in demand through the end of the decade, we are likely to shortages of professionals with ‘green’ skills,” said Rona Fried, president of sustainable business.com, a networking service for sustainable businesses.

* Security. “Crime doesn’t stop during a recession, and police officers, port security specialists and international security experts will continue to be in demand,” Challenger emphasized.

I think that is an accurate list.  The one thing for sure is that talented employees are always in demand no matter what the economy.

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Ok, the whole candidate attire topic seems to be floating around the areas of the web I patrol. CareerJournal.com offers a follow up article titled Tassels, Pantsuits and Other Interview Fashion Faux-Pas. Great title. Here is a quick description of the debate from the article:

Perhaps it’s lamentable that a person should be judged on how he maintains his car interior or what he wears. “I’ve encountered far too many empty suits who are perfectly groomed but have little relevant knowledge,” wrote Marty Robins, an attorney in Buffalo Grove, Ill. “Conversely, many people who emphasize keeping current their technical skills and industry knowledge do not have time to spend preening over their wardrobes.”

True. Yet employers are attempting to assess the character and abilities of people they often hardly know. You go with the information you have.

Those two paragraphs sum up the two sides of this discussion rather well.  However, that article takes a real turn later:

But tell that to the New York-area financial executive who wrote me, extensively, that he avoids hiring women who wear pants because, he argues, women who wear skirts and pantyhose tend to be better employees. He considers a woman in a pantsuit equivalent to a man in a suit with no necktie. “Certainly, no man is going to get offended if she shows up in a skirt and hose, but there are men who like me feel a pantsuit on a woman is a step down. Why take that chance?” he wrote. This 35-year-old man asked not to be quoted by name because he said his comments could be interpreted as sexist.

See, this is the point I was making in my previous post – the danger here is that hiring managers get sucked into strange biases when they focus on attire.   What a strange statement from the financial executive.  How can you counteract that thinking?  Imagine a strong skilled, perfect-for-the-role sales woman who is passed up because she wore dress pants.

As a recruiter, I cringe at the thought of working with someone who uses that type of thinking in his hiring process.

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CNNMoney.com’s quick-hitter advice article titled 7 ways to avoid employees from hell offers some simple advice.  How about this one:

Hire well

Even the lowest-level prospect – the kind who is typically hired quickly – should be thoroughly vetted by at least two interviewers. Check references.

Well, yes, “hiring well” is the key to strong employees.  Eating well is also a key to losing weight…but that doesn’t make it easy to do.

Two interviewers is a good start.  Objective assessments are a better plan.  Having a structured hiring process is the best plan.

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CareerJournal.com offers up this article – Avoid These Email Blunders To Prevent Career Derailment – that speaks to some simple-sounding errors.  You know, email has been around for some time now, but I am still impressed by how many blunders are still made today.

This particular graph grabbed my attention:

Don’t spoil your boss’s image. If your boss asks you in an email to speak to a coworker about a problem he or she has with that individual, forwarding the message blindly (and the incriminating language in it) is like setting it in stone. It will not only offend the recipient of the email but could also get you in trouble for allowing remarks that can be construed as personal criticism to seep through company email. Such situations are handled best by phone or face-to-face communication. Unless you have requested permission, do not forward anything that was sent solely to you. If you are still determined to use email, restate the original message in neutral, diplomatic terms.

I saw this occur firsthand in a previous role with a peer of mine.  We managed geographic regions around the country and we each had a blend of distributors and direct accounts in our territories.  This salesperson sent out an internal email to a distributor and it was disastrous.  She had forwarded an email that had been forwarded with commentary quite a few times before reaching her.  Apparently she did not read all of the previous comments.

The distributor did take the time to read through the entire email trail and he was…well, let’s just say he was quite unhappy.  There was some commentary about his sales performance and the possibility of moving the distributorship to his main competitor in the territory.

A stupid, simple mistake that took weeks to fix all from one forwarded email.

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Money is a difficult topic for many salespeople to handle with a prospect.  Some salespeople buckle and collapse with large discounts while others simply avoid the topic as long as possible.  As a sales manager, there are few things as uncomfortable as watching one of your salespeople crash and burn when qualifying money.

Lee Salz offers a good article on Salesopedia covering this topic.  Salz cuts right to the bone on why this topic is so critical:

If you don’t believe you are providing a fair, competitive price for the solution, my question is why are you presenting it anyway? One would hope that you have integrity so why present something you don’t believe in?

Some responses that cause you to fail the flinch test.

•    What price were you looking for?

•    I’ll ask my manager if we can do better.

•    How about if I take 10% off?

The reason these are failed responses is that they create trust issues with the prospect. Were you trying to rip them off with the price you presented? One of two things is true. Either you were trying to rip them off or you believe you provided a fair price. What other option is there? Some will say that they were preparing for a negotiation. That’s a fair point; however, it is a terrible negotiation strategy to give the appearance that you will drop your price first moment someone balks. That approach gives the impression that you sought to gouge them.

That is absolutely correct.  The reason why I know this is because I made this mistake when I was a young sales rep.  I lost a very large deal because I buckled under the price discussion.

If you have ever been deer hunting, you know what “buck fever” is.  It is that moment when you have the 12 point buck in your crosshairs but then you start to get shaky, unsteady and unable to pull the trigger.  The thought of getting the trophy buck overwhelms you.

I think many salespeople get “deal fever” when they are about to close a large deal.  Their knees start knocking and they quickly agree to the prospect’s large price reduction.

Here are Salz’s 4 suggestions to avoid deal fever:

1. They set expectations upfront.

2.  They don’t flinch!

3. They seek to understand.

4. They reinforce their position.

Read the entire article to get his expanded description for each of the 4 suggestions.  And may I strongly encourage you to read number 2 closely?

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I haven’t heard that moniker until now – “Google Generation.”  These are kids born after 1993 so they are a handful of year away from hitting the workplace.  Yet, there is some interesting research out there that debunks some conventional wisdom and reinforces others.

First the debunking (emphasis mine):

It’s true that young people prefer interactive systems to passive ones and that they are generally competent with technology, but it’s not true that students today are “expert searchers.” In fact, the report calls this “a dangerous myth.” Knowing how to use Facebook doesn’t make one an Internet search god, and the report concludes that a literature review shows no movement (either good or bad) in young people’s information skills over the last several decades. Choosing good search terms is a special problem for younger users.

Michael Benidt call your office.

Now the accurate conventional wisdom:

• They like to cut-and-paste. “There is a lot of anecdotal evidence and plagiarism is a serious issue.”
• They prefer visual information over text. “But text is still important… For library interfaces, there is evidence that multimedia can quickly lose its appeal, providing short-term novelty.”
• They multitask all the time. “It is likely that being exposed to online media early in life may help to develop good parallel processing skills.”

I think “multitasking” is one of the fuzziest words in current business lexicon.  I suspect there are some people who can juggle many tasks for a short period with average to slightly above average success.  However, the expansion of this ability to be something more than it is leads to the multitasking myth.

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Our local Pioneer Press offers an article about HD radio which intrigues me.  There are some interesting developments in the technology.  One of them is this:

More important, the radios have an iTunes tagging feature, developed with Apple’s help and being tested in the San Francisco Bay area. This means users can press a button to tag songs they like, save that information to their docked iPods, and later transfer this info to their iTunes software on their computers.

They then can buy the songs on Apple’s music store.

That is a fantastic idea.  However, I truly enjoyed this perfect stall that comes later in the article:

“We’re definitely taking a hard look at (this technology), but no commitment yet,” Nycklemoe said. “It’s so new.”

We’re definitely taking a hard look at it.  Many a salesperson has fallen for that line that appears to imply much but says little.  True confession – in my years as a green salesperson, I suckered for that line many times.  Perhaps that is why I am hypersensitive towards it today!

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Here is an interesting article from Columbia Business Times titled The Mysteries Of Hiring Salespeople Unlocked.  Good title.  The short article has some excellent advice and some marginal suggestions.  From the excellent column (emphasis mine):

3. Unlearn your present interviewing system. First, throw away the hiring profile assessment you are using now (are you using one?), and instead find one that measures sales skills, adversity, toughness and, most important, whether this applicant will sell for you in your industry. Second, remember this applicant was someone else’s salesperson. Salespeople who “turn over” get good at giving you answers you like to hear. Third, instead of using your natural bonding skills, try “anti-bonding”—making the applicant work extra hard to bond with you. After all, isn’t that what your prospects will do? You want stronger salespeople? Become a stronger interviewer and “unlearn” what you did yesterday.

Exactly.  We use this exact approach when phone screening sales candidates and it is most effective.  Prospecting is difficult and the prospect typically doesn’t answer the phone and say, “Thank goodness you called me.  How much is it and who do I make the check out to?”

If you have ever cold called, you know that the prospects tend to be standoffish, unhelpful and terse.  A strong salesperson has to break through that wall.

So why do so many interviewers gush with enthusiasm, help the candidate with their responses and try to establish rapport themselves?  The better approach is to take an “anti-bonding” position initially and observe the salesperson in action.  The strong ones clearly stand out at this stage.  Make them work a bit, don’t be effusive and observe how easily you can smoke out the pretenders.

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I’m not British so waiting is not my specialty.  This factoid is from the JustSell.com daily newsletter:

According to the National Restaurant Association, the average consumer is willing
to wait 23 minutes for a table for dinner. That number rises slightly to 31 minutes if it’s
a weekend.

If you replace minutes with seconds, you will know my threshold for waiting at a restaurant.  My wife, who will wait 45 minutes to get into a good restaurant, has initiated a behavior modification plan to correct this weakness in me.

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I always question how these lists are compiled, but they are interesting nonetheless.  Forbes.com recently released their list.  A quick preview of the top 5 cities:

1. Salt Lake City, UT
2. Wichita, KS
3. Austin, TX
4. Atlanta, GA
5. Forth Worth, TX

My sister and her family lived in Wichita for a couple of years and I took my family down there a couple times to visit.  I liked the town and it seemed to be quite busy for a smaller city.  I have to confess, I am surprised it is number 2.  There is a large aviation sector down there so that may be driving it.

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