We work under a premise that my father is fond of saying, “They typically don’t need longer to say yes.”  This is a truth of life that plays out time and again.  There is one group of people that truly understands this principle…candidates.  If they do not receive any feedback for a disproportionate period of time, they (properly) assume they were not a fit.

What I don’t understand is why recruiters and hiring managers simply don’t tell the candidate they are not a fit.  I have read many articles that discuss employment branding.  In a simple vein, it seems obvious to me that one of the best branding approaches is to be candid and timely with all candidates.

We have a couple of customers who interview candidates and then place them in a black hole.  They tell the candidate they are interested in going to the next step but then they place the candidate in a black hole.  No update, no plan, no contact.

As hiring migrates to a networking-based channel, this black hole approach will brand companies in a bad light.  That is the power of a network – news travels through it quickly.  The better approach will be to simply inform the candidate of their status, even if it is a no.

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The Washington Post has a short article that references job hunting trends from Monster.com.  Here is the data if you want to play the averages:

In a trend that has held true for three years, job hunting takes off on Monday, peaks on Tuesday and is still very busy on Wednesday, according to Monster.com. Job hunt traffic on Tuesday is 28 percent higher than on Friday, said Steve Sylven, a spokesman for Monster.

EQuest, which manages job boards for companies, used to see Tuesdays and Wednesdays as tops for tapping new career possibilities. But in 2007, Americans broadened their search days, and eQuest indicates any weekday from noon to 4 p.m. is busy.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays bring fresh listings — eQuest and others advise employers to post then, or Sunday night and Monday morning.

Hardly anyone spends the weekend hunting for a job. Saturdays and Sundays are the slowest days on Monster.com, and eQuest’s data shows less than one-third the traffic to career sites on those days vs. weekdays.

(h/t The Talent Buzz)

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In sales we know that prospects and customers make decisions emotionally and then justify them afterwards intellectually.  This is why strong salespeople have the ability to build rapport and then engage the prospect’s emotions during the qualifying stage.

This truth appears to have been validated in a new book titled Sway:  The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior as noted in this Inc.com blog.  The pull quote:

Newsflash: People, even when given a choice of thinking logically and getting beneficial results, will often act emotionally despite the consequences. The effects of this irrational behavior on businesses can be far reaching.

There is an intriguing case study referenced in the post that is worth the read.  The outcome of that section is valuable advice:

The authors point out one final take-away that struck close to home with me. “The researchers concluded that business owners place too great importance on margins and outcomes. They recommended that all managers — regardless of industry — put greater “effort, energy, investment, and patience” into nurturing the relationship. In the end, “the fairness of the procedure has as much to do with our satisfaction as the ultimate outcome.”

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We have been talking to many of our customers and have seen a consistent trend among our small sample size – Q4 is going to be a good quarter.  Of course, that doesn’t do much for the last few days of this quarter and Q3, but it is a good sign.

Now CNNMoney.com has an article that may have a significantly larger sample size:

The Business Roundtable is an association of CEOs of major corporations, representing a combined work force of more than 10 million employees and $4.5 trillion in annual revenues.

Here is the takeaway from this group (my bold):

At the same time, a survey by the Business Roundtable, released Wednesday, showed that most executives expect sales and capital investment to remain at current levels or even improve over the next six months.

That’s consistent with expectations from the Federal Reserve and other economists who say they think the fragile economy will strengthen later this year and into next year – even as the nation’s unemployment rate, a lagging indicator of business health, rises. As in the past, many employers won’t want to ramp up hiring until they are sure the economy is really back on a firm footing.

…
In the survey, 91% said they expected their sales to hold steady or increase over the next six months, the same percentage as the old survey. Nine percent said they expected sales to go down – also the same as the previous reading.

However, you have to give CNN credit for their spin.  The headline of the article:

A third of CEOs expect to slash payrolls

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The hiring outlook from the Manpower survey looks far better than a year ago which is a good sign.  Although there is weakness in areas, the hiring trend is still positive:

“While overall softness continues in the third quarter, employers are generally not reacting with large-scale payroll reductions,” said Jeffrey A. Joerres, chairman and CEO of Manpower Inc. “The gradual slowdown suggests that employers have become sophisticated at anticipating their hiring needs.”

Of the 14,000 U.S. employers surveyed, 26% expect to increase their workforces during the July – September period, while 10% expect to scale back their payrolls for a net employment outlook of 16% (seasonally adjusted 12%). Fifty-eight percent expect no change in the hiring pace, and 6% are undecided about their hiring plans.

I’m not certain why Manpower leads their article with a hiring decrease.  The only section I find that supports this view:

Seasonally adjusted survey data indicates that hiring in five of the 10 industry sectors surveyed will decrease slightly during the upcoming quarter compared to Quarter 2 2008 making it the weakest employment outlook since Quarter 4 2003.

Fine, but a year ago the same survey revealed that only 13% of the respondents were going to increase hiring while 7% were going to decrease payrolls.  Whatever the characterization, it is a tepid forecast that still contains overall growth – a good sign for a slow economy.

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MarketingProfs.com has a superb, thought-provoking article regarding value propositions.  If you have read The Hire Sense of late, you know this is a topic we are exploring in many facets of sales.  I have to confess, this author’s take is completely different (irony there) than the other points I have read on this topic.

Here is the gist of his commentary:

So be different: Stop listening to the continuous pleas from consultants, marketers, and textbooks to be different… one of a kind.. .a shining beacon of newness in a sea of same-old same-old.

Focus instead on actually delivering the value to the market that you say you deliver (which, in and of itself, can be uncommon if not unique), and find ways to create a conversation with buyers around that message.

Well stated for sure.  He provides an example involving two oral surgeons which I don’t think carries as much weight.  The reason is that in sales you have to have some differentiation when you approach a prospect.  His example involves a committed prospect (toothache patient) looking for a solution.

But what if the prospect was simply a person who had a dentist they had been going to for 10 years and were relatively pleased with them?  Simply claiming you deliver on what you say you deliver is probably not going to be enough to get the prospect to change – you must bring unique value to them.  This is where his approach breaks down.

Nonetheless, he still makes some excellent points about this topic.  I particularly enjoyed how he unpacked this common-sounding copy:

Some firms seem to take the quest for differentiation literally, creating a spate of “we’re different” messages. Consider a top Boston law firm with the following message:

At [FIRM Name], we practice law differently. While our attorneys agree that results drive our business, building relationships with our clients and providing value-added service is the key to our success.

This firm might be amazingly good—and, from what I know of their reputation, they are. However, results’ driving business, building relationships, and providing value-add are pretty par for the course—both as firm goals and marketing copy.

I suspect that copy sounds a bit too common to some companies.  Finally, there is this list of how clients buy (emphasis mine):

So what is it that clients are, indeed, looking for? In my experience, and according to research such as How Clients Buy, most buyers want to tell service providers the following:

• Reliability. Do what you say you are going to do, and be on time about it. (This is listed first, because it’s so important. If only the service providers I’ve worked with in my life were better at keeping their commitments…)
• Accessibility. Be there when I need you.
• Impact. Help me buy the most helpful and impactful services from you, and help me translate your services into success for my business in my industry.
• Fit. Be a good fit for the specific needs that I have. If you’re not the best fit, help me find a provider that is. Don’t shoehorn your service into something that, in the end, won’t meet my needs as well as something else would.
• Importance. Make me feel like we are, as a client, important to you and your team.
• Service. Deliver great service as well as great services.
• Prudence. Be careful and do your homework before you suggest a course of action for me.
• Research. Stay on top of the developments and trends in your industry and in mine.
• Listening. Understand my business, my team, and my clients so you can come up with ideas relevant to me.
• Teaching. Help me understand what you’re doing. I might not be an expert in your area, but I’m pretty bright and I make the decisions here. Help me understand what’s new in your area of expertise so I can apply that knowledge in my business.
• Business management. Run an efficient operation and constantly improve so I don’t pay for your inefficiency.
• Relationship management. Be pleasant and fair, and work with me through communication or other breakdowns on your end or mine. In essence, treat me like a person.

As they say, read the entire thing.

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Listen, according to this Selling Power article:

“One of the mistakes companies have made in the past is that they make decisions without real input from the people who are most affected by the hiring decisions,” says Opton. “Companies need to realize that they always have two sets of customers – internal and external. The minute that someone comes to work for them, that person becomes an internal customer to the organization. The organization needs to listen to what their needs are and act on those needs.”

The article references a survey regarding executives’ wants, but it is representative of employees also.  The interesting stat that always seems to come out of these surveys:

“Just 12 percent pointed to compensation as the reason why they leave companies,” says Opton. “We see this year after year – money will motivate people to come on board, but it can’t make them stick.”

Excellent point, can’t make them stick.  Many managers assume a decent paycheck (the manager gets to define “decent”) will keep most salespeople happy.  But look at these numbers:

“Nearly half of the dissatisfied executives reported limited advancement opportunities; lack of challenge; a desire for more managerial responsibility, autonomy or technical improvement; or dislike of the work as the reasons they were ready to bolt,” states the study. “Issues relevant to lifestyle – work/life imbalance, commute, relocation, and business travel – became deal breakers for another 21 percent. Difficulty with the culture and the boss accounted for 13 percent of executive dissatisfaction.”

I suspect the commute topic will become more prevalent in the next study thanks to the gas price trend.

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It isn’t always clear what the exact number is, but more than 50% of jobseekers lie on embellish their resume.  Forbes offers up an article titled Overachievement Without Achievement that contains a picture of Milli Vanilli.  How perfect is that?  The article quotes 53% as the number of people who lie on embellish their resume.

But check this out:

Some college students are encouraged to embellish items on their résumés. “They are taught to use the highest-level verb,” says Nancy Davis, a psychology professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. For instance, an intern who ran copies of an instruction manual might say he “created” the manual on his résumé, Davis says.

But the step from résumé embellishment to outright faking isn’t a long one. Awareness of résumé cooking could make job applicants feel they must push the envelope on their application, if only because everyone else is doing it (a frame of thought psychologists call false consensus).

“Highest-level verb” is a phrase for which I am not familiar, but it explains much.  My layman’s term for it was attempting to use the Queen’s English to sound smarter.  Of course, this approach can easily backfire with improper usage of unfamiliar words.

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BusinessWeek.com has an excerpt from a new book from C.K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan.  They provide an interesting take on a topic we have been studying of late – value.

Salespeople have to know their company’s value proposition in the market.  That last part, in the market, is the key.  We have seen plenty of companies who have an internal perception of their value, but some times it is not based in reality.  Salespeople have to sort this problem out, which is an area in which we assist them.

At any rate, these opening graphs caught my attention as they elucidate a value trend we are seeing in the marketplace today.

There is a fundamental transformation of business underway. Forged by digitization, ubiquitous connectivity, and globalization, this transformation will radically alter the very nature of the firm and how it creates value. No industry is immune to this trend. It will impact traditional industries such as education, insurance, health care, automobiles, and footwear, as well as emerging industries such as video games, search engines, and social networks. Coming to terms with the implications of this change is critical for survival and growth.

This transformation, as we will examine in this book, is built on two basic pillars:

1. Value is based on unique, personalized experiences of consumers. Firms have to learn to focus on one consumer and her experience at a time, even if they serve 100 million consumers. The focus is on the centrality of the individual. We will designate this pillar as N = 1 (one consumer experience at a time).

2. No firm is big enough in scope and size to satisfy the experiences of one consumer at a time. All firms will access resources from a wide variety of other big and small firms—a global ecosystem. The focus is on access to resources, not ownership of resources. We will designate this pillar as R = G (resources from multiple vendors and often from around the globe).

This view of value creation is 180 degrees different from the model that started the industrial revolution. The Model T from Ford, the icon of the industrial revolution, was built on two premises that are the opposites of N = 1 and R = G. Consumers were treated as an undifferentiated group, and hence the famous dictum “Any color is OK as long as it is black.” All resources had to be within the firm to capture value. Ford was one of the most vertically integrated firms, and its River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan, was the model. While no business today operates along the lines of the original Ford model, we must recognize that model as the precursor of modern business models. Most businesses today are variants of that model. That model served us well. It will not as we move forward.

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Here is some wonderful news about coffee to start your Monday.  From Yahoo Health:

Just sniffing that first hot cup of coffee in the morning may help ease some stresses you might be feeling, a South Korean trial indicates.

When rats inhaled the aroma of roasted coffee beans, a number of genes were activated, including some that produce proteins with healthful antioxidant activity, the researchers reported.

“The meaning of it is not totally clear yet,” said Dr. Peter R. Martin, director of the Institute of Coffee Studies at Vanderbilt University. “What it does show is that coffee smells do change the brain to some degree, and it behooves us to understand why that is happening.”

It is clear to me, my mammoth, daily latte consumption can now be classified as “healthy.”

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