This is a long set-up, but you’ll get the point.  I just read an interesting Q&A article on BusinessWeek.com titled Being Pushy…or Taking the Initiative?  Here is the question posed by an office manager who is hiring for a sales position:

I’m the office manager in a branch of an international PR firm with more than 50 offices in the U.S. I run the administrative processes, work as the liaison with our U.S. headquarters, and serve as the HR chief for this branch. Last week I interviewed a candidate for an account manager position. This man had applied for the job through an online job ad. I do the first-screen interviews, and so I met with him to talk about the role and his qualifications. We had a fruitful cha (sic), and I was pleased enough with our meeting to say to the candidate in closing: “It’s been wonderful to meet you, and I’ll be speaking with Amanda Jones, our general manager, about our conversation and taking the next steps.”

As far as I could see, I was doing the candidate a favor by letting him know that I was taking his candidacy to the next level. I guess I shouldn’t have mentioned Amanda’s name, because this morning I received a thank-you e-mail from the candidate, and saw that he had cc:d Amanda on the note. That feels really pushy to me. Because I mentioned Amanda’s name, the candidate figured out Amanda’s e-mail address and wrote to her directly. I’m tempted to cross his name off the list of finalist candidates. Any thoughts?

I am always perplexed by this belief that a salesperson should not be effective at selling.  If I were in her shoes, I would move this candidate to the top of this list.  he showed moxie in attempting to move this “deal” to the next stage.

We see this in interviews also.  A hiring manager will state that they didn’t think the candidate talked much, but we sat and observed the candidate asking the right questions to qualify the position.  I know it is difficult, but when hiring salespeople, you have to step back from the process and review the candidate’s actions and words.  Look at them in entirety.  This approach will show you the candidates with initiative…initiative that may be sitting there right in front of your eyes.

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