but according to CareerJournal.com, it appears that the classic business lunch is making a strong comeback. As the article states, it may become even more popular if the IRS moves the deduction from 50% up to 80%. Check expense reports for fine wine and fancy meals!
The pronounced generation gap in today’s workplace is a topic we consistently encounter in our selection and assessment business. We released an article, Hiring Adjustments for Generations X and Y, earlier this week in response to this gap. Now monster.com has a great article that goes to the experiential source of the younger generations’ uniqueness.
The younger generation, particularly Generation Y (born 1977 to 1989), thrives in a fast-paced technological world. . . Their constant exposure to technology has even caused some to speculate that their brains have developed differently. The familiarity of so many different technological media has enabled them to process a huge amount of information in a short amount of time . . . In some circumstances, these individuals may never have learned effective face-to-face interpersonal communication skills, due to the fact that so much of their social interaction has been over instant/text messaging, cell phones and email.
This ability to handle information has benefits as well as drawbacks. I remember people lamenting the format of USA Today when it first came out. Quick read stories and colorful charts cut against the old graphically-challenged black and white newsprint of established newspapers. That shift was a precursor to the generational change that has occurred.
…one of the primary findings was that the employer-employee relationship has become more project-based, as opposed to the traditional chain-of-command structure.
The relationship change is quite evident in the many interviews we conduct during the year. As mentioned in our article, the younger generation has a more horizontal view of the organizational chart.
This paragraph towards the end of the article cuts to the quick of the issue and helps to explain our focus on understanding candidate and employee communication styles:
Effective communication is imperative as businesses shift to this new fast-paced paradigm. Striking a balance with both generations can be difficult. Younger generations are geared to working in a fast-paced environment and getting information on a whim. Short, abrupt communication may occur and leave out important details that others may need to know in order to provide adequate responses. Older generations may overinform, causing confusion or extra work in sifting out pertinent information.
The phone screen is making a comeback, as well it should. We talk extensively about the sequence in which a strong sales hiring process occurs. Step 3 is the phone screen which comes before the in-person interview. The main thrust of this approach is to neuralize the candidate’s advantages while placing them in a sales prospecting scenario.
What is one strength that is almost universal in all salespeople? Rapport-building. Granted, there are some who lack even this ability but the vast majority of salespeople have some skills in this area. Unfortunately, even the bad salespeople can have enough of this ability to make themselves appear stronger than they are in the interview. A salesperson with little selling ability (i.e. prospecting, qualifying, closing) but strong rapport-building skills is your basic schmoozer. They are all hat and no cattle.
The schmoozer’s best move is to land an in-person interview with the hiring manager. This meeting allows them a chance to size up the manager while using their excellent in-person skills. As socially gifted as they are, this skill does not automatically lead to success in selling.
The phone screen is a terrific neutralizer. The schmoozer still has tools to use on the call, but they are greatly reduced. The phone screen is a difficult call for a highly skilled salesperson but it truly handcuffs the schmoozer.
Some important aspects of a well-crafted phone screen:
There are many facets to a successful phone screen that we wrote about in a newsletter from last year. Try adding a structured phone screen to your next sales hiring process and see how strong a qualifier it is.
I read Perfect Score = Perfect Job? a few days ago on Forbes.com and am catching up to comment on it now. It is a good read with many excellent points in support of assessments. I previously posted about an article that discussed the ability of candidates to refuse to take the assessments. This article goes a long ways in articulating the purpose and results of effective, validated assessments.
…the process benefits both sides by matching the employer’s needs with the candidate’s skills and interests.
To put a sharper point on it, assessments measure the candidate’s skills, aptitudes, style and motivations to the specific needs of the position for which they are applying. Again, I cannot understand why a candidate would not want to discover if their abilities are a strong fit for this position. A desire to avoid that discovery seems quite disingenuous to me.
The article descends into a theoretical discussion due to the misguided focus on one particular word:
But this raises a few basic questions: What is personality? Can it be measured? If so, can it be reduced to a score? Does personality relate to job performance? If so, how?
The short answer is: Who knows? But many employers find such testing helpful and use it as one part of the hiring process.
Assessments that focus solely upon personality are quite limited in their results. Our focus is directed towards communication which speaks to personality in a limited scope. However, no one will argue that communication is not important in the workplace. Communication style does relate directly to job performance. We measure a candidate’s communication style but weight it as the least of our different assessments (hence its placement above the water line in our assessment graphic).
Stepping Into the Role of a First-Time Manager (link is gone) is a quick read article with practical advice for employees making their foray into management. My first foray into management left me with many bruises as I did not follow one of the suggestions in this article. I attempted to change many things in a short amount of time. My approach led to some significant changes but it triggered many management meetings with the other departments. Let’s just say those were quite candid meetings.
Much of our focus is on hiring, but we have another side to our business where we assess existing teams. In some ways, this work is more satisfying. We get to know the team members and we get to assist the manager in producing a development plan for each employee. This approach is focused on communication which is the first piece of successful management.
From the article:
“If you treat your staff with respect through communication, you will be more effective as a leader. Leading is not about daily control and direction. It’s about vision and being able to share that vision with others. It’s about being persuasive and making others feel included in setting and owning the stakes.”
Sales & Marketing Management comes through in timely fashion with some statistics from the Ken Blanchard Companies’ survey regarding successful (and unsuccessful) management:
* 43 percent of those in the survey said communications skills are the most critical to those in leadership roles; 41 percent said poor communication is a leader’s most common mistake.
* 27 percent cited over- or undersupervising as a problem for leaders.
* 15 percent identified empathy and emotional intelligence as a key factor for leadership success.
* Top failures by leaders include: failure to provide appropriate feedback, praise, or redirection; failure to listen; failure to set clear goals and objectives; failure to train and develop people.
Not kidding. Salary.com has a listing of time wasted at work broken out by all 50 states. I’m not sure what to make of it, but I did find this fact interesting:
4. Wisconsin 2.8 hrs avg wasted salary wasted: $23.8 billion
33. Minnesota 1.9 hrs avg wasted salary wasted: $11.8 billion
I will reserve comment since we have customers in Wisconsin.
What If Employers Want You to Take a Personality Test? is a stretch of an article from monster.com. Surely it is written to generations X and Y and falls under the category “Work/Life Balance.” (see our new article released this week regarding this topic). The author advocates a position of questioning the assessment process to the point of respectfully declining to take the test.
In all fairness to the author, he does state that theoretically a candidate could decline but that approach is not realistically a strong position for getting the job. First off, “personality test” is a fat phrase – it can encompass a broad array of assessments. This could mean as simplistic as a Myers-Briggs test all the way up to a full interview with an industrial psychologist. Nonetheless, personality tests are only part of a succssful assessment package.
One topic the author does not address is the hiring process. The EEOC recommends assessments in large part because they are objective – especially in comparison to the one-on-one, in-person interview. Also, companies must maintain a consistent hiring process for all candidates. Any company that runs a process cannot have some candidates completing the assessments and others not taking them. If the assessment is part of the process and a candidate refuses to complete them, technically they have withdrawn themselves from consideration voluntarily.
One last point that is well stated by the author – observing how the company reacts to the candidate’s questioning of the assessments is insightful. One would expect the company to be professional, firm and forthright in their explanation. The author is writing to a candidate audience, but he does not touch on the employer side of this equation. The first question in an employer’s mind will be, “What does this candidate have to hide?”
The hiring process is the stage at which a future employee (candidate) will be most compliant. If they are questioning the process at this phase, what will they be like once they have been an employee for 6 months? Few companies are looking for robotic employees, but noncompliance to established systems must be handled tactfully by a candidate at all times. Companies that use assessments are attempting to find the right fit for the position which not only benefits the company, it benefits the candidate also. I can’t imagine any reasonable candidate would want to accept a position for which their skills, motivations and style are a complete mismatch.
The online training continues with the CareerJournal.com article Don’t Let Tough Questions Sabotage Your Interview. The author refers to these questions as “stress questions” which is a fair description. The article is a long read so I have compiled the 10 example questions they use:
A fairly complete list for sure. Personally, I do not care for #9 since the candidate is most interested in their fit for the current opening. Asking them where they will be in 5 years usually guarantees a stock answer of management in some form or another. I do agree with one line of advice from that section – “describe…what you hope to have accomplished.” That type of answer will be more revealing that the management answer.
The online training of candidates continues. This time, monster.com offers up Interview Prep Tips which provides a general overview of strategy for a successful interview (from the candidate’s side). If you follow the link for Closing the Interview you will end up here. This complementary article is excellent advice for sales candidates to close an interview strongly. One approach we value is found in bullet #4:
Ask about the next step in the process. It’s important for you to know the next step so you can follow up. Ask for the decision date.
Sound advice…and you would be shocked how infrequently this question occurs among sales candidates.
Many progressive companies have been offering telecommuting options for years. Now, the concept is becoming more en vogue thanks to rising gas prices. However, another factor has played just as important a role in this transformation – broadband internet in the home.
Here is a quick read article from the Wall Street Journal online that lists the cities most prepared for higher gas prices (and, by default, telecommuting). If your company offers telecommuting options or simply has strong IT capabilities (VPN, Blackberries, etc.), you should be promoting it in your employment activities. Do not underestimate this benefit amongst the younger generation. It is a question we see earlier in the hiring process than ever before.
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