Inc.com offers up this slide show that nails it – 10 derailing mistakes that can short circuit any hiring process. A couple of my favorites: Jumping to conclusions Don’t be too hasty when reviewing resumes. A 30-second glance isn’t enough to eliminate a candidate. Be fair, and take the time to discover the truth behind a resume. I would take it one step further – don’t jump to conclusions after interviewing the candidate either. We have sat through many interview debriefs where the hiring manager took one piece of data from the interview and ran it out to a sinister trend in the candidate. There is nothing more frustrating than… Read More
Continue ReadingJanuary Is Active
From a promotional email from CareerBuilder.com: Last year, job searches on CareerBuilder.com increased by over 60% in January, breaking all previous job search records. Obviously, CareerBuilder is trying to sell employment ads, but the quoted statistic is remarkable. We hear people complain about finding talented salespeople using the big online boards but we have consistent success with them. The boards may be a problem for some positions, but I don’t think that is the common cause. From what I see, many companies post ads that are . . . well, atrocious. Here’s my Minnesotan view on it: Imagine you are on a large lake that is renowned for good fishing.… Read More
Continue ReadingPour Some Sugar On Me
Each morning I peruse the sales employment ads to see who is hiring and what ads they are placing. I came across a local company I have never heard of and was impressed by a bullet point in their ad: Accountable for achieving sales goals within an assigned territory which has key accounts. The emphasis was theirs. This approach may seem trivial, but it is important in putting the right bait out their to find the right salesperson. Companies often have glorified visions of a single salesperson with minimal marketing help being able to take a zero revenue territory and grow it into a highly profitable territory. This can happen… Read More
Continue ReadingDo We Really Need A Study For Bad Bosses?
This morning I heard numerous references to this Florida State survey regarding lying bosses. I caught up to the story and found a slightly different read – Study: Bad Bosses Abound in U.S. Really? I’m not sure how this is newsworthy, but it hooked me. Here are the stats from the upcoming survey: 39 percent of workers said their supervisor failed to keep promises. 37 percent said their supervisor failed to give credit when due. 31 percent said their supervisor gave them the “silent treatment” in the past year. 27 percent said their supervisor made negative comments about them to other employees or managers. 24 percent said their supervisor invaded… Read More
Continue ReadingLosing Your Job Via MySpace
There is a fine line that has yet to be determined when it comes to blogs, social networking and other web 2.0 tools. Case in point, this post from Podcasting News: Last year, she was dismissed from the student teaching program at a nearby high school and denied her teaching credential after the school staff came across her photograph on her MySpace profile. She filed a lawsuit in April this year in federal court in Philadelphia contending that her rights to free expression under the First Amendment had been violated. No trial date has been set. Her photo, preserved at the “Wired Campus” blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education,… Read More
Continue ReadingOvertime Pay for Salespeople?
From our local Pioneer Press – Drug company sales reps sue for overtime wages. Her lawsuit, part of a series of class action claims filed in November against nine major drug companies, seeks tens of millions of dollars in back pay for the thousands of drug company salespeople across the country. Honestly, I have never in my life heard of such hogwash. The victim mentality of the plantiff is only outdone by her lawyer’s quote in the article. If you employ an outside sales force, you need to read this article. The one bit of common sense comes at the end of the short article: Not all sales reps support… Read More
Continue ReadingWhat’s Not In It
Just a quick thought to start this new year – one way to spot a suspect opportunity is if the employment ad spends more words describing what you don’t have to do as opposed to what you do have to do. I just read an ad that spent multiple sentences and bullet points explaining what the position did not entail. Mainly, it sounds like you don’t have to work.
Continue ReadingHappy New Year!
Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. –Alfred Lord Tennyson
Continue ReadingTime-Wasting Miscommunication
The information topic seems to be appearing everywhere we look this week. Now this article from Selling Power – The Cost of Poor Communications – attempts to put some metrics to inapt communication between managers and employees. While managers are off worrying about sales trends and marketing plans, they often overlook a primary drain on productivity: poor communication. 55 percent say their employees are not easily able to find information they need. 44 percent say the information they use lacks appropriate detail. What amount of money could this miscommunication be causing your company? There is a way to neutralize this problem – assess your team and provide your sales manager… Read More
Continue ReadingExtended Sourcing Times
Inc.com has a 3 paragraph article titled Job Seekers Expect Long Search. The article briefly reports on a “call-in survey.” I’m not sure how reliable that approach is, but the results are consistent with our present-day realities. Job seekers expect to spend seven to 14 months searching for work, according to a call-in survey conducted by outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Anyone who has been sourcing of late knows that it is a tight market.
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