The email covers are like Clark Griswold’s Jelly of the Month Club membership – they are the gift that keeps on giving. Scanning through recent resumes led me to this cover email statement: I currently am the best sale personality i have ever met. However i’m not loving my postion right now. I think this was supposed to be a joke. At least I hope so.
Continue ReadingYouTube Resumes
Posting Your Resume on YouTube To Stand Out From the Competition. First, the gist of the article: …young job hunters are starting to make a video clip part of their job application, sometimes even posting them on sites like Google Inc.’s YouTube… It seemed like this day would be coming. But the author does bring up a good point that crossed my mind: Many employers and third-party recruiters remain wary of the concept of video resumes. Those who oppose it say that turning down candidates for interviews after seeing what they look and sound like on video could leave employers open to discrimination lawsuits. When job candidates send in photos… Read More
Continue ReadingMy Dog Ate My Homework
Remember that old line? Apparently some employees believe it still has legs even after graduating. We love lists here at The Hire Sense and CareerBuilder offers up one of my seasonal favorites – Thirty-Two Percent of Workers Called in Sick With Fake Excuses in the Last Year. I have no idea how many companies still separate sick days from vacation days – I was under the impression most companies just offered PTO now. At any rate, a couple statistics from the survey: Twenty-seven percent of hiring managers reported they have fired a worker for calling in sick without a legitimate reason. The most popular motivator for missing work was the… Read More
Continue ReadingFrom the Bad Business Decisions Dept.
This is sheer stupidity in action – St. Paul gives ex-cons a break on city hiring – With rehabilitation in mind, job applications won’t require disclosure of criminal records. Honestly, what do they hope to accomplish by decreasing their information on a candidate? We always tell our customers to complete a thorough background check before hiring any new employee. It is simply common sense that drives this approach. Then there is the city of St. Paul: The city decided this week to stop requiring job hopefuls to state on their applications whether they’ve ever been convicted of a crime. My first thought was positions that work with children, but then… Read More
Continue ReadingDisqualifying Prospects
Selling entails many skills and aptitudes, but one thing that is often overlooked is the ability to disqualify prospects. Selling Power offers up this article – How to Disqualify Leads – which provides a thorough explanation of techniques. First, a great image that I have not heard used in this context: Brooks says top performers are so guarded about who goes into their pipeline that their pipelines look more like cylinders: fewer opportunities going in one end and a higher percentage of them closing on the other. Contrast that with the other 80 percent of your reps. Typically this group aims to prop up every lead that comes their way,… Read More
Continue ReadingChristmas Bonus Trends – Gifts or Time-off
In a recent survey conducted by BNS and sponsored by Kronos, researchers found that more employers will give staff gifts and bonuses this year while fewer plan to extend the holidays by granting three or more days of paid leave. Here are some highlights from the survey: 49% of employers will give employees holiday gift items, cash awards or bonuses this year. This represents an increase over 2005 (40%) and is the highest figure reported in the survey’s 25-year history. 43% of employers are giving workers three or more paid holidays – down from other comparable years when these holidays also fell on Monday (49% in 2000, 47% in 1995… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Initiative
We’ve defined Self-Starting Ability in a previous post – now let’s define a similar, but still different sales trait that is crucial in any role. Initiative This ability directs ones energies toward the completion of a goal without an external catalyst. The ability to initiate actions based on ones own interpretation, or understanding, of a situation. A salesperson with strength in this capacity has the ability to take action as a result of his or her own decisions. They feel comfortable enough in their own abilities to act on their own decisions without consulting others. They will adapt to a dynamic situation and move around unforeseen obstacles without waiting for… Read More
Continue ReadingWho is the Toughest? – Part 2
Back in early November I posted on a newsletter article from Workforce Management that middle managers are the most resilient group in the workforce. In one of their late November newsletters they previewed a new study due out in January from Monica Wofford International, a corporate training firm. They found that middle managers are lacking the emotional intelligence to advance into top leadership positions. They also found that middle managers tend to resist coaching as a toll for improving performance. They have piqued my interest and I will be sure to share with you more of what they learned in this study when it is released.
Continue ReadingEnergy Prices and Recruitment
In a recent survey of 3,000 workers and hiring managers by Robert Half and CareerBuilder, almost 50% of the hiring managers think higher energy prices will hamper their ability to recruit skilled workers in the next year. It is very common for hiring managers to be very focused in finding candidates who are extremely local, said Rosemary Haefner, CarererBuilder.coms Vice President of Human Resources. Job seekers are being a lot more selective now of opportunities that are closer to home or can take advantage of mass transit, she said, so they can have a better work/life balance. Now this article takes this information a little far in attempting to paint… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Advancement or Job Hopping?
I just reviewed a sales management resume I received from a gentleman. The resume contains a handful of spelling and grammatical errors which is a concern. But this is what caught my eye, for the past 10 years, he has changed companies every 2 years. This employment pattern is always a red flag for us. Sales is a difficult position to successfully hire as most people know. A main problem is that bad salespeople often use their good rapport-building skills to subtlely, but emotionally, persuade a hiring manager to hire them. We refer to these types as schmoozers. They look like John Wayne in the interview and perform like Elmer… Read More
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