Why Should I Work For Your Company? provides a blending of a company’s value proposition in to their hiring process. The article is written towards recruiters, but the principles are excellent and timely. Sourcing strong candidates is becoming more difficult every day so companies will not want to lose a strong candidate to a better prepared competitor. Here is an excerpt that caught my eye: Growth and Career Runway: What opportunities for growth exist, both vertically and horizontally? By horizontally we mean this: Can a strong individual contributor become more influential in a company without becoming a manager? How clear is it to employees what they can do to move… Read More
Continue ReadingHow Not to Stand Out – Part Deux
More from the online resume board. Check out this excerpt from a resume cover letter: I will say this though – I have a master’s degree so DO NOT WASTE MY TIME WITH SALES POSITIONS (I’M NOT A USED CAR SALESMAN) AND POSITIONS THAT ARE BENEATH ME. Please also bare in mind that I live on the east coast so please take heed that it might be later for me if you call at a certain time depending on where you are from. I have the experience and the education to work in an actual position. ALL CAPS = Trouble. Let’s parse out one sentence in this masterpiece – I… Read More
Continue Reading2006 Salary Report
From S&MM Magazine (sorry, no link): The benefits of an improving economy trickled down to a lot of paychecks in 2006. The 2006 Survey of Exempt Compensation by Business and Legal Reports found 43 out of the 44 benchmarked-exempt positions saw salary increases averaging 3.9 percent. “Respondents indicated that they were somewhat more optimistic in their pay budgeting for the coming year,” the report stated. “Exempt employees were scheduled to receive merit increases of four percent closely matching the average actual salary increase.” Among the trends: * Top gainers for the year: purchasing managers, occupational health and safety specialists, and advertising and promotions managers. All saw average salary gains of… Read More
Continue ReadingSelling the Failures
For the past 5 years, we have helped companies hire people who have started their own companies, worked as 1099 contractors or were freelance workers. Some companies shy away from these people since the natural inclination is to assume they have failed in some way. We strongly encourage companies to refrain from filtering these candidates out of their process simply for their recent experience. Their experiences and skills are often broader and richer than a career corporate employee. How to turn failures into selling points provides tips to candidates for explaining their recent career failures. The author provides coaching to candidates regarding their failures – I like this advice: Rather… Read More
Continue ReadingFree Agent Update
Monster.com – The State of Free Agent Nation in 2006 – is an article that discusses using “solo professionals” (contractors) as opposed to full-time employees. I don’t know if I would use the term free agent since that usually connotates someone who signs with a company. Mercenary may be a better euphimism for a short-term, contract worker. Nonetheless, good points from the author: It’s always taken courage to attempt professional independence, and the practical barriers continue to evolve. The lack of company-paid benefits is an increasing burden for free agents. “Rising health insurance costs inhibit people from going out on their own,” says Pink. “Another barrier could be that Americans… Read More
Continue ReadingNew Article Released Today
We just released a new article this morning titled Selecting Salespeople from Outside Your Industry. This article is tactical in its approach to finding transferrable skills amongst sales candidates who do not have direct industry experience. This topic is one we are constantly promoting, but we have no doubts it is becoming the most important topic in hiring. The candidate pool is shrinking, not growing, as the boomers exit the workplace. Some companies still subscribe to “shark tooth sourcing.” Sharks can lose a tooth without fear since they already have developed, duplicate teeth lined up in their jaw to replace the lost tooth. Many companies still expect sourcing to occur… Read More
Continue ReadingBad Boss Stories
Tory Johnson from abcnews.com has a quick, mailbag article from last week that I missed. I truly enjoy these anecdotal topics. This one covers “bad” bosses – I give you my favorite from the article: “While working for a computer company, I would take dictation from one of the vice presidents, an owner. He’d take his shoes off, put his foot on the desk, and clip his toenails while dictating letters to me! Yuck.” Hope you weren’t eating when you read that one. I have a similar story regarding a former boss who would chew his fingernails during meetings and then spit them on the floor. One time he he… Read More
Continue ReadingFun with Junk Mail
It’s Saturday morning so why not browse through the email junkyard? I receive many junk emails every day but my filters are fairly robust. However, every once and a while I go in there and look at the trapped messages. I suspect you are familiar with many of them too. I was thinking of embellished resumes when I read a junk email that had this (their spacing, not mine): Ha ve you ever thought that the only thing stopping you from a great job and bet ter pay was a few letter s behind you name? Well now you c an get them! BA BSc MA MSc MBA PhD Within… Read More
Continue ReadingAnecdote – Proof is in the Clothes
It is Friday so let’s go to another anecdote: I was involved in a face-to-face interview with a very confident candidate at one of our customer’s offices. We were trying to determine if the candidate was as good at developing new business as he was claiming to be. He had a strong “D” factor so we knew we could ask him very direct questions. So our customer asked the candidate, “How can you prove to us that you are as good at developing new business as you say you are? In your sales process, what type of close do typically like to use?” The candidate responded: “Usually business casual unless… Read More
Continue ReadingFrequency of Rewards/Incentives
I’m not a fan of gambling, but this CareerJournal article contains an interesting point: Many newer programs incorporate elements of behavioral psychology, offering more targeted incentives for increasing sales or productivity, for example. They tend to offer smaller rewards more frequently so that employees make a mental link between their behavior and the reward. Ravin Jesuthasan, managing principal at consulting firm Towers Perrin, says employers are shifting to instant-recognition programs, instead of quarterly or yearly incentives. The article is clearly based on more of a B2C selling model (banks are prominently mentioned), but as a psych major, I appreciate their Pavlovian approach to reinforcement. Reminds me of rat lab –… Read More
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