There has been much discussion about the use of social networking for candidate background checks.  I have always been in favor of allowing companies to search through anything posted online – it is in the public domain.

However, this German law does provide a bit more detail:

For example, employers will still be allowed to run a search on the Web on their applicants, de Maiziere said. Anything out in public is fair game, as are postings on networks specifically created for business contacts, such as LinkedIn.

In contrast, it will be illegal to become a Facebook friend with an applicant in order to check out private details, he said, adding that some people seem to be indiscriminate about whom they accept as a friend.

Ok, the friend piece does seem a bit underhanded, but the next line from the article is prescient:

“If an employer turns down an application with another reasoning it might be difficult to prove” that the negative answer was based on the Facebook postings, de Maiziere said.

I believe the lawsuits that would flow from this restrictive law would be frequent.  What if the candidate puts a friend request or LinkedIn request to the hiring manager?  Will there be a case from a rejected candidate even if there isn’t a social network connection?  What about Twitter?  Perhaps the candidate has been a bit rough in their Tweet language or posted links to some unflattering images?

At the end of the day, it may be that hiring managers and HR have to avoid social network research all together.

At least in Germany…for now.

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From a sales ad I just read (my editing):

Experience in  building, hiring from scratching, coaching, training and developing the RAMs in the sale of _________ products.

Perhaps this is some new interviewing technique – “If you could scratch one place on your body, what would that place be?”

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I preach this point from the mountaintop as often as possible so I’ll continue here – sales is the single most difficult position to hire in any company.  The reason is simple, accurately predicting sales success by discerning candidate capabilities is…well, often a crapshoot.  This fact is why it is imperative to use assessments to gain an understanding of what the candidate has “under their hood.”

A prime example is emotional control.  Successful salespeople have this trait.  It is a broad term so let me put a finer point on it:

This is the ability of a salesperson to maintain rational and objective actions when experiencing strong internal emotions. This trait measures one’s ability to control their own internal emotions and prevent them from affecting their actions, logic, objectivity, etc. Emotional Control deals with keeping internal emotions in instead of letting them get the better of the salesperson.

I’ve seen this trait showing up more frequently among salespeople in this recessed economy.  My theory is that deals are hard to come by in most industries.  When salespeople do lock on to a solid opportunity, they need to stay focused and keep qualifying.  However, if they lack emotional control, they may get giddy, over excited, even panicky to get the deal closed.  This approach is absolutely uncomfortable to observe (yes, I have seen it first-hand recently).

The other facet of this trait, or lack of it, is an angry, desperate salesperson who reacts negatively to a stressful prospect interaction.  The salesperson can become infuriated with a deal not moving forward.  Even experienced salespeople can respond with a quick cut on the prospect or fire off a curt email that turns the prospect negative.

Whichever way this weakness plays out is highly detrimental to any company.  Salespeople must maintain objectivity throughout the most difficult of discussions to properly qualify an opportunity.  Failure to do so leads to the aforementioned problems.  This potential weakness can be identified before you ever hire a salesperson.  The tools are available so please contact us if you are ready to keep this weakness out of your sales team.

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1. Always select talent and skills over experience.

2. Do not put the entire burden of the company on this hire.

3. Do not clone yourself.

4. Do not expect to hire perfection.

5. Do not start the process unless you can hire the right candidate today.

6. Do not run the process out of sequence.

7. Do not miss opportunities to see the candidate in action.

8. Do not change the compensation plan during the process.

9. Trust the instruments more than your gut.

10. Do not assume you are the candidates’ only option.

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If you’re talking you’re not selling.  That is an old axiom I learned early in my sales career and it is always true.  Talking does not equal selling.

Unfortunately, people not experienced in sales hiring often have the opposite view.  Their stereotypical belief is that the best salespeople are the ones who are perceived to be the best talkers.  This misguided view often leads to bad hires.

Here is where the mistake occurs – hiring managers assume that social skills are equivalent to sales skills.  Ok, maybe that is too strong, but the assumption is that the social skills are the key to successful selling.  Social skills are a component to selling, but they are not indicative of sales skills.

Social Skills

Social skills are important to sales and certainly are not to be ignored.  However, my experience has been that the truly terrible sales hires usually involved bad salespeople with good social skills.  These salespeople had excellent empathetic skills – they could read body language, adjust their tonality, find common ground with the hiring manager.  Again, all valuable skills.  However, they had next to no sales skills which became evident once they were on the payroll torpedoing good prospects.

The danger here is that these social skills are quite disarming.  They can be used to get the strongest of interviewers off their game.  I have seen many sales candidates who possessed remarkable social skills but little in the way of sales skills.

Sales Skills

These skills are the ones that lead to profitable revenue generation.  The main skill set involves qualifying.  If there was only one ability you could have in a salesperson, qualifying would be it.  This skill involves asking the right questions to learn about a potential customers’ budget, need, time frame, decision process and more.  This skill is where salespeople earn their keep.

Other sales skills areas are prospecting, influencing, closing and presenting.  These areas are also important to successful selling.  In terms of sales candidates, these skills are more difficult to discover.  The best approach is to assess for these skills and then follow up a face-to-face interview with the candidate to probe the information you have gathered through the assessment.

Objectivity is key and it is critical in making a hiring decision.  The strongest sales candidate isn’t necessarily the most talkative, humorous or outgoing.  Pay close attention to the questions they ask and the answers they provide to your probing questions about their sales skills.

And be sure to assess them.

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The company name listed in a sales ad I read this morning:

Type A personalities wanted

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We’re an assessment company so you can imagine how adamant I am about assessing candidates (not just for sales positions either).  However, in sales it is crucial to use assessments to cut through the sales candidates’ well-developed social skills.  Unfortunately, many assessment tools focus on personality only which is not a reliable or repeatable predictor of sales success.

My experience has been that most people focus on big personalities when it comes to selling.  If the person is a good talker, tells funny stories, lights up the room, etc., then they must be a good salesperson.  The bigger the personality, the more they will sell.  Ok, I grant you that is oversimplifying it, but you get my point.  I have encountered it for years when working with hiring managers.

The issue becomes more pronounced when these same hiring managers employ a personality assessment only.  Now they look for big personalities with highly extroverted assessment results to confirm their gut-level decision to pursue a boisterous candidate.  Sales is a listening profession – asking the right questions, gathering information and directing decisions are the core competencies of sales success.

I always tell prospects who are using personality assessments that it is good they are using assessments.  They do tell you something of the candidate’s style that hiring managers can use in interviewing.  But if you want to know how they will perform in the role, you have to measure their skills, aptitudes and motivations.  These items are predictive of success and provide a detailed view of a salesperson’s abilities.

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I’ve been seeing this distinction first-hand among salespeople I have encountered of late.  I’m not sure there is a clear-cut sales ability towards product vs. service sales, but I do know that certain salespeople have skills and aptitudes that support one over the other.  In that vein I give you a quick breakdown of sales traits that come from these two forms of selling.

Product Sales
-Quantity-focused – the approach is to close frequently and success is measured in total numbers
-Speed first – fast, frequent closing is their approach, 1-call closes are their ideal
-Off-the-shelf – typically they prefer to sell a pre-designed solution
-Discount – their drop-close is to discount

Service Sales
-Quality-focused – the approach is to find the bet fit solution and success is measured by customer retention
-Thoroughness first – details are the key to closing here as they have to qualify need in depth
-Custom – most sales involve crafting a solution from existing pieces, but few are truly off-the-shelf
-Include – their drop-close is to add pieces to the solution for same price

Ok, it is a quick list, but you get the idea.  My vision is that successful salespeople need to harbor abilities from both product and service sales.  However, there are salespeople who are engrained towards one side or the other.  This hardening of the categories becomes evident when they wander over to the other side of the sales tracks and try to succeed there (yes, I mix metaphors).

I know of one salesperson who is presently attempting to cross this divide and it is not pretty.  His entire approach is rooted in the other format which has led to bad decisions, poor strategies and limited sales.

When hiring salespeople, the first indication is the candidate’s experience.  The second indication is their sales approach.  Make certain these are two tools you use in your hiring process.

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Here is a good read from Inc.com on improving your hiring process.  The pull quote for me:

In my opinion, one of the reasons people do such a poor job in hiring, is that they just want to get it over with,” Matuson says. “Really take your time, do it right, and ask yourself the question, constantly, ‘is this person good enough? Is this really the right person, or am I just trying to end my misery?”

Umm, yes, I have seen that first hand on many occasions…from my customers!  Anyway, there is some good information in the article along with some cliché advice.  Here is some of the good:

So, in addition to a summary of the position, detailed bullet points describing the job’s main tasks and the minimum education and experience requirements, great listings incorporate behavioral characteristics. For instance, instead of a bullet point reading “10+ years experience required,” consider something along the lines of “Team player with strong leadership skills and 10 or more years of demonstrated ability to manage effectively.“

I prefer skills and success over tenure and you should too.

In sales hiring, we see hiring managers often focus on hiring salespeople from their industry.  I realize there are some benefits to this approach (know the competition, understand the pace of the sale, etc.), but it is better to hire the right skills and talent no matter what industry background they possess.  One of the allures of industry-based hiring is related to this excerpt from the article:

Especially if your company lacks an HR department or a formal training program, managers should make it a priority to schedule face-time with a new employee within the first day or two. Making it a point to give detailed instructions on tasks at hand, coupled with pointed questions about how the new hire is feeling and what they think would help them out in their job are keys to making them feel comfortable and useful.

I often see managers who want to simply plug in a new salesperson and expect them to ramp up to revenue themselves.  BIG mistake.  Even experienced salespeople need a structured onboarding (we call it onramping for sales) process with face time with their sales manager.  Failing to spend this time with your new hire delays the ramp to revenue and invites unneeded/unintended stress into the new relationship.

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You heard me right, that is an indirect quote from this Inc.com article.  This topic comes up often in our sales hiring activities as the conventional wisdom is that extroverts make better salespeople.  Not true.  Successful salespeople have a wide variety of abilities that go far beyond their communication style.  And that is the point here, introvert/extrovert is more of a communication style than anything else.  It is important to know a salesperson’s style, but it is not predictive of sales success.

Here is some excellent advice from the article (emphasis mine):

“When selling as an introvert, use your abilities as a good researcher to really know audience, know what matters to them, and figure out a product match before you go in. You’ll be meeting with people, so rest up before social interactions with those you are selling to or speaking in front of. Prepare and practice because as an introvert you will think before you speak – as opposed to extroverts who speak as they think. So having a few lines ready, or thoughts composed in advance will be beneficial. Rest, prepare and practice is the magic formula because of the way introverts are wired.”

Extroverts need to start talking to get to their point.  Introverts have to think of their response before they speak.  This point is never more obvious than when you are interviewing sales candidates.  When I sit in on interviews with my customers, I always make sure to tell them if the candidate is more extroverted or introverted.

My experience is this – an introverted hiring manager will be unimpressed by an extroverted sales candidate in terms of communication.  The hiring manager has a tendency to comment on the candidate’s rambling answers, long-windedness and tangential topics.  At this point I explain that the candidate is extroverted and needs to start talking to get to his or her response.  If they are strongly extroverted, they will have to rev up their answer a bit before delivering the point.  This isn’t necessarily a weakness, it is simply a style issue.

I have seen a recent rise of the introvert in one key sales area – relationship selling.  The reason is this:

Introverts do well with deep relationships and conversations rather than chit-chat.

If you have a relatively long or extended sales cycle, an introverted selling style is probably a more natural fit for your sale’s requirements.  As sales move away from one-call closes and on to relationship-based deals, introverts will play a prominent part in a sales team’s success.

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