Hiring salespeople is the difficult combination of science and art weighted perfectly to select the right person for the position’s requirements.  Obviously, knowing the position’s requirements is the preeminent step.  Many sales managers believe they know what it takes to be successful in the position and they do to a certain extent.  Yet, their knowledge often consists of themes as opposed to specifics.  This reason drives us to profile the sale as the very first step in our sales hiring process.

ManageSmarter.com’s Is Hiring Mediocre Good Enough? approaches a hiring process with some valuable insight and other items I wouldn’t recommend.  First, the reason astute hiring is mission-critical to corporate success (my emphasis):

According to a 2004 study by HR Hub.com, more than 1 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP) or $105 billion is lost every year to “poor hiring and management practices.” The Society for HR Management found the cost of a poor hire can range from $20,000 to more than $300,000—as much as 15 times the employee’s base salary.

Of course the hidden cost of a bad sales hire - the opportunity cost of losing good prospects to your competition - is immeasurable.

This approach from the article is one we don’t use:

“We evaluated each of the most successful ‘A’ performers in a particular position according to intellectual, behavioral and occupational interests,” says Vancini. “Using that as the standard, as candidates were interviewed, they were screened and matched against those known ‘A’ performers. It made the decision process easy and fact-based.”

Cloning may work for other positions, but I do not recommend it for sales positions.  The strongest sales teams have a variety of styles and abilities.  That variety is what gives the team strength.  There are core sales abilities that transcend positions and companies (e.g. handling rejection, qualifying skills, Utilitarian motivation, etc.), but most cloning involves behavioral styles which is not a predictor of success in a given sales position.  Don’t fall for this conventional wisdom.

Companies like to be inclusive, inviting as many peers and associates into the process as possible. Yet these interviews are not well thought through, and do not dig in and measure critical skills, which results in marginal feedback. This can stall the hiring process for weeks or months. Feedback from the myriad of interviews needs to be collected and easily available to provide detailed but focused feedback.

Drilling down on candidate responses; having clarity about their answers is the essence of good interviewing.  Yet, most prospects that we encounter over-rely upon the interview.  Using bad interview techniques as the backbone of your hiring process is the ultimate recipe for disaster.

If you are facing many challenges when it comes to hiring successful salespeople, we can help.

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The recruiters conference I attended last Friday started off on the right foot – we calculated the cost of a bad hire (even for a $6 an hour employee, it can run $2400 or more), interacted with the moderator about CEOs’ perception of candidates brought in by an outside agency (79% unfavorable) and even discussed the challenge of finding “A” players in a tight talent market. But when the speaker explained their approach of grilling a candidate on each and every job back to high school (Tell me your bosses name. Spell it. Tell me your closest peer’s name at that job. Spell it.) during a 3 to 4 hour long third interview, I began to lose faith in the chef.

This approach to candidate qualification suggests they have no idea which questions will reveal the undefined information their gut requires to make a subjective judgment about the candidate’s ability to fit in. (Italics are all mine and denote disbelief and a little sarcasm.)

This quantity vs. quality approach is certain to destroy any rapport built with the candidate during the qualification process, and simply feeds the interviewer with fodder for rationalization. As a candidate in that scenario, I would jump out of the frying pan fast and head for a more trust-oriented environment.

Effective selection uses evidence-based techniques early in the process to ensure that the final interview is a confirmation of mutual interest, skill alignment and “fit.” Time is not wasted. Questions are revealing and insightful (not just plentiful) and rapport is maintained throughout the process. Assessment tools like the ones used by Select Metrix in their work for our company provide meaningful information and not only help find the right candidate, but help us adapt our new hire orientation and on-ramp activities for maximum traction.

I wonder what the real costs are for spending three interviews (the speaker’s approach included a 1 hour phone screen, 2+ hours at a lunch or dinner interview, and then that final 3-4 hour death march) only to find that the candidate is much further along on the trust meter …with someone else.

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This article on HR World - 30 Interview Questions You Can’t Ask and 30 Sneaky, Legal Alternatives to Get the Same Info - is making quite a splash on the web today.  I think it is an interesting read with some excellent suggestions regarding how to phrase interview questions.

To give you a sample:

12. What you can’t ask: Do you have kids?

This one is for positions in which the candidate may work with children. The added experience of children at home may be a bonus for you, but it’s not an employer’s place to ask about this. Rather, inquire about the candidate’s experience, and they may volunteer this information to you anyway.

What to ask instead: What is your experience with “x” age group?

19. What you can’t ask: Do you smoke or drink?

As an employer, you probably want to avoid someone who has a drinking problem or will take multiple smoke breaks throughout the day. It’s even a concern for insurance. Instead of asking about this directly, find out if they’ve had trouble with health policies in the past.

What to ask instead: In the past, have you been disciplined for violating company policies forbidding the use of alcohol or tobacco products?

28. What you can’t ask: Have you ever been arrested?

In sensitive positions, like those that deal with money, you may want to find out about your candidate’s legal fortitude. But ensure that you ask only directly about crimes that relate to your concern.

What to ask instead: Have you ever been convicted of “x” (fraud, theft and so on)?

As they say, read the whole thing.

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Interesting story today from the AP - Employers study applicants’ personalities - that discusses hiring processes designed to see if a candidate is the right fit.  These processes are a good start, but much of what they are trying to accomplish could be done through assessments.

Despite a labor shortage in many sectors, some employers are pickier than ever about whom they hire. Businesses in fields where jobs are highly coveted — or just sound like fun — are stepping up efforts to weed out people who might have the right credentials but the wrong personality.

But if you would rather take the longer route, there is this approach:

Rackspace CEO Lanham Napier said, “We’d rather miss a good one than hire a bad one.”

The 1,900-person company is divided into 18- to 20-person teams. One team is so close, the whole group shows up to help when one member moves house, Napier said. Job interviews at the San Antonio-based company last all day, as interviewers try to rub away fake pleasantness.

“They’re here for nine or ten hours,” Napier said. “We’re very cordial about it. We’re not aggressive, but we haven’t met a human being yet who has the stamina to BS us all day.”

I suspect that the ideal process is somewhere in the middle.

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How about this thought - many bad salespeople are good interviews because they have much practice. We have seen many salespeople do well on the phone but once we dig into their history, we find a consistent pattern of 2 year stints.

But man do they say the right things on the phone.

For this reason, we tend to run a difficult phone screen to weed out the pretenders. In fact, just this week we received a resume from a candidate with whom we are familiar. He worked for one of our customers 3 years ago and displayed flamboyant incompetence. As they say in the Wall Street Journal, it wasn’t long before he was “free to pursue other opportunities.”

The interesting point here is that this guy’s recent approach to us was notably strong. We were impressed, but his name was naggingly familiar. We dug through our files and, sure enough, found his information from 3 years ago. Yet, one thing was very different.

His resume.

He had omitted some positions and glossed over his time at our customer. I should say he glossed it over by taking his previous job and doubling his tenure there to twice what it actually was. Instead of being at the previous employer for 2 years, he simply made it 4 years as to hide a large gap in his employment record.

Remember, this guy sounds quite impressive on his approach. According to our customer he interviewed well, too. They finally flushed him out when they ran a background check/employment verification. Yes, after he was on the payroll which is another post for another day. His employment history on his resume was a complete fabrication.

This candidate was basically a con man who used an elaborate scheme to secure a sales job and then hang on as long as he could. He was a bad salesperson who had mastered the art of interviewing well.

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This story is from Forbes.com - Seven Deadly Interview Sins:

David Hoffman (CEO) recalls taking a candidate out for dinner for the final interview. The candidate impressed the hiring committee throughout several rounds of interviews and he was their choice to become a senior consultant…This informal meeting was the final hurdle.

The candidate drank so much scotch that Hoffman had to call an ambulance and the candidate was taken by stretcher to the hospital where he was treated for alcohol poisoning. “You think I’m embellishing but I’m not,” says Hoffman.

I shouldn’t laugh but I keep thinking of the CEO having to call an ambulance at the restaurant.

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I have a weakness for lists -they make good link bait, too.  CNNMoney.com offers up 10 dumbest job-interview moves.  It is a quick, entertaining read.

A sample:

The job hunter…

5. “… drafted a press release announcing that we had hired him.”

7. “… delivered his entire cover letter in the form of a rap song.”

9. “…brought his mother to the interview and let her do all the talking.”

My mouth is still agape after reading number 9.

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I found a pile of papers on my desk that contained a few sheets of interview questions.  I don’t know where they are from, but I found myself reading them today.  Aren’t interview questions interesting to read?  I think most people like to see if they can find a good question to take for themselves.  At least that is my approach.

Some standard questions:

Why do you want to work here?

Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?

What good books have to read lately?

Why should I hire you? (I despise this question)

That is all pretty standard fare.  But I did find a few more interesting offerings:

Why aren’t you earning more money at this stage of your career?

Would you lie for the company?

What changes would you make if you came on board?

Looking back, what would you do differently in your life?

Tell me about something you did - or failed to do - that you now feel a little ashamed of.

Where could you use some improvement?

Tell me something negative you have heard about our company.

On a scale of 1 to 10, rate me as an interviewer.

That last questions would cause me to blow a gasket.  That is tough.  If the candidate isn’t sincere, they will appear to be either cocky, angry or schmoozy.  I’m not sure that is a word, but you get my point.  Some good, tough questions there.

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I interviewed a customer service manager candidate this past week who had a good approach to her job.  I asked her as a manager how she wants her reps to handle customers.

Her response, “Like eggs.”

She went on to explain how she would personally handle the difficult customer situations and so forth, but I thought that initial, quick response was quite good.  And obviously memorable.

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I have a weakness for bizarre interview questions so Yahoo’s Oddball Interview Questions was a must read. Apparently these questions are couched as a method for determining if a candidate will fit into the corporate culture.

Right.

Anyway, the article provides more insight into how to handle these questions as opposed to the actual questions themselves. Still, a couple of dandies are in there:

“What would I find in your refrigerator?”

“What did you want to be when you were 10 years old?”

You know, some times just having an open, clear discussion with a candidate will accomplish more than some loaded, oddball question.

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