Desperately Seeking Sales Stars is a long article from Sales & Marketing Management’s online edition. There is much in this article to dissect, but I will focus on some key points. First, don’t do this: “There are various [hiring and assessment] tools out there, but I still tend to be a seat-of-my-pants guy,” says Maher, now a speaker and sales consultant based in Helendale, Calif. “I’ve been hiring salespeople for over thirty-five years…and if they can sell me on their skills, that’s perhaps the most impressive thing.” And that is perhaps the only thing they can sell. These dinosaurs are still amongst us and still believe their intuition is more… Read More
Continue ReadingWhen Google Hires, People Interview
Google Adjusts Hiring Process As Need for New Talent Grows provides a glimpse of the extended hiring process of a suddenly large company. When I write suddenly, I mean this: During the quarter, the company brought in an average of 16 new employees daily, up from 13 the quarter before. Its breakneck hiring has boosted staff from 1,628 at the end of 2003 to 3,021 a year later and 5,680 at the end of 2005. The article illustrates the hiring challenges that occur when a company experiences explosive growth. The large company effects can be seen in that they have brought in a new, young VP of HR with new… Read More
Continue ReadingGet your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Another embellished resume survey is out from CareerBuilder. I assumed educational background was the most common lie, but that is not so according to their survey. Stretched dates to cover up employment gaps is the most commonly-caught resume lie, with nearly one-in-five hiring managers saying they have found this on a candidates application. Other top resume lies include: Past employers (18%) Academic degrees and institutions (16%) Technical skills and certifications (15%) Accomplishments (8%) As naive as it sounds, it would be a pleasant surprise to see a downward trend in the percentage of resumes with distortions in them.
Continue ReadingThe Job-Hopping Path
CareerJournal.com has to be one of the best sources for hiring information on the web. Today is no exception as they release this article – Job-Hop to the Top Of the Corporate Ladder. To cut to the quick of the article: If you want to make it to the top of the corporate ladder, job-hopping may actually be the only way to get there… Yup, this is a common strategy amongst the younger generation. We wrote about it in this article from earlier this year. Our perspective focused on the manager’s viewpoint while the CareerJournal article focuses on the employee’s viewpoint. First, from the CareerJournal article: Identify what you want… Read More
Continue ReadingOpen-Minded Hiring
Another good article from the new Selling Power newsletter – Open Minds Open Doors. The topic here is Hiring Salespeople From Outside Your Industry. If you follow that link, you will see that this topic is of great importance in our world. From the article: “I believe the way the market is today, finding the perfect combination of industry knowledge and sales experience may not be possible for many companies,” says Hardin. “With the unemployment rate at an all-time low, candidates are not as abundant as they were three years ago. Companies will have the greatest long-term success by hiring candidates who possess the necessary sales skills and then training… Read More
Continue ReadingWhy We Do What We Do
Selling Power has a fantastic article about hiring salespeople – Avoid Hiring Mistakes. There are many truths in the article so I recommend you read the entire article. First, some compelling stats: A recent survey shows that 53 percent of all sales recruiting efforts lead to miss-hires. And according to a Miller Heiman white paper, The Three Top Challenges Facing Sales Leaders Today, only 28 percent of sales leaders believe they have an effective process for recruiting and hiring qualified salespeople. More than half of all sales recruiting efforts end up in mishires (my preferred spelling). Now try to tabulate the lost revenue in this futile approach and you realize… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Spiderman Interview
Ragan Jones writing about bizarre candidate interviews. Trust me, a great read to end the work week.
Continue ReadingAnecdote – The Bewildering Email (Round 2)
Just this week I received an all-too-familiar email response to a new ad we just posted. In fact, I originally posted on this strange email dialogue back in May. The hauntingly familiar, mangled syntax message arrived with little regard for my clear ad instructions – all applicants were asked to either email their resume or to call me directly. His one sentence email: is new business coming from advertising agencies also clients who use your services in the new york city marketplace important to you? Being a glutton for punishment, I decided to go down this path again. I responded with the exact same email that I sent him earlier… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Cover Letter King
If you’ve read The Hire Sense for any length of time, you know one of my favorite pastimes is reading cover letters/emails. There really are some bemusing, befuddling and bewildering approaches. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw this abcnews.com article – ‘Cover Letters from Hell’ Expose Poor Quality of College Grads. Ok, I’m all over that article and I have found my new hero – Bob Killian. And I thought I had some good examples but this guy is the king. This link takes you directly to the cover letter section of his website. It is excellent and amusing – I even had to subscribe to his… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Personal Drive
Last week we covered Self-Starting Ability. This week we look at a complementary aptitude – Personal Drive. Most salespeople work within the framework of a company but their actual performance takes place on a one-to-one level…salesperson to prospect. To be successful, salespeople have to have the internal drive to succeed without excessive, external, surrogate motivation from their manager. Personal Drive A gauge of personal motivation to achieve, accomplish or complete tasks, goals or missions. This drive can take many forms (e.g., tasks, knowledge, career, physical, etc.), but it involves the level of personal motivation a person is capable of bringing to bear on any given task which they feel is… Read More
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