Category: Hiring

Will Passive Job Seekers Apply to Your Job? from CareerBuilder reads as an infomercial, but there are some usable data points in the first few paragraphs. Active vs. passive candidates is a subject that merits more discussion. The changing landscape of the 21st century is moving all candidates towards the active status. Job search agents, online boards, networking groups – all tools that make it simple for the most passive of candidates to be categorized as “active” in some vain. You might say that active categorizes someone who wants to make a change. True, but I’ve read articles that state 67% of today’s employees keep an eye on other employment… Read More

Any sales candidate could spend a solid day prepping themselves for any in-person interview and come across much stronger than they actually are. Unfortunately, this polished veneer is often good enough to land them on your payroll. The veneer is not peeled back until they have been with your company for a period of time. Monster.com offers Interview Questions, Part 3 in their effort to assist candidates. I am not against a candidate preparing for an interview, but companies that over rely on the interview for screening end up with flashy veneer, no substance salespeople. We can’t preach this topic enough – it is far more reliable to run a… Read More

These articles are all over the web so again, if you are using the in-person interview as step 2 in your sales hiring process please stop. You are giving up information too easily for a savvy candidate. Better to withhold specific information and see what types of skills they have for extracting that information. They may search the web, ping their network or ask you direct questions. You learn far more with this approach. CareerJournal.com writes about candidates talking too much in an interview. Interviews are strange and stressful events. Most people do not sit in many meetings where they are interrogated and then judged regarding their own personal abilities.… Read More

This article from CareerJournal.com speaks to a common problem – good hires who are a bad fit for the position. There are many variables within a minimally structured hiring process. To simplify the equation, either the position was not clearly defined or, more likely, the employee’s skills, style and motivations were assumed or unknown during the hiring process. From the article: “Employers are well-schooled in how to eliminate jobs or fire poor performers. Yet they often don’t know what to do with people who are doing their work passably, or even better, but aren’t suited for the job, for reasons ranging from personal chemistry to mismatched skills. In that gray… Read More