Many thanks to Eric for his compelling comment to this post from a couple days ago. I thought this was too good to leave in the comments.

It may come as a surprise to know that there are ways to assess the potential value of ‘professional actors’ when they show up in your selection process net. Two of my early careers were production stage manager and theatrical stage director – and key to the success of our productions were selecting the best actors for the roles and the show. If you can imagine – many actors are a lot better at auditioning than actually performing.

Anyone familiar with the process of casting a show understands that “The Audition” is the primary event used to evaluate and then to select the best possible cast, just as the interview is used by many as the key to selecting new salespeople. And, as the article suggests, companies can be fooled by great performances. Auditioning well (and being the appropriate ‘type’ for the role) does carry a lot of weight, and often lands the role. After casting actors who auditioned well and performed poorly, I learned to look at other factors to help me predict future performance – previous stage experience, favorable critic’s reviews and even conversations with directors who had worked with that person before all helped. Sometimes I would deliberately cast a less experienced actor who may not have played the role before, but who had a great work ethic (what good a great actor who can’t make it to the theatre in time for their entrance?), demonstrated a hunger for success (fire in the belly), and seemed eager to be a part of the cast (team).

Just as in the selection process for new salespeople, I would first seek out basic skills and experience as the qualifier, then look at the intangibles to evaluate the degree of overall “fit.”

Often the factors that influenced casting decisions were gathered through informal assessments – did the actor socialize in the time leading up to their 2 minute audition? Did they look you in the eye when introducing themselves? Were they dressed appropriately for the role? Had they done their research and were they prepared (reminds me of the sales candidate whose first question during our face-to-face was: “What position am I interviewing for again?”).

So for those faced with the “professional actor” sales candidates, take some coaching from that profession and assess the candidate in other ways as well – references, prior success, non-interview setting meetings (like meals or social events), skill and personality assessment tools, and observation of all the intangibles about character, work habits and social skills.

By the way, I have seen some incredible sales results from folks who once trod the boards, so don’t discount a stage or film pro when they come knocking. But be careful. In sales the phrase is: “Talks a good game…” In theatre the sentiment is the same even though the comment is “Auditions well, but…”

The unsaid often says it all.

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I saw this section in a sales ad this morning:

Day to Day – At a glance

The section contained seven bullet points explaining the tasks of a typical day in this role. It was a quick read section that provided enough insight into the position to pique the interest of the right candidates.

The brevity of the section is the factor that makes it work. I would not recommend 25 bullet points with every daily task – just provide the flavor for the candidate.

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From Fortune/CNN Money.com:

A market research firm called Borrell Associates is now claiming that in 2006, online ad spending for employee recruitment – a.k.a., help wanted – has for the first time surpassed comparable spending in newspapers. The actual amounts are $5.9 billion on the Web vs. $5.4 billion for newspapers.We haven’t seen the full report, but in a thorough post, Alan Mutter quotes this nugget:

“When the history of Internet advertising is written, recruitment sites will undoubtedly dominate the first chapter,” says Borrell. “In 12 years, these sites have grown from a few job boards to hundreds of niche competitors. Online recruitment now accounts for 25% of Internet advertising.”

It’s definitely a major milestone. Moreover, the report predicts that online recruitment will grow to $10 billion by 2011.

Newspapers are bleeding readers fast and should not be used for printed employment ads. Our success with their online offerings have been marginal. I remember when we first started sourcing, we would submit ads and receive the press check (or whatever it is called) via fax machine to proof. Those days seem long ago.

Today, our preference is to use a combination of major online job boards and niche online job boards for employment ads. The newspapers just don’t have the juice they used to have. But we are watching the Yahoo development to see how that develops.

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We talk often at The Hire Sense about a salesperson’s ability to qualify a prospect. There are many points to qualify in any given opportunity, but one of the important items is time frame. Tirekickers abound on the web and often contact companies to learn more about their offerings. Yet, these tirekickers have no intention to make a short-term purchase.

A thought struck me as we work with one of our customers who is searching for a new salesperson. This position involves a technical sale and we have recently sourced a strong candidate that they want to pursue. We were involved in the initial interview and the candidate was quite strong (as we expected). Our customer liked him also and wants to pursue him. Unfortunately, they are in the middle of the myriad of year-end tasks most companies have to complete.

I tell you all this because they had hoped to pursue the candidate after Christmas. Well, the candidate is pursuing other opportunities simultaneously and will be receiving an offer early next week. This is not surprising with the low unemployment level across the country and especially here in Minnesota.

The time frame for a successful hire in today’s marketplace is rapid. If you find a strong candidate, you need to move on them with some speed lest another company close them before you. Our customer is now making adjustments today (Saturday) to be able to pursue the candidate on Tuesday with a final interview.

A good piece of advice – accelerate your hiring process if you want to hire the strongest candidates in this present economy.

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I just reviewed a sales management resume I received from a gentleman. The resume contains a handful of spelling and grammatical errors which is a concern. But this is what caught my eye, for the past 10 years, he has changed companies every 2 years.

This employment pattern is always a red flag for us. Sales is a difficult position to successfully hire as most people know. A main problem is that bad salespeople often use their good rapport-building skills to subtlely, but emotionally, persuade a hiring manager to hire them. We refer to these types as schmoozers. They look like John Wayne in the interview and perform like Elmer Fudd on the job.

2 years is just about the right amount of time to flush out a schmoozer. They use their tools to delay the inevitable as long as possible. Their preferred tactic is an inflated pipeline of prospects that somehow always seem to be just on the verge of closing, but never quite do. Managers become reluctant to fire the schmoozer immediately. Instead, they prefer to hang on to the false hope that the schmoozer may just close one or two deals. That would be one or two deals they probably wouldn’t land if the position was not filled.

Rarely do those deals appear. In fact, the better question is what was the opportunity cost in terms of prospects that went to the competition? What did the schmoozer cost in terms of deals in their territory that they never discovered?

I don’t know if this gentleman is a schmoozer or not. He may have legitimate explanations for 5 different employers in the past 10 years (soon to be 6 if he lands a new job). I’ll let him share those explanations with someone else.

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Another marketing article with overall hiring implications – Marketing Challenge: Hire Experience or Potential? The article is from the MarketingProfs.com website and is basically an open question to their readers looking for their input.

A manager interviews employees and narrows down the candidates to two: one with experience and one with potential, intelligence, and high motivation. Which one would you choose? The experienced employee may ramp up faster and bring in knowledge that will help make the process better. But he or she may also have baggage that could interfere with the work.

The employee with potential may bring enthusiasm and energy into the job and go the extra mile to accomplish tasks beyond expectations. Of course, this type of employee won’t get up to speed as quickly.

First, I would use talent instead of potential. Ideally, we help companies find strong candidates who have both talent and industry experience. If we could pick only one, it would be talent every time.

Experience can be gained. I want my heart surgeon to be experienced. I want my salesperson to have “potential, intelligence and high motivation.”

To explain my strong belief about talent, I must speak from experience. Over the past 5 years, we have assessed thousands of people – both employees and candidates using objective tools. We have had the opportunity to watch them perform in their roles (mostly sales). There is no question in my mind regarding this simple truth – talent will outperform experience over time. The most simplistic of reasons is this – the talented employee will gain experience faster than the experienced employee will gain talent.

I’ll provide one focused example. 72% of top-performing salespeople have a Utilitarian motivation. That is they desire to see a return on their investment of time, money, effort, etc. If I hire an experienced salesperson who has no Utilitarian motivation, there is nothing I can do to create that motivation in them. Granted, they may end up being part of the 28% that succeeds without the Utilitarian motivation, but I would rather bank on the 72% group.

I’ll close from the article:

While experience rarely fails a company, how well a person performs depends more on the person’s personality and capabilities. After all, what good is experience when a candidate has a bad attitude?

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A friend of mine is an established, successful salesperson who is looking for a new opportunity. He recently received an offer from a large corporation that had a 6 or 7 page commission document. The document looked like a court filing. After sifting through as much as we could tolerate, we came across this gem:

All newly hired participants will receive a quota for incentive purposes on or before the 30th day of their territory assignment and no later than the 90th day of their territory assignment.

So, for sure before the 30th day. Unless it is no later than the 90th day. Obviously, it cannot be “on or before” while simultaneously being “no later than.”

This commission plan is a good example of why it is important to keep them relatively simple. Few things turn off a good salesperson faster than a suspiciously-worded commission document. Keep it simple and always walk a candidate through an example of how the commission plan works. If you leave it up to them to sort it out, you may just lose the strong candidate.

BTW, my friend turned down the offer.

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From a sales cover email:

I can sell direct to consumers, or to “C-Level” executives.

That pretty much covers everyone. I don’t know about you, but I instantly think jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none.

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Successfully hiring strong salespeople involves many facets, but I want to focus on a particularly important item. Sales requires a fine-tuned blend of self-esteem and empathetic outlook to be effective.

First, let’s define these terms for the context in which we are using them:

Self-Esteem – The ability of a person to realize and appreciate their own unique self-worth. They base these feelings on internal factors as opposed to external ones.Empathetic Outlook – This is the ability to perceive and understand the feelings and attitudes of others – to place oneself in-the-shoes of another and to be able to view a situation from their perspective.

Each of these two aptitudes impacts the other and therefore the delta between them must be measured. For almost all sales positions, it is imperative to have a stronger empathetic outlook than self-esteem.

These salespeople are able to read the nonverbal cues of others to understand communication at a deeper level. They also do not overvalue their personal needs in comparison to the prospect’s needs. They have the ability to focus on the prospect’s strategy, needs and “hot buttons” when qualifying an opportunity. These salespeople are also able to suppress their egos to accomplish their goal of closing the deal.

There are articles available that discuss strong egos, strong drives, strong empathy, strong everything when it comes to spotting successful salespeople. Be careful following the broad brushstrokes defining these traits as needed in great quantity. The relationship between the aptitudes is the key determinant for selecting the strongest salesperson.

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Here is an interesting development – Newspapers will partner with Yahoo. I find it surprising that we are quickly approaching 2007 and the antique newspapers are finally making a serious adjustment towards an online focus. The dinosaurs of the newspaper industry may have made the move too late – it is hard to say. The younger generations are not newspaper readers. Instead, they consume their news in an electronic format. Suffice to say, it is a move in the right direction.

One piece of information stands out for our business:

The consortium said its first move would be to bolster Yahoo’s HotJobs online classified service, allowing advertisers to post job listings in newspapers, on newspaper Web sites and on the Yahoo network.

We have dabbled with HotJobs in the past, but we have not had much success with their online job board. Their impending tie-in with the newspaper postings will cause us to give them a second look. The newspapers tend to have strong local brands for employment ads and can be effective for city-focused sourcing. I would say this aspect of the agreement will surely bolster both the local newspapers employment ad revenue and HotJobs’ overall effectiveness in competing with Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com.

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