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 ReadingA Different Pricing Model
We have kicked around a pricing model in jest but it conveys a point. One part of our business is assessing candidates for many different positions but sales is our specialty. We have clients that do their own sourcing and interviewing and then use our online assessments to measure the candidate’s sales skills, aptitudes, motivations and style. That being said, here is what the Rock Star and I were discussing: If a company locates a sales candidate they feel is strong, we assess them and confirm that they are strong, the fee is $500. If a company locates a sales candidate they feel is strong, we assess them and reveal… Read More
Continue ReadingDebunking the High D Myth
Many companies believe that the High D (Dominance) selling style is ideal for successful sales. First, some descriptors of this style: Direct Daring Innovative Blunt Competitive Bold Risk Taker Problem Solver Challenge-Oriented Self-Starter Inquisitive Power These traits are all admirable in a salesperson but this style, if unchecked, if a ticking time bomb. Yes, sales requires a drive, even an aggressiveness to be successful. In a previous post, I briefly discussed this style in regards to a current news story. The salesperson I mentioned could be a case study in High D sales behavior. Another experience from this salesperson. He used to visit prospects and put an intense sales push… Read More
Continue ReadingDecreased Employee Loyalty
Inc.com has an article from earlier this week discussing worker loyalty in regards to age. I don’t think there are any surprises here in that older workers are more loyal than younger workers. First off, I think this analogy is one of the best I have seen to describe Gen X and Y’s approach to employment: Kevin Marasco, vice president of marketing at Jacksonville, Fla.-based Vurv Technology, a provider of Web-based workforce-management systems, explained that younger employees manage their careers as they would an investment. Just as they want to buy and sell a stock at the right time, younger workers want to build career equity by joining and leaving… Read More
Continue ReadingProperly Using Pre-Employment Tests
CareerJournal posted this article – Six Things You Should Know About Pre-Employment Tests – earlier this week. The article is an excellent story for executive-level candidates to read closely. First, an interesting stat: Pre-employment testing is on the rise. In the past five years, 60% of companies have increased their use of workplace-behavior assessments, according to a survey of more than 500 human-resources professionals at U.S. companies… Second, a good point: “If you answer honestly and don’t get the job, it means the position wasn’t a good match for you in the first place,” he says. Third, something we can confirm in our activities: Senior executives are not exempt. In… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Industry-Experience Trap
An interesting article from ere.net titled The Role of the Hiring Manager in Recruiting. The author cuts to the quick in one of his bullet points: The industry-experience trap. Industry experience is not only highly overrated, but it’s also the quickest way to sub-optimize the talent you recruit. If you think of the pool of top-quality, top-quartile talent, the minute you say they must come out of the food industry or the high-tech industry, you’ve reduced that pool of available talent by about 98%! The fact is that for the majority of our jobs, top talent with high learning agility can learn the nuances of our industry, but industry-experienced candidates… Read More
Continue ReadingInterview Strategies
CareerBuilder has a new article – Top 4 Strategic Interview Styles – that provides some thoughtful approaches to interview strategies. However, I take umbrage with the opening sentence: Interviews are the most important piece of the hiring process. Wrong. Of far greater importance is knowing what traits lead to success in the position. This truth is even more evident when hiring salespeople. If we were to pick one of these 4 interview styles, we would go with the “panel interview.” From the article (emphasis mine): Panel interviewing method forces the candidate to react to a variety of questions and personalities, and will show if the candidate can handle a situation… Read More
Continue ReadingTurnover Trouble
There was a good article in SalesForceXP’s recent newsletter (sorry no link) that quotes 2 recent surveys conducted by Miller Heiman and the Hay Group specifically looking at turnover amongst salespeople. The research concluded that not only is finding good salespeople tough (knew that), but keeping them is equally as difficult. Nearly one-fourth of the 2,176 sales executives who participated in Miller Heiman’s 2006 Sales Performance Study reported that turnover had increased during the previous year. That mirrors similar findings from the Hay Group, a Philadelphia-based management consulting company, which surveyed about 1 million employees at 330 companies in 50 countries. The least committed to a company are its salespeople,… Read More
Continue ReadingUsing Your Value Proposition in Hiring
Why Should I Work For Your Company? provides a blending of a company’s value proposition in to their hiring process. The article is written towards recruiters, but the principles are excellent and timely. Sourcing strong candidates is becoming more difficult every day so companies will not want to lose a strong candidate to a better prepared competitor. Here is an excerpt that caught my eye: Growth and Career Runway: What opportunities for growth exist, both vertically and horizontally? By horizontally we mean this: Can a strong individual contributor become more influential in a company without becoming a manager? How clear is it to employees what they can do to move… Read More
Continue ReadingHow Not to Stand Out – Part Deux
More from the online resume board. Check out this excerpt from a resume cover letter: I will say this though – I have a master’s degree so DO NOT WASTE MY TIME WITH SALES POSITIONS (I’M NOT A USED CAR SALESMAN) AND POSITIONS THAT ARE BENEATH ME. Please also bare in mind that I live on the east coast so please take heed that it might be later for me if you call at a certain time depending on where you are from. I have the experience and the education to work in an actual position. ALL CAPS = Trouble. Let’s parse out one sentence in this masterpiece – I… Read More
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