{"id":1663,"date":"2008-07-16T08:40:09","date_gmt":"2008-07-16T13:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/07\/first-round-cuts\/"},"modified":"2008-07-16T08:32:44","modified_gmt":"2008-07-16T13:32:44","slug":"first-round-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/07\/first-round-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"First Round Cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The frequency of layoffs has started to rise as the economy continues it&#8217;s slow progression (no, it hasn&#8217;t recessed).\u00a0 Up here in Minnesota we have experienced some large layoffs recently.\u00a0 But there is an interesting point in all of these layoffs when it comes to salespeople.<\/p>\n<p>Many times the underperformers are released first as a method for upgrading the sales force.<\/p>\n<p>One of the large corporations up here announced a sizeable layoff that reduced their employee count by 5%.\u00a0 Yet, the following week they had multiple employment ads on multiple sites looking for different levels of salespeople.\u00a0 This approach is not surprising as you will see it often during slow economic times.\u00a0 The major companies use the cover of a slow economy to jettison salespeople who have had targets on them for some time.<\/p>\n<p>This fact means that all sales hiring today needs to be careful.\u00a0 There are strong salespeople who get cut loose, but you have to have a process to find them.\u00a0 The pretenders, the salespeople who can do enough to mostly hide on your payroll, are also out there.\u00a0 These salespeople are more difficult to identify and screen out of the candidate pool.<\/p>\n<p>It is imperative that you have a process that goes far beyond resume, interview, gut-level decision.\u00a0 If you need assistance, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.selectmetrix.com\/Recruiting_Main.html\">we can help<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The frequency of layoffs has started to rise as the economy continues it&#8217;s slow progression (no, it hasn&#8217;t recessed).\u00a0 Up here in Minnesota we have experienced some large layoffs recently.\u00a0 But there is an interesting point in all of these layoffs when it comes to salespeople. Many times the underperformers are released first as a method for upgrading the sales force. One of the large corporations up here announced a sizeable layoff that reduced their employee count by 5%.\u00a0 Yet, the following week they had multiple employment ads on multiple sites looking for different levels of salespeople.\u00a0 This approach is not surprising as you will see it often during slow&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/07\/first-round-cuts\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[49,16,3,15],"tags":[871,870,47,38,715,782],"class_list":["post-1663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-hiring-salespeople","category-sales","category-sourcing","tag-hiring-salespeople-in-a-recession","tag-hiring-salespeople-in-a-slow-economy","tag-sales-candidates","tag-sales-hiring","tag-sales-hiring-process","tag-sales-hiring-trend"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-qP","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1514,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/04\/now-is-the-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":1663,"position":0},"title":"Now Is The Time","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"April 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"We have been sourcing for a handful of sales positions around the country this past weekend and we are starting to see some potential movement of strong candidates.\u00a0 What I mean is that there is some contraction about to start among large sales forces.\u00a0 Some strong salespeople will be pushed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1402,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/02\/the-demand-for-salespeople\/","url_meta":{"origin":1663,"position":1},"title":"The Demand For Salespeople","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"February 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Salespeople, with strong skills, are always in demand in any economy.\u00a0 Certainly some sales opportunities have an ebb and flow tied to the current economic conditions, but those are mainly business-to-consumer positions.\u00a0 From that understanding comes a 2008 sales hiring outlook from Monster.com. First key graph: In 2008 as always,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1911,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/02\/hiring-a-system\/","url_meta":{"origin":1663,"position":2},"title":"Hiring A System","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"February 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"If you have noticed a decrease in hiring topics of late there is a reason why\u2026few companies are hiring.\u00a0 We have seen it affect our business too.\u00a0 We had an early glimpse of it last year around Q2 as our assessment business started to decline gradually.\u00a0 That is a painful\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1674,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/07\/overqualified\/","url_meta":{"origin":1663,"position":3},"title":"Overqualified","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"July 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The layoffs that have occurred in this weak economy have led to a larger percentage of overqualified candidates responding to lower-level positions.\u00a0 We are presently seeing this effect in our sourcing efforts. Clearly some companies that are looking to cut costs are laying off experienced salespeople who have 1.) higher\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1281,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/11\/the-laid-off-salesperson-problem\/","url_meta":{"origin":1663,"position":4},"title":"The Laid-Off Salesperson Problem","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"November 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"When sourcing and phone screening, we tend to come across salespeople who have been laid off from a previous position.\u00a0 Layoffs are obviously a common occurrence\u00a0in business, but they are problematic in sales. Most companies do not lay off salespeople who are closing profitable business.\u00a0 Granted, some companies view salespeople\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1547,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/05\/you-cant-grow-if-you-arent-selling\/","url_meta":{"origin":1663,"position":5},"title":"&#8220;You Can&#8217;t Grow If You Aren&#8217;t Selling&#8221;","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Isn't that the truth?\u00a0 Entrepreneur.com has an excellent archived article (from 2002) titled Hire and Hire that discusses hiring salespeople during a recession (no, we're not in a recession).\u00a0 The point is valid - economic downturns are the best time to upgrade and\/or expand your sales team. Pick the right\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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