{"id":2092,"date":"2009-08-12T15:38:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-12T20:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/08\/should-you-involve-customers-in-hiring\/"},"modified":"2009-08-12T15:07:44","modified_gmt":"2009-08-12T20:07:44","slug":"should-you-involve-customers-in-hiring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/08\/should-you-involve-customers-in-hiring\/","title":{"rendered":"Should You Involve Customers In Hiring?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Quite the question, don\u2019t you think?\u00a0 That is the title of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sellingpower.com\/html_newsletter\/article.asp?usr=SP9477331254&amp;NLid=10&amp;Layout_ID=926&amp;ARTid=4109&amp;nDate=August+12%2C+2009\" target=\"_blank\">this article<\/a> from Selling Power.\u00a0 I have to confess I was perplexed by the entire thought \u2013 how would you as the hiring manager benefit from having your customer help you hire the salesperson?\u00a0 I see nothing but pitfalls in this approach.<\/p>\n<p>My first thought is mentioned in the article:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cFor example, the customer could be shopping around for someone he could squeeze on margins,&#8221; she says. &#8220;It&#8217;s more that they are looking for an easier mark, and that&#8217;s not to anyone&#8217;s advantage in the long run.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>No kidding \u2013 there might be a great advantage to the customer to find a salesperson who they can roll.<\/p>\n<p>I have never encountered this customer-assisted approach to sales hiring.\u00a0 Here is another thought for hiring managers who are focused on experience-based hiring (I could riff on that but won\u2019t) \u2013 would you be willing to expose your customer to a sales candidate from a competitor?\u00a0 I could see many salespeople acting as candidates so they could prospect in your most-valued customer list.\u00a0 Remember, your top customer is your competition\u2019s top prospect.<\/p>\n<p>At any rate, I think the article closes with the best approach if you are adamant about including customers in your sales hiring:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Another way to involve customers is when you are conducting a needs analysis for the position \u2013 before you even look at candidates. Ask your customers what traits and skills are important to them, and add them to your list.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Do that and then <a href=\"http:\/\/www.selectmetrix.com\/Assessing_Main.html\" target=\"_blank\">assess the candidates<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quite the question, don\u2019t you think?\u00a0 That is the title of this article from Selling Power.\u00a0 I have to confess I was perplexed by the entire thought \u2013 how would you as the hiring manager benefit from having your customer help you hire the salesperson?\u00a0 I see nothing but pitfalls in this approach. My first thought is mentioned in the article: \u201cFor example, the customer could be shopping around for someone he could squeeze on margins,&#8221; she says. &#8220;It&#8217;s more that they are looking for an easier mark, and that&#8217;s not to anyone&#8217;s advantage in the long run.&#8221; No kidding \u2013 there might be a great advantage to the customer&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/08\/should-you-involve-customers-in-hiring\/\">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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,16],"tags":[1383,1385,1762,1384,38],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-xK","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092"}],"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=2092"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2093,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2092\/revisions\/2093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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