A bachelor’s degree in business or marketing and a minimum of 5 yrs of related experience; or, in lieu of the degree, a minimum of 9 yrs of related experience with ____________ and\/or consulting is required.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Avoid this nonsense – successful selling has more to do with hardwired abilities than it will ever have to do with degrees and years of experience. There is no formula for experience equaling sales ability so a statement like the one above screams HR dept. instead of the sales dept.<\/p>\n
Leadership skills.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That’s it. No description of what these skills are and what they entail. I could argue that Larry Ellison (Oracle) and Bill Gates (Microsoft) both have leadership skills. Of course, they are two very divergent leaders. Which style is the better fit for this position?<\/p>\n
If you cannot describe the traits you desire, do not attempt to “cover that topic” with an ambiguous, catch-all phrase. List the traits, skills and style that specifically define the person you are attempting to find.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I just read an employment ad for a company looking for a top-level salesperson. The over-written ad lists “Required Qualifications:” A bachelor’s degree in business or marketing and a minimum of 5 yrs of related experience; or, in lieu of the degree, a minimum of 9 yrs of related experience with ____________ and\/or consulting is required. Avoid this nonsense – successful selling has more to do with hardwired abilities than it will ever have to do with degrees and years of experience. There is no formula for experience equaling sales ability so a statement like the one above screams HR dept. instead of the sales dept. The last bullet point… 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":[26,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-employment-ads","category-hiring"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-fQ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":141,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/06\/how-not-to-write-a-sales-ad\/","url_meta":{"origin":982,"position":0},"title":"How Not to Write a Sales Ad","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 28, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I just read an ad for a sales-related position - it is in the sales category but it is so vaguely written that I cannot decipher what the position entails. The ad discusses what the person will be responsible for managing and some of what they will be doing. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hiring"","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1044,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/06\/lazy-ad-writing\/","url_meta":{"origin":982,"position":1},"title":"Lazy Ad Writing","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"First let me say, I read through a business development job ad today that was fairly well-written.\u00a0 The ad did use many second person questions - Do you enjoy closing deals...?\u00a0 I'm not a huge fan of that approach, but I suspect it engages the readers at some level. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Employment Ads"","block_context":{"text":"Employment Ads","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/employment-ads\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":678,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/02\/the-contradicting-ad\/","url_meta":{"origin":982,"position":2},"title":"The Contradicting Ad","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"February 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I read a short sales ad for a Sales Rep that was only 7 sentences long. But the brevity of the ad did not stop the author from being unconsciously contradicting. The open: Person must be an achiever, with excellent communication skills. Previous Marketing and Sales experience is a must\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Employment Ads"","block_context":{"text":"Employment Ads","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/employment-ads\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1656,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/07\/tightening-the-ad\/","url_meta":{"origin":982,"position":3},"title":"Tightening The Ad","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"July 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been reading through many sales employment ads recently and am seeing a trend - the ads are written tighter.\u00a0 A couple of examples: -Minimum of 5 years of related public accounting and\/or corporate sales -A minimum of two years\u2019 business development experience in a pharmaceutical and\/or CRO biotechnology, or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Economy"","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1713,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/08\/required-skills-sales-ability\/","url_meta":{"origin":982,"position":4},"title":"Required Skills-Sales Ability","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"August 20, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"From an ad for a National Sales Manager: Required Skills: 1. Product knowledge. The ad lists 3 other \"non-sales\" skills.\u00a0 Sales is that strange position where many hiring managers focus on skills other than selling.\u00a0 Is it any wonder there are so many sales hiring horror stories?","rel":"","context":"In "Employment Ads"","block_context":{"text":"Employment Ads","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/employment-ads\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":296,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/09\/outsourcing-your-sales-dept\/","url_meta":{"origin":982,"position":5},"title":"Outsourcing Your Sales Dept.","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"September 12, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Gerhard Gschwandtner of Selling Power released an editorial titled Should You Outsource Your Sales Force? He starts right off with a statistic I have not heard: A few years ago, outsourcing a sales force was a novelty. Today it has become a trend that enjoys a 20% annual growth rate.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sales Techniques"","block_context":{"text":"Sales Techniques","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-techniques\/"},"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\/982","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=982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}