Hiring What You Need To Know

Experience is a tricky component to successful sales hiring in that it is often overvalued.  Don’t get me wrong, it is important, but you never want to overvalue it.  The reason is that you can teach new salespeople about your product or service a lot easier than you can teach them how to sell.  A sports analogy (I know, often overused) – it is far easier to teach a football wide receiver what routes to run in your offense than it is to teach them how to run a 4.3 40 yard dash.  Some will simply never run a 4.3.  This is why talent is far more valuable to successful… Read More

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Revealing Resumes

We run a systematic hiring process for sales positions.  We have refined the process over the past 14 years and have it optimized (even though when we started we were writing newspaper employment ads!).  As part of any hiring process, you have to receive resumes of respondents to the ad.  This is where things are changing. A new trend I am seeing is resumes with copy and paste information from job descriptions, websites, etc.  What I mean is candidates do not take the time to write about their skills and experience in their current or previous roles.  They simply use web/marketing copy that they paste into their resume.  I have… Read More

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How GPA’s Matter In Hiring

They don’t.  That is the conclusion from Google based on their own internal research.  Some info from the New York Times article: “One of the things we’ve seen from all our data crunching is that G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless — no correlation at all except for brand-new college grads, where there’s a slight correlation,” Bock said. “Google famously used to ask everyone for a transcript and G.P.A.’s and test scores, but we don’t anymore, unless you’re just a few years out of school. We found that they don’t predict anything. Mind you, this is research from inside Google – they know… Read More

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Tattoos Hurt You

I’ve written about this before, but it keeps coming around – tattoos hurt your chances of landing a job according to this salary.com article.  I am a bit old to participate in the tattoo craze so I probably come across as a stodgy old man on this topic.  However, the millennials seem to be enthralled with tattoos even in open sight.  To give you proof: A recent study from the Pew Research Center found nearly 40% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 have at least one tattoo… Think about that stat – 40%!  That is more than a fad.  But here is where the problem develops: The… Read More

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5 Tips For Hiring A Sales Manager

This Selling Power article is a quick, solid read.  The 5 tips are all on point with this one being my favorite: 2) Metrics without context. Your candidate noted that his or her team closed $2 million in sales last year. That’s great. But what was the quota? What were the expectations? Was this half of what your potential new hire and the team were expected to do? Or did they not only exceed quota, but also outperform every other sales team at the company? Don’t rely on metrics alone; your candidate should provide context that tells the whole story. So much of resume information is devoid of context yet… Read More

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Spinning The Bad Economy

The economy is in rough shape as most people know.  However, I give credit to the Business Journal for attempting to spin a good story out of this hot mess.  Here is the headline: Challenger report: June job cuts hit 13-month low Sounds positive and they lead off with this info: Nationally, the country’s employers announced plans to slash 37,551 jobs in June, down 39 percent from May, which marks a 13-month low for planned cuts, according to a new report from human resources consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Ah, but the truth often lies in the later paragraphs: Still, halfway through 2012, there have been a total of… Read More

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The Money Trap

-Discounting is a hot topic in sales especially in this prolonged, down economy.  However, discounting is never the best choice regardless of the situation.  Here is a good Eye on Sales article speaking to that point. Here is a good suggestion: The first question I ask anyone who thinks they need to lower their price to close a sale is if they know at least 3 needs the customer has and if they have been able to measure the real value of those needs with the customer. Exactly.  The author is speaking to qualifying which is the core of all successful selling.  This is why it is of the utmost… Read More

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Hunters Will Negotiate

I have come across this fact with many of my customers and it always surprises me that they are taken aback by candidates who want to negotiate.  One thing that business development salespeople do is negotiate.  They live for the hunt which includes qualifying a deal and influencing the money structure to their benefit.  Generally speaking, a good hunter knows he or she is good at what they do and they also know that companies are willing to pay for their skills. That being said (or written?), hiring managers should not be put off by sales candidates who want to discuss (i.e. negotiate) the salary of the position.  Salary.com ran… Read More

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Hiring Better

Well, I am back from an extended summer vacation.  Ok, it wasn’t a vacation, we have been swamped which is a good thing.  Our activities have all been tied around hiring which seems to be bubbling up slightly in highly-selected areas. One thing I have noticed percolating this summer is the use of assessments.  This has been our business since 2004, but it is truly taking off now which seems counterintuitive to me.  However, I heard an interesting Wall Street Journal interview this morning where the reporter stated that companies hiring today have to make the right hire.  Each position is crucial as most companies are running with lower numbers… Read More

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Resume Writing

I am filtering through many resumes right now and having a wonderful time examining some of the unique stylings of candidates.  Some flavor: -One candidate listed his core competencies…TWENTY FOUR of them -Another stated this, “Subject Matter Expert in dilemma analysis.” -Another misspelled his name – his name Never ceases to amaze me when sourcing.

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