Ok, I had to read this abcnews.com article slowly – Need a New Job? Go On Vacation. To cut to the chase – people are using their vacation time to test drive a new career they would prefer to have. Vocation Vacation – what a great name – offers this service: the company offers more than 75 different career experiences all while your boss thinks you’re off sunning yourself on some sandy beach. We have encountered companies that are implementing various forms of trial-for-hire programs even amongst high end sales positions. From the company’s perspective, I think it is a great opportunity to make sure you hire the right person… Read More
Continue ReadingWhen Sales Job Postings Go Bad
We keep an eye on the sales employment ads so we are informed of trends in the market. I came across an ad that was innocuous enough in its title. Then I read the opening sentence: This is a job in our Customer Service Department that can lead to an outside sales position at our company. What does customer service and outside sales have to do with each other? Nothing…that is the problem. We have seen this trap before with some of our customers. The skills and aptitudes required for effective customer service are markedly different than the skills and aptitudes required for successful outside selling. This situation is exasperated… Read More
Continue ReadingWhy Assessing Works – Stopping the Fakers
CareerJournal.com again with this article – Pre-Hire Tests Aim To Stop ‘Fakers’. I like to riff on this topic often. My comment – if we could simply keep the fakers off your payroll, we would be worth our weight in gold. Along those lines, I think the most accurate pricing model for our assessments would be $500 for determining a strong candidate and $1,000 for identifying a weak candidate. I doubt that would fly, but the logic is sound. Some excerpts: Despite the tests’ flaws, Dr. Griffith says pre-employment tests are generally more reliable predictors of performance than an interview alone. Generally? An understatement in my opinion. Our primary focus… Read More
Continue ReadingWhy Assessing Works
From CareerJournal.com’s mailbag article (emphasis mine): Question: My son, a high-school student who has dyslexia and ADD, handles himself well in job interviews and on jobs bagging groceries or helping customers. But when he applies for part-time jobs at big store chains, he invariably flunks their online pre-employment tests. The tests take an hour or more and ask so many simple, repetitive questions that my son gets bored and just starts checking off answers randomly. Are these tests a legal way of discriminating? — F.J., Irvine, Calif. Answer: Such tests can be discriminatory, but proving it can be difficult. The Americans With Disabilities Act prohibits employers from using screening tests… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Blogosphere
Abcnews.com references the latest Technorati summary of the blogosphere in A Billion Bloggers? As you may have guessed from the title, there are many blogs out there. A taste of some statistics from the lengthy article: Put simply, the growth of the blogosphere since March 2001 is the upward trajectory of a sine wave, from zero “weblogs” then to 57 million blogs today. And the number continues to grow by 3 million blogs per month, or 100,000 per day. A total of 1.3 million posts per day. At times, I believe I have my RSS reader set up to read every one of those posts.
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Results Orientation
Last week, we defined Project and Goal Focus which is important for successful selling in any market. Salespeople must stay on target over extended periods of time while overcoming many obstacles. The companion aptitude to Goal Focus is Results Orientation. It is one thing to stay on target, it is another thing to actually accomplish the tasks needed to reach that target. A salesperson with little aptitude for achieving results will be the proverbial “cloud of dust” salesperson. You will see a cloud of dust kicked up by all of their activity, but at the end of the day, the wagon hasn’t moved. Results Orientation The ability to identify actions… Read More
Continue ReadingThe End of Quarterly Reports?
Interesting, quick story – ‘Big Four’ Accounting Firms: Nix Quarterly Results Reporting. Surely the speed of the Internet has to be the main force behind this suggestion. The heads of the “Big Four” accounting firms . . . said the standard financial reporting model used in the last century is growing less relevant and meaningful. Instead, the firms proposed static quarterly financial statements be replaced by real-time, Internet-based reporting, including a wider range of performance measures. I’m not a financial advisor, but, at first blush, this change would be dramatic. I suspect much of the corruption schemes would be difficult to perpetrate with this almost real-time approach.
Continue ReadingA Survey on Digital Dirt
CareerBuilder offers this article discussing the use of the Internet to research candidates. Most candidates are aware of the pervasiveness of information available on the web. But according to this statistics from this article, not all candidates are concerned about it: When asked to divulge the types of information discovered on the Web that caused them to dismiss potential employees, hiring managers pointed to the following: 31% – candidate lied about qualifications 25% – candidate had poor communication skills 24% – candidate was linked to criminal behavior 19% – candidate bad-mouthed their previous company or fellow employee 19% – candidate posted information about them drinking or using drugs 15% –… Read More
Continue ReadingGo For No
We are fans of Jeff Thull’s approach to selling as we commented in a post from this past summer. Now Thull has a new article in the latest SMT enewsletter – The Science and Art of Go For The No Selling. I recommend you read the entire article, but here are some excerpts: Probably the most debilitating myth ever perpetuated on the world of selling is: A good salesperson can sell anything to anybody. But those of us pursuing a complex sale should be taking the opposite approach. Provocative you say? The reasoning: Selling has become such a complex process that if you don’t consider “no sale” as a valid… Read More
Continue ReadingTime to Vote
I know you will hear it often today, but please take the time today to get to the polls and cast your vote. All of us at The Hire Sense will be taking time today to perform this civic responsibility that much of the world does not have the freedom to enjoy. See you at the polls.
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