Here is the ultimate hiring conundrum – you complete all of your sourcing and qualifying to end up with one candidate. That candidate was strong on the phone screen, has strong online assessments and a notable track record of sales success. The hope here is that he will interview well and there is not reason to think he won’t. The issue is that many clients are not comfortable just interviewing one candidate . . . no matter how strong the candidate is. This predicament is one we are in currently. The candidate is quite strong and has been excellent throughout our process. He has stood head and shoulders above the… Read More
Continue Reading2 Performance Problems – Mismanaged and Misemployed
Since we work in the sale hiring and management arena, we get the chance to see a sales position from both sides – the sales management side and the sales person side. It is a unique perspective that we discuss often internally. Like most people, we tend to look at what goes wrong in these situations and we really see 2 items that lead to performance issues within the department: Mismanaged – Sales Manager sideThis problem is quite severe and certainly is the greater of the two problems. A sales manager who mismanages salespeople has a tremendously negative effect on an entire company. The most common problem is disengagement. A sales manager… Read More
Continue ReadingCold Call Potpourri
Some more general points from this morning’s cold calling discussion: Some other items to consider: -Be positive – it is only a phone call -Stand up-your tonality is better, you’ll be less anxious and less distracted -Don’t get verbal diarrhea -Have a hook, don’t try to do a data dump -Qualify the next step – no fuzzy phrases (“I’ll think it over”) In the end, you need to be able to answer (well) this question from the prospect: What do you know about our company? We use a modified approach when phone screening candidates. We ask them how their skills and experience fit the criteria listed in our ad. The Rock Star… Read More
Continue ReadingOnly College Grads Are Smart
This excerpt is taken from a sales ad by a well-known, national recruiting company: But you must be sales orientated – it (sic) you have a specific industry or occupational background such as IT, engineering, or whatever that is good but again not a requirement. You must be smart – normally a college grad. Boy, where to start on that short piece of bad writing. I would not recommend using “whatever” in an ad – sounds like a high school student. I doubt the author’s intention was to state that college grads are the only smart candidates, but you can see how the mangled syntax of that sentence could be… Read More
Continue Reading9 Most Common Hiring Mistakes
Relying on the interview, benchmarking top performers, cloning yourself…these are all common mistakes that lead to bad sales hires. These 9 mistakes are provided by ManageSmarter.com’s article: Mistake 1:Relying only on interviews to evaluate a candidate Mistake 2: Using successful people as models Mistake 3: Too many criteria Mistake 4: Evaluating “personality” instead of job skills Mistake 5: Using yourself as an example Mistake 6: Failure to use statistically validated testing to predict job skills most critical to success Mistake 7: Not researching the reasons that people fail Mistake 8: Relying on general “good guy” criteria Mistake 9: Bypassing the reference check That is a solid list of common mistakes. … Read More
Continue ReadingHiring Outlook Still Strong
The hiring outlook for the remainder of the year is being bandied about by the media, but the latest Manpower survey paints a fairly clear picture of a strong market: Of the 14,000 U.S. employers surveyed, 27% expect to increase their workforces during the fourth quarter of 2007, while 9% expect to trim their payrolls. Fifty-eight percent expect no change in the hiring pace, and 6% are undecided about their hiring plans. The seasonally adjusted survey results show that in the majority of industry sectors the hiring pace is expected to remain steady during the final months of 2007. Employers in Construction, Durable and Non-Durable Goods Manufacturing, Wholesale/Retail Trade, Finance/Insurance/Real… Read More
Continue ReadingIt’s All About Talent
We beat our heads against the wall sometimes when we have to remind our customers that hiring experience is not a strong hiring strategy. More times than not, all you do is recycle mediocrity from within your industry. What truly matters is to hire talent and skills. Experience does not equal success. For instance, pro football returns this weekend so can you tell me what these players all have in common: Chad PenningtonGiovanni CarmazziChris RedmanTee MartinMarc BulgerSpergon Wynn Still wondering? All of these quarterbacks were selected in the 2000 draft ahead of Tom Brady. Tom Brady has won 3 Super Bowls, 2 Super Bowl MVPs, invited to 4 Pro Bowls… Read More
Continue ReadingCandidates Should Qualify Money
I’ve been swamped phone screening sales candidates this week and have seen many levels of ability. One thing that has been clear is the candidate’s ability to qualify money. This is a big issue for some salespeople in that they are uncomfortable discussing money. One move I like to use is to provide a wide range on the salary to see what they do with it. If they ask me about compensation (surprising how many do not), I give them a range like $40K to $80K salary. That is a wide range so I expect them to qualify it further: -What will it take to be closer to the $80K… Read More
Continue Reading2 Keys To Finding Sales Stars
ManageSmarter.com offers up an article I cannot resist – Find Your Next Sales Star. We’re going to start a 10 part series on this article. No, we’re not (though I would like to). I’ve written about this topic in the past (emphasis mine): Chet Bloom isn’t a big believer in tests and intellectual assessments. The president of HFBC Ltd., a staff and recruiting firm based in New York, goes with his instinct. “A test will never show a person’s eagerness and motivation,” he says. For him, it’s all about impression, such as how an interviewee dresses, if he shows up on time, and his confidence level. Education is meaningless to… Read More
Continue ReadingBeing Qualified
A strong candidate is going to ask strong qualifying questions. I mentioned earlier today a good qualifying and influencing move by one of our candidates interviewing at one of our clients. Another strong qualifying position is for the candidate to ask about a company’s financial situation. The candidate who wants to know about a company’s financial situation should not be off-putting to a hiring manager. Interestingly enough, I have seen this happen in mid-sized, private companies. Public companies are easily researched and smaller companies seem to be less concerned about this question. But hiring managers at these mid-sized companies seem to bristle, at times, with these qualifying questions. They are… Read More
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