I posted on these automated response programs recently. Well, I just received a different promo email for a more “automated” program: For the first time, there’s a service that finds 100’s of perfectly matched, available jobs & instantly applies to them FOR YOU, every day. It’s called __________ and it automatically: searches all the top career sites at once, finds all new jobs matching your criteria, applies with your resume to matching jobs, personalizes your cover letter for each application & provides a history report of jobs you’ve been applied to. Keyword-driven connections – both in the ad and the resume hunt – lead to, well, candidate spam. At times… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Internal Self Control
This week’s trait is one that measures a salesperson’s ability to remain detached from an emotionally-charged situation. Sales requires a cool, level-headed approach even in instances where emotions are high. We highly value salespeople who can keep their personal self detached from their work self. Internal Self ControlThis is the ability to maintain a steady and controlled level of internal emotion in a stressful or emotionally charged situation. Although it directly affects self-composure in a difficult situation, this capacity is more an examination of a person€™s tendency to allow the external environment€™s level of stress to affect their internal levels. If Internal Self Control deals with an ability to keep… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Job Ethic
This week we look at a trait that provides a measurement that is difficult for any interviewer to ascertain on their own. Job Ethic The capacity to fulfill the professional responsibilities with a strong sense of moral duty and obligation they have been given. A salesperson with strength in this trait will have a positive self-direction, a realistic understanding of their role and a positive goal/direction focus. A weakness in this area indicates a weakness in one of the above abilities which may lead the salesperson to have trouble applying his or her abilities to a given task.
Continue ReadingSell Me This Pen
Here is a good post from Ed McLean on his Sales Itch blog – Sales Dilemma No.1: There€™s a story in sales job hunting folklore where the smugly smiling interviewer plucks out a pen from his jacket pocket and say, €œSell me this pen€. What would you say? Here are the options I came up with: You will have to read the post to view Ed’s excellent options. Believe it or not, I actually encountered this interview approach when I was a young sales rep. I sat in the office of a salty old sales manager who told me to look under the chair I was sitting in. There was… Read More
Continue ReadingWhen To Trust Your Intuition
Yesterday I posted on a quick story regarding owners who make hiring decisions based on their gut feeling. I want to follow it up today by clarifying this approach. The article simply states that the owners made a yes or no hiring decision based on a gut feeling. It does not state what they did up until their decision and this is the point I want to make. Unfortunately, many hiring managers run down the same tired path – post an ad (the job description), sort the resume responses, interview the “yes-pile” people, follow their gut on the decision. Then the bad hire gets through and they attempt to revisit… Read More
Continue ReadingHiring Via "Gut Feeling"
If ever you wondered why hiring is such a gamble, feast your eyes on these 4 paragraphs from Inc.com’s Survey: Hiring Often Based on “Gut Feeling”: Most small-business owners hire employees based on likeability, rather than qualifications, according to a recent survey. In a survey of 500 small businesses nationwide conducted by The Price Group, a Texas-based marketing firm, 90 percent of owners said they decide whether or not to hire job applicants based on a gut feeling. Many reported having no formal hiring assessment process. The reason is that most small employers find hiring assessments too costly, according to Bette Price, president of The Price Group. “Unfortunately, they fail… Read More
Continue ReadingScarcity Of Quality Sales Candidates
No surprises here from the ManageSmarter.com article – Roundin’ Up Reps. Our clients often ask us what the employment market is like right now. For most of this year we have been telling them it is a candidate’s market right now. Some seem surprised while others seem to be familiar with this fact. In case there were any doubts, this short article lays out the findings from a CareerBuilder.com survey (my emphasis): The 2007 CareerBuilder.com Midyear Employment Forecast indicates that “46 percent of sales employers currently have open positions for which they cannot find qualified candidates, an increase from 39 percent heading into the first half,” reads a release on… Read More
Continue ReadingManage The Leading Sales Indicators
I’ve been talking to numerous prospects and existing customers this week about onramping salespeople. This topic is germane to every company that employs salespeople. The discussions I had this week have all involved a common thread – managing the trailing indicators. Revenue, customers, pipeline, etc. The sales managers in these discussions were discussing the performance of their new salespeople based on the aforementioned criteria. But this data is a trailing indicator. Think of it as trying to drive a car by only using the rear-view mirror. Some of these companies were frustrated with the new salesperson and skeptical of their future. Mistake. Onramping a salesperson is difficult because the trailing… Read More
Continue ReadingInterviews And The 2% Improvement
Good ManageSmarter.com article here titled Hiring as a Competitive Advantage (great title). There are few echoes in the article that reflect exactly our thinking when it comes to successful hiring processes. First, an amazing piece of data: €¢ Interviews: A University of Michigan study found that a typical job interview only increased the likelihood of choosing the best candidate by less than 2 percent. The statement could use some clarification, but the fact is that most ineffective hiring processes over-rely upon the interview in their decision-making. Less than 2% is even worse than I would have guessed. Hiring the “best” candidate clearly requires more input than what can be gathered… Read More
Continue ReadingWhat The Candidates Are Reading
From Yahoo Finance comes this BusinessWeek article – When an Employer Just Is Not That Into You: Here are some signs that they’re just not that into you, and you’d be better served pursuing other opportunities: 1. Silence After Initial Contact 2. Difficulty Scheduling a Phone Screen 3. Last-Minute Interview Changes 4. Delay in Post-Interview Contact 5. Too Many Changes in the Process 6. Slow Follow-Up After Second Interview 7. Delay in Extending the Offer There are paragraphs written under each of these 7 topics and I strongly encourage you to read them. Do you notice any pattern to the 7 topics? A lack of structure and a lack of… Read More
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