It’s a Friday before a long weekend so let’s go with an anecdote. Just to give you a little background – I had previously talked with this applicant and allowed him to set the time for our phone screen (2 days later). I called him at the set time, reintroduced myself and reminded him of the reason for our call. He quickly cut me off with this comment: Can you call back in an hour or two because I am busy at the moment? He then said thank you and hung up before I could respond. To top it off, this sales position was for a long sales cycle, relationship… Read More
Continue ReadingIf Only IQ = Success
More from the What Not To Do file – this email resume came over the transom this morning and it isn’t pretty: I’m a very motivated guy. i have an IQ of 130. Unbelievably, I cannot get a job… In all honesty, I have a resume agent that pushes any and all resumes through which leads to some interesting reads.
Continue ReadingTurnover Trouble You Didn’t Know You Had
Let me piggyback on the previous post and boldly state this – your salespeople (and other positions) are looking at other career opportunities. From the weddle.com website: Recently we tallied job seeker responses to this question: “How many times per month do you visit an online employment site?” The results provide some interesting insight into the best strategy for online recruitment advertising. WEDDLE’s Findings Almost three-quarters of the respondents (72%) visited 2-8 sites per month; Just 4% visited only 1 site per month; and One-in-ten visited 16 or more sites per month. 82% of employees visit an online employment site more than twice per month. From our article Hiring Adjustments… Read More
Continue ReadingTurnover Trouble
There was a good article in SalesForceXP’s recent newsletter (sorry no link) that quotes 2 recent surveys conducted by Miller Heiman and the Hay Group specifically looking at turnover amongst salespeople. The research concluded that not only is finding good salespeople tough (knew that), but keeping them is equally as difficult. Nearly one-fourth of the 2,176 sales executives who participated in Miller Heiman’s 2006 Sales Performance Study reported that turnover had increased during the previous year. That mirrors similar findings from the Hay Group, a Philadelphia-based management consulting company, which surveyed about 1 million employees at 330 companies in 50 countries. The least committed to a company are its salespeople,… Read More
Continue ReadingHiring in a Forms-Intensive Industry
We do not recommend hiring solely on communication style, but if you are in a industry that deals with SOX, HIPPA or some other draconian paperwork, you would be wise to hire a High C style with a strong Attention to Detail aptitude. These areas can all be accurately and objectively measured before hiring them. I bring this up since one person at our company is meeting with his insurance agent for a 3rd time in a year (this time to straighten out the insurance on his sons’ automobile). The troubles have started since the agent hired an assistant who has an innate ability to jumble paperwork in the worst… Read More
Continue ReadingSalary Value Index
Salary.com provides a list for our reading consumption – the Salary Value Index. The explanation: The compensation experts at Salary.com uncovered the top (and bottom) US metros for building personal net worth, taking into account local salaries, cost of living, and unemployment relative to the national average. The results are in and the number 1 city is…Huntsville, AL. Now I have been to Huntsville many times and it is a great little city. Number 1 is surprising, but still a nice town. You’ll have to read the rest of the article for the overall rankings. FYI – New York City was last.
Continue ReadingHow Not to Write a Sales Ad
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 then flows into a bulleted list of requirements that include: Bachelor’s degree Minimum of 12-15 years of business experience Minimum of 5-7 years specific experience Previous management experience A specific certification I edited out the specific experience in the bullets above. The next piece of the ad is the closing information in great detail. Nothing in the ad describes the… Read More
Continue ReadingUsing Your Value Proposition in Hiring
Why Should I Work For Your Company? provides a blending of a company’s value proposition in to their hiring process. The article is written towards recruiters, but the principles are excellent and timely. Sourcing strong candidates is becoming more difficult every day so companies will not want to lose a strong candidate to a better prepared competitor. Here is an excerpt that caught my eye: Growth and Career Runway: What opportunities for growth exist, both vertically and horizontally? By horizontally we mean this: Can a strong individual contributor become more influential in a company without becoming a manager? How clear is it to employees what they can do to move… Read More
Continue ReadingHow Not to Stand Out – Part Deux
More from the online resume board. Check out this excerpt from a resume cover letter: I will say this though – I have a master’s degree so DO NOT WASTE MY TIME WITH SALES POSITIONS (I’M NOT A USED CAR SALESMAN) AND POSITIONS THAT ARE BENEATH ME. Please also bare in mind that I live on the east coast so please take heed that it might be later for me if you call at a certain time depending on where you are from. I have the experience and the education to work in an actual position. ALL CAPS = Trouble. Let’s parse out one sentence in this masterpiece – I… Read More
Continue Reading2006 Salary Report
From S&MM Magazine (sorry, no link): The benefits of an improving economy trickled down to a lot of paychecks in 2006. The 2006 Survey of Exempt Compensation by Business and Legal Reports found 43 out of the 44 benchmarked-exempt positions saw salary increases averaging 3.9 percent. “Respondents indicated that they were somewhat more optimistic in their pay budgeting for the coming year,” the report stated. “Exempt employees were scheduled to receive merit increases of four percent closely matching the average actual salary increase.” Among the trends: * Top gainers for the year: purchasing managers, occupational health and safety specialists, and advertising and promotions managers. All saw average salary gains of… Read More
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