Let’s continue with the marketing-themed Tuesday posts. We have discussed Gen X & Y on this blog and we have published articles on how to hire them. Marketingprofs.com pens an article today – A Holistic Approach to Marketing to Baby Boomers – that looks at the largest generational group. Seems silly now, but we have conveniently ignored the boomers in our posts. Let me give you one reason why we shouldn’t ignore them: An American turns 50 every seven seconds. Staggering. I am intrigued by this point from the article: Although boomers are veering away from rocking chairs, research shows the desire for achieving a balanced life as they age.… Read More
Continue ReadingJob Postings, Rewards & Databases
Careerbuilder.com in their Small Business Advisor Section has a great article that takes you step-by-step in posting an effective online ad. As is to be expected, the article is specifically written to CareerBuilder’s site specifications. The information is still valuable and can be used to effectively write an ad for any of the online job boards. One tip that I would add that the author does not address is describing how the position is rewarded. One attribute that seems to appear in most ads is the desire to find a “self-starting” salesperson. This aptitude can be measured by our assessments. However, in order to maintain a self-starting aptitude, the salesperson… Read More
Continue ReadingManagement Shortage
Forbes.com article – Are You Corner Office Material? (I am not) The article discusses techniques companies use to assess candidates for C-level positions. These techniques include a $12K, 1 day in-person assessment. Now that is pressure-packed role playing. The quote that caught my eye: Michael Butler, a vice president at Valtera, an HR consultancy, says companies are increasingly interested in his firm’s executive evaluations, partly because so many retiring baby boomers need to be replaced. Many firms will lose half of their senior executives in the next few years, “and they don’t even know it,” Butler says. “It’ll be a crisis in three years.”
Continue ReadingQ3 Hiring Outlook
The upcoming quarter looks to maintain the strong growth in hiring that has been occurring for the past 2 years. Some interesting statistics from the Manpower survey: Construction, 24%, down from 28% in the second quarter Durable-goods manufacturers, 23%, flat from 22% in the second quarter Finance, insurance and real estate, 23%, about flat from 21% Services, 23%, about flat from 21% Wholesale and retail trade, 21%, flat from 22% Transportation and public utilities, 20%, about flat from 17% Mining, 18%, down from 33% Non-durables manufacturers, 18%, about flat from 19% Education, 17% about flat from 16% Public administration, 16% up from 12%
Continue Reading“Digital Dirt”
I’ve never heard that term before (the title of this post). This CareerJournal article discusses methods for candidates to clean up their digital dirt. I suspect the solutions offered in this article sound good but I doubt they clean up the dirt all that quickly. Google seems to cache information for some time. Still, there are some good tips for using Google and I am a big fan of Pubsub. Now do what I just did, go Google your name!
Continue ReadingVulcan Qualifying
First things first – I’m not a Trekkie. But there is a good lesson from Mr. Spock in regards to qualifying. Basically, emotions kill good qualifying. What I mean is that salespeople who become emotionally shackled to a prospect or opportunity lose objectivity. Once objectivity is gone, the salesperson tends to abandon their selling system and rationalize reasons without pursing facts from the prospect directly. The best salespeople we have encountered and assessed are the ones who are able to use their empathy to connect with the prospect and nothing more. They are able to build rapport yet stay emotionally detached so that stress, rejection, joy, anger and desperation do… Read More
Continue ReadingAnecdote – Biggest Sales Contribution
It’s Friday so let’s go with another anecdote. During a phone screen, I asked a candidate a fairly innocuous sales interview question, “What is the biggest contribution you made in your last job?” He took several moments to gather his thoughts and then offered this: Good question. I would have to say hands down that the greatest contribution thus far with my current company is the fact that I have increased RFQ’s (request for quote) by over 200%. RFQ’s? Obviously, I was hoping to hear something about increasing sales, improving the closing ratio or turning around an underperforming territory. Nope, it was far worse. Generating a quote with his employer… Read More
Continue ReadingExpiring Ads
A quick note about expiring ads that we have experienced. Expect a small bump in responses as your ad posting is about to expire. We consistently see a handful of responses that come in within the last 3 days of an ad expiring. Although risky (the position may be filled by then), it is still an interesting and some times effective approach by candidates.
Continue ReadingSales Hiring Myth
I am a member of an online recruiter’s group and have a mild interest in their topics. What we do at Select Metrix is far from recruiting, but we often get lumped in with recruiters so I figure it is good to know the topics that interest them. One myth I keep encountering is this Jurassic-era myth that good salespeople do not look at employment ads. Only the “unhappy” salespeople look at ads. Here is a direct quote from one of the recruiters: People only look on job boards if they are unhappy with their job / boss / company. To recruit the happy people (happy typically equals good)…you need… Read More
Continue ReadingHiring Talent
Being Minnesotans, we are avid hockey fans and follow our professional team – the Wild. I was reading this article this morning and came across an interesting quote from the Wild’s General Manager: General manager Doug Risebrough demands fresh ideas from his advisers, and he praised Snow’s enthusiasm and work ethic as a journalist and his passion for hockey in announcing the hiring. “Where he came from was really academic,” Risebrough said. “I always believe if you get really talented people, you put them in a good environment and don’t constrict it. I don’t know how it will look in two years, but we’ll see.” The person he hired is… Read More
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