Stereotypes abound around introverts and extroverts-most of them are simply untrue. The stereotypes go too far in categorizing behaviors. Part of the issue flows from the Myers-Briggs and its binary assignment of introversion/extroversion. You are simply one or the other…completely, according to that tool (of which I am not a big fan). This article provides a succinct, accurate definition based on Jung’s work: Shyness and being outgoing don’t have anything to do with it; it’s more about where we get our energy from. In fact, the differences are pretty simple: Introverts get exhausted by social interaction and need solitude to recharge. Extroverts get anxious when left alone and get energy… Read More
Continue ReadingCultural Qualifying
I ran into an old coworker, whom I consider a good friend, at a coffee shop this Friday morning. He is the VP of Sales with 75 or so direct reports. His company is international with a majority of their revenue occurring in Asia. He was telling me about sales training he held for the entire sales team. The focus was on negotiating and, more specifically, how to ask the right questions to qualify the opportunity. The Asian sales reps balked at some of the questions based solely on their approach to qualifying. Let’s just say they prefer to take a more passive, unquestioning approach which leads to prayer rug… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Lost Art of Decorum
Maybe I am aging faster than I will admit, but I have seen a trend in the professional workplace that is unsettling. Decorum. As defined by Webster, it is “correct or proper behavior that shows respect and good manners.” One of the things I tell hiring managers is that the initial candidate interview is as good as it will get. The candidates’ behavior, manners, etiquette, communication, etc. will never exceed their level as observed in that first interview. Therefore, the candidate’s decorum should be exemplary in that interview to the point where it is memorable. Sadly, I simply am not seeing this exemplary decorum nearly as much as I used… Read More
Continue ReadingObjectivity Trumps Bias
We are all biased, it is simply how we are wired no matter what people believe. Our brains have the innate ability to categorize – a distinct survival mechanism for sure. This ability becomes problematic in the hiring process as hiring managers can often be influenced by their own biases when making hiring decisions. To be blunt, hiring managers are prewired to clone themselves in their hires. So what of this? Does it matter? If your hiring manager is strong, especially a sales manager, wouldn’t it be best to clone them? No. End of post…ok, I won’t be so short. The key to successful hiring, especially as it pertains to… Read More
Continue ReadingDo Not Trust Myers-Briggs
Well, that is my paraphrasing of this author’s post. The Myers-Briggs test is common throughout many business-world assessments and it serves a purpose. The difficulty I have always had with it is the binary aspect of the assessment. You are either Extroverted or Introverted…there is no grey area. I think the author explains it well: More problematic, though, is that it classifies personalities by a binary preference for a particular trait. In reality, however, most people exist on a spectrum between the two and can vary between them from week to week… Agreed. People are the ultimate variable and far from binary. I think the best use of the Myers-Briggs… Read More
Continue ReadingHiring What You Need To Know
Experience is a tricky component to successful sales hiring in that it is often overvalued. Don’t get me wrong, it is important, but you never want to overvalue it. The reason is that you can teach new salespeople about your product or service a lot easier than you can teach them how to sell. A sports analogy (I know, often overused) – it is far easier to teach a football wide receiver what routes to run in your offense than it is to teach them how to run a 4.3 40 yard dash. Some will simply never run a 4.3. This is why talent is far more valuable to successful… Read More
Continue ReadingRevealing Resumes
We run a systematic hiring process for sales positions. We have refined the process over the past 14 years and have it optimized (even though when we started we were writing newspaper employment ads!). As part of any hiring process, you have to receive resumes of respondents to the ad. This is where things are changing. A new trend I am seeing is resumes with copy and paste information from job descriptions, websites, etc. What I mean is candidates do not take the time to write about their skills and experience in their current or previous roles. They simply use web/marketing copy that they paste into their resume. I have… Read More
Continue ReadingApproaching Via The Ad
I recently read this line in an approach email/ad for a sales position: Do you have open availability that includes holidays, days, nights and weekends? To be honest, it appears to be a retail position, but my word, I would not lead with that fact in an ad. Think of that sentence…what times are not covered by that statement? I would not recommend ever making a job appear to be a 24/7 proposition.
Continue ReadingHow GPA’s Matter In Hiring
They don’t. That is the conclusion from Google based on their own internal research. Some info from the New York Times article: “One of the things we’ve seen from all our data crunching is that G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless — no correlation at all except for brand-new college grads, where there’s a slight correlation,” Bock said. “Google famously used to ask everyone for a transcript and G.P.A.’s and test scores, but we don’t anymore, unless you’re just a few years out of school. We found that they don’t predict anything. Mind you, this is research from inside Google – they know… Read More
Continue ReadingTattoos Hurt You
I’ve written about this before, but it keeps coming around – tattoos hurt your chances of landing a job according to this salary.com article. I am a bit old to participate in the tattoo craze so I probably come across as a stodgy old man on this topic. However, the millennials seem to be enthralled with tattoos even in open sight. To give you proof: A recent study from the Pew Research Center found nearly 40% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 have at least one tattoo… Think about that stat – 40%! That is more than a fad. But here is where the problem develops: The… Read More
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