This is the title from a sales resume: sales pro here looking for best carrer oppertunity Spell check is a jobseeker’s best friend.
Continue ReadingThe Annual Valentine’s Story
Romance in the office is the topic du jour on Valentine’s Day. This year is no exception as BusinessWeek offers The Ethics of Office Romance. I did enjoy the author’s take: The implications for the workplace are this: The odds against an office romance succeeding are just slightly better than what you’d find at the worst casino in Las Vegas. When you lose at roulette or keno, though, you’re out only a couple of bucks (if you’re smart), and that’s the end of it. When you lose the game of love at the office, you still have to face the other person day after day. That constant reminder of a… Read More
Continue ReadingHow Does Your City Rank In Terms of Stress?
This article ranks 50 metros in terms of relative ”stress” and I was glad to see my metro did not make the top 10. We did, however, miss the “Top 10 Least Stressful” metros (by one place). Distressing, to say the least. Those of us who live in the Twin Cities love to brag on our quality of life, even more so than our weather. We love being in the top 10 of any silly survey. It made me think about the stress of working in sales. The constant pressure to perform. The uncertainty of the deal. The hidden power centers and arcane purchasing rules. The shifty clients and the… Read More
Continue ReadingPaid Interviews?
Lee sent this short article to me – Paying Recruits to Interview? I’m woefully out of touch on this one: Notching Interviews: Why would corporate recruiters pay candidates to interview for jobs? To Los Gatos Hills, California-based Notchup.com, the answer is simple: Companies ideally will find top candidates, so the money will be well spent. The startup job board adds a twist to the traditional online job search by enabling job-seeking professionals to name their price at which they will agree to interview with prospective employers. Notchup.com says employers benefit by being able to target passive candidates. The company says its tools include optional background checks on candidates and a… Read More
Continue ReadingIt’s A Dry Cold
From Yahoo News today: It lived up to its name: The temperature in International Falls fell to 40 below zero Monday, just a few days after the northern Minnesota town won a federal trademark making it officially the “Icebox of the Nation.” The previous record low for Feb. 11 in International Falls was 37 below, set in 1967, said meteorologist Mike Stewart at the weather service in Duluth. The temperature also fell to 40 below in Embarrass, 80 miles southeast of International Falls. That’s just one degree above the all-time record in Minneapolis, 250 miles to the south, that was set in January 1888, the weather service said. I can… Read More
Continue ReadingWhat’s Hot In A Recession
More stories are appearing that address “recession-proof jobs” in response to our slowing economy. Timely titles for sure, but one position is always recession-proof and that is sales; specifically successful sales. Case in point, Job Hunting in a Recession from The Wall Street Journal: Target critical posts. “The safest jobs are the ones selling to or servicing customers,” says Gary Rich, president of Rich Leadership, an executive advisory firm in Pound Ridge, N.Y. “When things get tight, it’s all about who’s going to drive the top line and who’s going to service that.” Less durable jobs are those in human resources, public relations, finance, strategic planning and other nonvital business… Read More
Continue ReadingA Recruiter’s Role
HR departments and third-party recruiters often go at it with hammers and tongs since each side thinks the other side is…problematic. You don’t need an organizational development specialist to tell you this is not a healthy business relationship. BusinessWeek.com approaches this topic in How Recruiters and HR Can Work Together. The article starts with a tactical point that we encounter during every negotiation: In my experience, the greatest service a third-party search partner provides to the organization, besides the strength of his or her candidate database and relationships, is the intermediary role a search pro performs during offer negotiation. I pride myself on good listening and negotiating skills, but if… Read More
Continue ReadingResults Orientation In Sales
One of the most important aptitudes in sales is a proper results orientation. The key word is “results.” Oftentimes we encounter sales managers who place their focus on activity orientation instead of results. An example would be a salesperson who has a furiousness to their work…almost like their hair is on fire. But no significant deals seem to close despite their frantic pace. I used to work for a sales manager who would describe those salespeople as a horse-drawn wagon. There would always be a cloud of dust around them, but at the end of the day, the wagon hadn’t moved. Salespeople who lack a strong results orientation are often… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Reason Behind Ruts
Totally fascinating post from Steve Clark titled Why is change so difficult? The human organism is resistant to change. The body tries to maintain what physiologists call homeostasis. This is the physical state of equilibrium or status quo. The body is designed to operate in a very narrow range of physiological processes. The brain is no different. And now for the explanation: Change creates psychological stress. Change engages the prefrontal cortex, the conscious part of the brain that is responsible for judgment, planning and decision making. The prefrontal cortex is like RAM memory in a PC. It is fast and agile, able to hold multiple threads of logic at once… Read More
Continue Reading9 Common Hiring Mistakes
A perfect list from HR Chally Group via Recruiting.com: Relying on an Interview to Evaluate a Candidate Using Successful People as a Model Setting Too Many Criteria Evaluating “Personality” instead of Job Skills Using Yourself as an Example Not Using Statistically Validated Testing Not Researching the Reasons People Have Failed in a Job Relying on General “Good Guy” Criteria Not Doing A Careful Background Reference Check They are all excellent points and ones that we have experienced first-hand with our customers. Pay special attention to numbers 1, 2 and 5. Those are the most common mistakes we see in our daily experience.
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