This is from a shady-looking sales employment ad: Now is the time to get into the fast paced sales industry. We are looking for mativated (sic) well spoken individuals with a loose tongue. I’m speechless.
Continue ReadingOf Dads And CEOs
From CNNMoney.com comes a humorous article titled Do CEOs make lousy dads (and moms)? The Q&A format is a discussion of an entertaining new book from a former comedy programmer at HBO. The guy is now a CEO of an executive search firm in Los Angeles who almost lost his wife during an armed robbery. The article starts with some stats from a monster.com survey: …found that 58% think their employers should do more to accommodate the demands of fatherhood; 71% of those with a child under age 5 took a paternity leave when it was offered. The poll also found that, if money were no object, 68% of fathers… Read More
Continue ReadingAdvertised Vacancies Up 29% In Past Year
As I was searching the web this morning came across an interesting site for The Conference Board. The company is “the world’s preeminent business membership and research organization.” They have been around for 90 years and are best known for the Consumer Confidence Index and the Leading Economic Indicators that you see referenced so often. They provide an economic analysis based on a monthly basis is the total number of online job ads. The report and analysis they provide is amazing – a total of 17 pages of information for the month of May alone! Although the total online job ads were 4,374,400 in May, a 0.2 percent increase from… Read More
Continue ReadingReading The Resume Tea Leaves
We do not make sales sourcing decisions based on resumes as you may know from reading our blog. It’s an unreliable approach when looking for strong salespeople or sales leaders. Yet, we do receive resumes in response to our ads and that always leads to some interesting reads. Here are the bullet points listed in one resume describing a candidate’s recent managerial position: –Create and maintain dedicated sales programs and outside events to increase revenue and overall sales –Motivating staff on a daily basis to achieve sales goals and maximize retention –Daily sales analysis to coach representatives into meeting monthly quotas These are 3 good points but they are not… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Sense of Self
This trait is one to measure in all salespeople since it reveals much of how they approach prospects, how they handle rejection and how they hold up under stress. Sense of SelfThe ability of a salesperson to realize and appreciate their own unique self-worth. They base these feelings on internal factors as opposed to external ones. This internal feeling of value allows them to appreciate themselves based on who they know themselves to be on the inside. They do not judge themselves based solely on what they do, what role they occupy or what success they attain. This capacity could also be considered the level of €œself acceptance.€ A salesperson with strength… Read More
Continue ReadingA Cover Letter Disqualifier
This is from an online job board: I live in _______. I have a lot of customer service experience, but I am willing to do just about anything. I am in a lot of debt and need a good solid job to help me get out of it. Not good. Apparently the appeal here is to have a company provide money to them to relieve their debt. I feel for them being in debt, but this type of positioning is terrible. Far better to articulate what the company receives for employing the candidate’s services.
Continue ReadingWhen Too Much Self-Esteem Is Good
Nary a day goes by that we are not assessing a salesperson for one of our clients. This activity gives us the opportunity to measure different traits in a wide variety of salespeople in many diverse markets. There is one trait pattern we always dissect and that is a salesperson’s self-esteem vs. their empathy towards others. At the risk of going too deep, the issue is how much does the salesperson value themselves vs. others. Here is why it is important – a salesperson who greatly overvalues himself will often appear condescending, or even cocky, to prospects when placed into a long sales cycle. But if you have a high-rejection,… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Skyrocketing Telecommuting Trend
According to a recent study by World at Work: The number of Americans whose employer allows them to work remotely at least one day per month increased 63 percent, from 7.6 million in 2004 to 12.4 million in 2006. Based on government estimates of 149.3 million workers in the U.S. labor force, the 2006 data means that roughly 8 percent of American workers have an employer that allows them to telecommute one day per month. The article goes on to say that this trend is a result of the proliferation of high speed broadband, wireless access and the willingness of more employers to embrace flexibility in regards to work-life balance.… Read More
Continue ReadingText Messaging In The Car
As in driving the car! From Yahoo News’ Shd u txt, chat n drive? Young drivers say OK (my emphasis): A survey by the Zogby International polling firm released on Wednesday found 66 percent of U.S. drivers aged between 18 and 24 send text messages while driving and 93 percent talk on their cell phone behind the wheel. I have no problems with people talking on their cell phone while driving, but text messaging? I may be too old to appreciate this ability, but I have a hard enough time text messaging on my phone when I am sitting in a restaurant undisturbed. Unbelievable.
Continue ReadingSalespeople On An "E-Leash"
It’s 91° here in the Twin Cities today so vacation is on the brain. CareerBuilder.com offers up some interesting survey results in Using or Losing Your Time Off? E-leashes and hectic schedules are cutting into vacation time as increasingly wired workers are finding it hard to leave the office at home. Although an improvement from 27 percent in 2006, 20 percent of workers say they plan to stay in touch with the office during their vacation this year, according to CareerBuilder.com’s annual vacation survey, conducted by Harris Interactive of more than 6,800 workers. Nearly 15 percent of workers say they gave up at least one of their vacation days in… Read More
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