Successfully hiring strong salespeople involves many facets, but I want to focus on a particularly important item. Sales requires a fine-tuned blend of self-esteem and empathetic outlook to be effective. First, let’s define these terms for the context in which we are using them: Self-Esteem – The ability of a person to realize and appreciate their own unique self-worth. They base these feelings on internal factors as opposed to external ones.Empathetic Outlook – This is the ability to perceive and understand the feelings and attitudes of others – to place oneself in-the-shoes of another and to be able to view a situation from their perspective. Each of these two aptitudes… Read More
Continue ReadingYahoo and the Newspapers
Here is an interesting development – Newspapers will partner with Yahoo. I find it surprising that we are quickly approaching 2007 and the antique newspapers are finally making a serious adjustment towards an online focus. The dinosaurs of the newspaper industry may have made the move too late – it is hard to say. The younger generations are not newspaper readers. Instead, they consume their news in an electronic format. Suffice to say, it is a move in the right direction. One piece of information stands out for our business: The consortium said its first move would be to bolster Yahoo’s HotJobs online classified service, allowing advertisers to post job… Read More
Continue ReadingCandidates With Blogs
All right, we posted on Candidates with Personal Websites yesterday and now today we come across this Selling Power article – Blogs: Are You There Yet? This phenomenon is more than a fad, it appears to be a growing trend: “Blogs are, generally speaking, genuine,” says Krane. “A blog is one person’s voice. How someone blogs is probably an indication of how that person speaks and conducts him or herself in general.”Many prospective employees also keep blogs as a portfolio – especially in this town [San Francisco],” says Krane. “Having a blog shows that you are on the cutting edge of Web 2.0. It’s commonplace for a job candidate to… Read More
Continue ReadingCandidates With Personal Websites
We may be early on this topic, but we have seen candidates with personal websites. Now, I must clarify – I’m not talking about MySpace profiles. I am referring to full-fledged, personal, web domains. My initial take on this approach is that it is rife with vanity. But I have to confess, I took some time to browse their website and learn more about them. Now I just caught up to this MarketingProfs.com article title What’s Your Google Identity? From the article: People are googling you and making decisions about you from what Google reveals. Whether you are an employee looking to advance in your company, a professional seeking your… Read More
Continue ReadingCandidate Questions
We always say that interviewing is a two-way street. Both the hiring company and the candidate have to be impressed with each other to continue the process. Either one can terminate the process at any time. That being said, BusinessWeek has an interesting article dedicated to candidates titled Ask The Right Question. The author provides a strategy to 3 styles of questions all candidates should ask in an interview: Here’s My Brain Working Questions My Turn Questions What Happens Now? Questions I’ll let the author lay out the strategy for the questions (which is quite well developed). One overly simplistic tip I will share from our experience – candidates should… Read More
Continue ReadingWhen Sales Job Postings Go Bad
We keep an eye on the sales employment ads so we are informed of trends in the market. I came across an ad that was innocuous enough in its title. Then I read the opening sentence: This is a job in our Customer Service Department that can lead to an outside sales position at our company. What does customer service and outside sales have to do with each other? Nothing…that is the problem. We have seen this trap before with some of our customers. The skills and aptitudes required for effective customer service are markedly different than the skills and aptitudes required for successful outside selling. This situation is exasperated… Read More
Continue ReadingWhy Assessing Works – Stopping the Fakers
CareerJournal.com again with this article – Pre-Hire Tests Aim To Stop ‘Fakers’. I like to riff on this topic often. My comment – if we could simply keep the fakers off your payroll, we would be worth our weight in gold. Along those lines, I think the most accurate pricing model for our assessments would be $500 for determining a strong candidate and $1,000 for identifying a weak candidate. I doubt that would fly, but the logic is sound. Some excerpts: Despite the tests’ flaws, Dr. Griffith says pre-employment tests are generally more reliable predictors of performance than an interview alone. Generally? An understatement in my opinion. Our primary focus… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Working Interview
I came across this article in Monster’s resource for candidates – Work the Working Interview. The article has three main points: How the working interview helps employers evaluate you, Show your stuff and Ace the working interview. Basically, the article provides tips for candidates on how to perform well in a working interview. Stephen Morel, President & CEO of Pro Staff, is quoted: It helps employers evaluate soft skills, like commitment, loyalty and work ethic, plus it shows attitude and abilities in real time,” he explains. Employers can also evaluate whether a candidate’s personality will be a good fit with the staff. Monster provides a link for candidates to evaluate… Read More
Continue ReadingHire Great People: 10 Simple Rules
Monster has some great resources for candidates in preparing, practicing and improving not only their interviewing techniques, but their chances of receiving job offers. Unfortunately, their employer resources are somewhat limited. I did find a good article on hiring – it is a list of 10 simple rules to follow. Rule no. 1 is by far the best and one we preach here at The Hire Sense: Rule number one is clear, but very counterintuitive: Don’t ever, ever hire somebody just like yourself. Why not? Because from the beginning of time, executives have been unconsciously cloning themselves, stocking the shelves with vanilla young men from impressive schools. And what has… Read More
Continue ReadingWalking With Dinosaurs
Desperately Seeking Sales Stars is a long article from Sales & Marketing Management’s online edition. There is much in this article to dissect, but I will focus on some key points. First, don’t do this: “There are various [hiring and assessment] tools out there, but I still tend to be a seat-of-my-pants guy,” says Maher, now a speaker and sales consultant based in Helendale, Calif. “I’ve been hiring salespeople for over thirty-five years…and if they can sell me on their skills, that’s perhaps the most impressive thing.” And that is perhaps the only thing they can sell. These dinosaurs are still amongst us and still believe their intuition is more… Read More
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