Are Recruiters Passing You By Because Of Your LinkedIn Profile?

I read this discussion today, about the importance of having a good LinkedIn profile, to increase your chances of getting a job.

Recently volunteering at a job seekers workshop I was presenting in a room with a dynamic young recruiter. He was quite impressive and clearly successful in his role acquiring talent for an Atlanta based Life Sciences organization. Little did I know that he would completely change my perspective about LinkedIn and the advice I now give EVERYONE, especially job seekers.

I was surprised when he shared with the group that he won’t consider anyone for a position with his company unless they have at least 2 recommendations on their LinkedIn page. He was very clear and defended his position brilliantly.

What an eye opener! I fall into the young at heart yet not young category and like many in my generation have come late to the social networking scene. I was on LinkedIn because it was expected, but I was not engaged.

As a business owner I found myself pondering this – If this young man doesn’t consider job seekers based on their LinkedIn profile in all probability he is using a similar filter for engaging consultants like me.

His message was clear – When it comes to LinkedIn play or pay.

I left that evening committed to spreading the word to job seekers that LinkedIn is a place for full engagement.

Now I realize there are people out there who will say that what this young man is doing is unfair, shortsighted, and quite possibly could be discriminatory and I won’t disagree with you. I have learned through the years that absolutes can be very dangerous and find myself challenging them regularly at this phase in my life. But let’s face it. He is the filter his employer has chosen to determine who is considered for executive positions so what he is doing is, well – absolute.

Volunteering that evening changed my life.

With job seekers I have become an evangelist for LinkedIn. You may not be aware that LinkedIn has quite successfully marketed their product to recruiters. Increasingly I am meeting recruiters who are using LinkedIn as their exclusive recruiting resource. While they may not require a candidate have 2 recommendations as a price of entry LinkedIn is where they are going to find their candidates.

I have been challenging the recruiters I coach to make sure they are not missing talent based on some personal filter that has become a rule for them.

I have fully engaged with LinkedIn. I get it. Being there is not good enough. I am writing recommendations for people who deserve them, reconnecting with people I haven’t touched in years, and quite frankly having a ball building new relationships. It is now the first site I go to in the morning and the last I check at night.

Finally I am about to start asking for recommendations. So if you know me don’t be surprised if you hear from me!

Don’t jump on board…Jump in! It’s not too late!

Written by Suzanne Travers

The importance of good hiring practises for sales functions

Image by Brymo via Flickr

Why are good hiring practices important, in particular for sales?

First, because hiring is expensive. Research show that out of pocket costs for hiring a salesperson average about one year of salary. This includes costs such as:
1: Recruitment & selection fee’s
2: Advertisement
3: Interviewing
4: Training & coaching
5: Productivity (revenue) loss due to learning curve

Secondly, poor hiring, particularly for sales functions, is even more costly. It not only includes the dismissal costs and re-hiring costs but also the cost associated for missed revenue and a possible negative impact on the team performance!

Thirdly, there is a direct relation between the variability of job performance and the importance of good hiring practices. If the variability of job performance is zero, then every candidate would achieve the same performance and hence no selection is necessary. On the other hand, if the variability is high then only well selected people with the right skills, personality and behavioral traits perform well. Because the variability of job performance for sales functions is very high, the importance of adopting good hiring practices is very important.

Good hiring practices not only depends on determining the right skills & traits someone must possess, but also on having the right methods in place to identify those skills and traits. I will elaborate on effective selection methods in my future blogs but here are some common mistakes made when hiring salespeople:

1: Relying on job interviews.
Research consistently show that job interviews have a very low predictability. Some even find that a typical interview increases your chances of choosing the right candidate by less than 2 percent.

2: Not knowing what to look for.
There is no such thing as a typical sales job. If there is one thing that almost 100 years of research has learned it is the fact that the factors that can predict success strongly depend the content of the sales job.

3: Using successful people as a role model.
Duplicating success might sound like a good idea but it isn’t enough.Reasons why people succeed will not become clear only by measuring the characteristics of your start performers. It is just as important to point out  the DIFFERENCES between your high and low performers.

4: Evaluating personality instead of job skills
When interviewing we often pay attention to the personality in front of us, and we ask our self if he/she has a typical sales personality. Extrovert, quick thinking, good presentation skills etc. Not surprisingly there is a fast amount of research trying to find a correlation between personality traits and (sales related) job performance. The findings are that there seems to be no, or very little, correlation between personality and performance.

5: Not checking past behavior
It is widely known that the best predictor of future behavior, is past behavior. If someone is upbeat, hard working, and punctual consistently, it is a good indication of his future behavior. on the other hand, if someone has ‘experience’ in many fields and industries, and hasn’t been with a company or industry for over 12 month at a time, there is a good chance they will not stay in any future position for more than 12 months.

based on a blog post by Remco Rijnhart.

Related articles by Zemanta

• How To Create An Interview Preparation List (advancingwomen.com)
• 10 Ways To Ruin A Job Interview [Jobs] (consumerist.com)
• Update wardrobe for job success: Look the part for job or interview (halliecrawford.typepad.com)

How about Sales 2.0 ?

How about this as a concept:

Recently we’ve been hearing a lot about Web 2.0 (two point O), which, as oppose to Web 1.0, encourages conversation and interaction, and the creation of communities. Everyone has a say, about any topic they want to comment on.

Now, this is a fantastic concept, isn’t it? On previous posts, I’ve mentioned the Shortest course on selling, which is – Ask Questions and Listen!
How about joining the two concepts:

Make sales presentation 2.0! instead of the old 1.0 one sided, lecture type beautifully designed PowerPoint presentations, let’s consider Sales 2.0 style White-Board presentation:

A list of questions, and topics of discussion, leading a two-way conversation between seller and prospect. The Seller is in control, leading the conversation topic, and the prospect have control, making sure he understand the product or service offered to him/her.

I think this is time to rethink old truths, and add the 2.0 dimension to our sales conversations.

Good bye sales presentation – Welcome the Sales Conversation – Sales 2.0!

You 2.0 – intrudution to online Personal Branding

Dan Schawbel has recently finished his book “Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success”

Image via CrunchBase

Given the title of the book, I wanted to explain what this means for YOU 2.0.

We have all heard of Web 2.0, and we all know the 2.0 stands for the 2nd version of the web right?  WRONG.  This is part of the story, but the interesting thing to know is that the 2.0 also means there are now 2 people in the conversation.  Web 1.0 was all about direct advertising, and pushing messages at you with little engagement or consultation.  As consumers, we now demand more than this, we want to be engaged, involved, listened to, and asked of our opinion.  Web 2.0 is all about the online tools that allow for this interaction – like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter and blogging!  Media now needs to engage others, and involve them in the conversation…if you doubt this, just spend a moment to reflect on Barack Obama‘s recent successful Presidential Campaign!

So what does this mean for YOU 2.0?

Not only does the media need to reflect the values of Web 2.0, but so too does your personal brand!  Like any successful web 2.0 and Social Media campaign, you should be considering how your personal brand delivers on the four essential stages of the 2.0 world!

1.  LISTENING – what are your target audience talking about, and what are they demanding from your personal brand.  Do they need you to be available or knowledgeable or to simply respond when they ask a question…either way, you need to be listening to you target audience (this is difficult if you do not know who you target audience is!)

2.  TALKING – do you encourage conversation about your skills, talents, products or services..what are you selling?  How do you encourage this conversation.  Do you take 2 or 3 customers to lunch on a monthly basis, do you introduce your network to one another?  You know your personal brand is powerful when others do the selling for you!

3.  INVOLVING - when was the last time you asked a customer or prospect for feedback on your services and your brand attributes?  When was the last time you asked friends or colleagues to explain you in 3 words or less.  If you ask for this feedback, be sure to thank them for it, and then demonstrate how you have taken this feedback on board.

4.  SUPPORTING – you know your personal brand is super effective when your prospects and customers are now solving one another’s problems, and speaking to one another about your services in a positive light!

5.  ENGAGING – the final stage in the YOU 2.0 process is the engagement of your target audience in the process of product and strategy development.  Who developed your last product or service..your customers or you?

So, how are you going to start listening to your target audience?  Think about these 5 steps and how you can integrate them into you business or life.  You can be assured that by following these 5 steps, you will find your personal brand will engage others, and draw them to you.

Posted by Luke Harvey-Palmer

Related articles by Zemanta

• Personal Branding 101: How to Discover and Create Your Brand (mashable.com)
• Will an Obama win be a win for social media? (sharemarketing.wordpress.com)
• Have You Registered Your Personal Trademarks? (threeminds.organic.com)

Why the recruitment process isn’t working

I’ve read this article on Human Resources Magazine, and I thought it would be appropriate here….

Job Search

The structure of the Australian recruitment industry is fundamentally flawed, argues Abacus Recruitment ’ s Toby Marshall, and both clients and job seekers are losing out.

Scan the employment classifieds in any newspaper and it appears that recruitment companies have a pretty tight stranglehold on the talent on offer.

Correct? Not so.
Australian organisations have long been persuaded by recruiters that engaging a recruitment firm is the only effective way to find the talent they need in a market that is suffering from a (perceived) skill shortage and shrinking labour pool. What they are failing to identify, however, are two huge pools of talent that continue to go largely unnoticed: mothers with young children and older, semi-retired workers. As a recruitment specialist with over 16 years of experience and analysis of the employment market, I continually find myself coming to the same conclusion: that the structure and dynamics of the recruitment industry in Australia are so fundamentally flawed that business is wasting millions in fees and failing to connect effectively with their ideal candidates.

The issue of under utilised talent is a big issue and in my opinion, only one of the by-products of this very ineffective recruitment system. It is, however, this very talk of dwindling labour and skills shortages that continues to detract the criticism away from the ‘supposed experts’ who manage the search and selection process on behalf of many leading Australian organisations. The way in which recruitment firms currently operate hinders rather than helps the recruitment process and until the industry adopts a more ethical and accountable framework, the economy continues to bear the brunt.

In an era where employee retention has become such an issue for so many organisations, a quick-fix mentality driven by short-term results and measured purely by commissions earned and classified advertising space sold offers, in my opinion, no framework for optimal long-term results. Consider this: Recruitment firms only have access to a small percentage of the available jobs out there. In fact, many are not advertised or are ‘hidden’. It is estimated that up to 80% of jobs are hidden as only 10% of positions ever make their way into the hands of recruitment companies. And given the proliferation of agencies vying for a share of the lucrative commission, at best even the largest, most well-resourced recruitment firm has only 2% of the job market in a job seekers sector.

But herein lies the bigger problem. As the job seeker is not the one paying the recruiters they are not the recruiter’s number one priority. Recruiters, rather than looking to get maximum employee/employer match are focused solely on grabbing the closest fit in the shortest possible time and scooping up the commissions. Ultimately they are being rewarded for short-term success – not long-term employee retention.

What is it then that needs to be done to ensure the industry is more accountable, co-operative and effective for all stakeholders? Companies need to take more effective control of their own recruitment needs and to this end need to think about recruitment as an ongoing process, continually identifying and communicating with prospective employees, whilst successfully marketing their employment brand to them. Furthermore, recruitment firms do have a powerful role to play in partnering with HR and Australian businesses – but whilst recruiters refuse to share risks with their clients and continue to take a band-aid view of human resources these problems will persist. Recruiters have to be prepared to develop long-term relationships with clients; however, clients too need to commit to their recruitment firm and work long-term for the best results. Recruiters must be prepared to accept that fees should not be entirely up front – rather, apportioned over an established period so the incentive is not only finding the right person but being rewarded for that person staying in that job. Good recruiters can help employers avoid making costly mistakes. They know their clients and their corporate culture intimately, which means they can identify the right person/people.

Quality recruiters have access to in-depth market understanding which means they can help a client develop retention programs to keep their valuable human assets. Furthermore, the good news is that change is on the horizon. A recent survey of CEOs by The Econ omist magazine found that the third highest risk factor facing companies is that of attraction and retention of quality employees. CEOs and boards are finally realising the need to get behind the issue of recruitment if they are concerned about the costs of attracting and retaining talent, and how they plan to manage this into the future.

Once companies begin measuring the costs of employee churn, it is only then that they will realise the income lost to the inefficient recruitment system. Whilst companies are not able to hire people, Australia is experiencing nearly 15 per cent under-employment. As a result, companies are failing to harness the great talent out there. The damage to the economy is huge. In fact it is estimated that the figure involved in un-utilised talent coupled with poor performance as a result of job dissatisfaction could be as high as $15 billion. The cost of finding and employing staff is having a huge impact on the bottom line of businesses, especially when an employee was not ‘matched’ in the first place and then exits quickly. The revolving door starts again and employers are left footing the bill, whilst recruiters continue to prosper by the system.

According to our research it is estimated that the cost of employee churn to a small business of 20 people is regularly in excess of $200,000 per annum. We strongly believe that within the next five years we will see more of Australia’s Top 500 companies demand a shift to a fee for service recruitment framework where all stakeholders benefit. Under this system the individual recruitment firms gain by using the broker as their distribution arm, allowing them to focus their time on consulting,. Clients benefit because the quality of placements improves significantly and job seekers are rewarded because their skills are matched more effectively with the right employer. Essentially the fee for service recruitment system works because recruitment agencies are sharing the risks with their clients – the way it should have always been.

Related articles by Zemanta

• No Resume Required: My Perfect Gig Launches Next Generation Recruiting Service for Career-Minded Engineers (seomashup.blogspot.com)
• Is Your Boss Spying on You? (comsecllc.blogspot.com)
• What is your People Strategy? (recpro-abhinav.blogspot.com)

Building a Great Sales Organization

Image via Wikipedia

This Post is base on a blog post I read a couple of days ago, and I thought some of the content was relevant.

One of the key things we are doing as an organization right now is building a sales team. We are looking at 2009 as our breakout year with a goal of $1 million + in sales and a big part of hitting this goal is hiring talented sales people.  A few weeks ago I sat down and started mapping out our sales plan, writing job postings, scheduling interviews, and just thinking about the sales culture we want. I’m also writing our training, call scripts, and assigning markets.

I wanted to share my ideas this week. My biggest belief is that if any business can build an effective sales organization then they can build a great company. So here are my thoughts on building a great sales organization.

1. Outline the vision and culture of your sales organization. The biggest key to building a great team is knowing what you want. Start by outlining the culture you want to create including personalities, attitudes, work ethic. Then write out the vision you are going after. Sales people like everyone else need a leader. People want to know their leader/manager knows where they are going. These two thing are your foundation. Everyone in your organization should understand these philosophies and if they don’t, they shouldn’t be a part of your organization.
2. Write effective and transparent job approaches. The biggest thing everyone hates is not having their expectations met. If you are deceptive in your recruiting or you oversell the opportunity and a person’s understanding of the job is different than reality, you are setting your organization up for failure. This does not mean you need to have long job postings, but make sure the person applying knows what they will be doing. Key things to include: job description, experience desired, links to your websites, links to a client, general description of the product they would be selling. Your goal is to hire sales people who are excited about the opportunity and excited about the product or service they are selling. I’ve posted a job description I’ve used below.
3. Prepare for your interviews both over the phone and in person. Interview preparation is not just the candidates job. The burden lies on you as a manager as well. Google good interview questions, read over a candidates resume in advance, and make sure you are focused when you call a candidate. Give them the same respect you want. Hiring the right people starts with the very first interaction you have with someone. A qualified candidate is basing their desire to work with your company on their impression of you as their leader as well as the company and product.
4. Don’t oversell. The biggest mistake a manager can make is to oversell the job position. I have had jobs in the past where I was told I could make 6 figures in the first year. About 3 months in, I realized this was not the case and my motivation diminished and I left the company after 12 months. This is a waste of your time and bad for your organization. Balance this out by being very realistic about first year earnings and then painting a picture of what years 2-5 will be like. Remember people want to grow with an organization not jump ship after a year.
5. Prepare your staff for the interview process. One of the keys to recruiting great people is letting them interact with current members of your staff. The caveat is teaching your staff how to interview. First, tell them to be transparent and honest. Teaching them to interview is not about being deceptive, but about making them professional. Explain to them your objectives, give them an interview outline, and give them a couple questions that are unique to them so they are not duplicating your questions.
6. Create a standard interview process. A routine is helpful for interviewing and it also prepares a candidate for what to expect. Our process is a phone interview, in-person interview with myself, second interview with our staff and pat, and then a final decision. We ask for references after the first in person interview so we can check these at the same time a second interview is taking place speeding up the process.
7. Educate and instill confidence during the interview process. The two things I remember wanting to know as a sales rep are: What will i be selling? and What training and support is provided? I knew that with great training and a great product I would make good money, so compensation was not my main concern. Educate during interviews by demoing your products and by giving candidates product sheets so they can visualize your product and get excited about selling it. Create confidence during interviews by explaining how you train and support your sales people.
8. Remember that recruiting good people does not stop with day 1 of training. Great people stay with an organization because they are challenged and have purpose. Hold your staff to the expectations you laid out in the interview. Challenge your staff by creating a an expectation of a good work ethic and by teaching them new stuff so they have the drive to learn new things. Lead your staff and create purpose by sharing the organization’s vision, goals, and achievements.

These are the things that I have found effective in building effective sales organizations, recruiting great people, and creating high retention.

If you have some more tips and ideas, please share them in the comments or email them to me directly.

Sample Job Posting:

Subject: Inside sales positions with San Diego internet start-up, ArtisticHub.com

Collar Free is an internet company that brings together graphic designers all over the world to build design competitions for large brands. We built our own clothing line and community www.collarfree.com. We are now using our experience to do this for major brands and companies under the name Artistic Hub, www.artistichub.com.

Check out some articles about us on the press page on ArtisticHub.com and one of our founder’s blog: The Life of a Founder

Artistic Hub’s #1 goal is to build design competitions for large brands and on-demand storefronts for organizations. Here is an example of a storefront: Front Row Foundation. The storefront reduces promotional product expenses for organizations and creates a 15% revenue share giving them an additional revenue stream.

We are growing as fast as we can, but we are self-funded so we need some great sales reps willing to take a little bit of a risk and grow with us. As a result this position is commission only to start. The upside is we pay 70% of the first sale as a bonus and a 30% commission on-going. Also our sales cycle is around 4 weeks so the risk isn’t that great. It really depends on you!

Here’s what we’re looking for:

* A skilled, talented, and full of energy person
* Someone interested in working in a Web 2.0 company
* Someone who wants to be a vital part of a growing team
* Someone who wants to work with and help build a cool company

What we offer:

* Great products that are easy to sell
* A fun office in North Park San Diego with a cool team
* An environment where you will be a big contributor
* A position in a super-fast growing start-up

Interested? Email us with your qualifications, resume, and why you would want to work with us.

This post was published on JimmyHendrick’s blog

Recruiting and Hiring Effective Sales People

There are few challenges quite so tiring as trying to recruit an effective sales force.  Because of its impact on the company’s bottom line, selecting the right sales people is a critical area that requires a lot of attention.  When the sales force does not achieve the desired results, more sales training programs are established and the sales representatives with the lowest level of performance are soon replaced.  It seems to be a never ending cycle in which sales managers see little hope for relief.  In most companies, 80% of the sales seem to come from 20% of the sales force.  While the objective has always been to try to clone the top 30%, that really never seems to happen.  If a competitor manages to target and hire away those top sales  producers, what happens to the bottom line?  There has got to be a better way of finding and developing the talented sales people we need with more effectiveness than we currently have.

Fortunately there is a much better method of recruiting an effective and more productive sales force.  Before any new options are explored, we really need to take a good look at exactly what is going wrong with the current process used in selecting sales people.  In that regard, let’s simulate a mock hiring routine in order to find out where the problems are.

We have run our sales representative ads in the target market for a month and have narrowed the field to what we regard as two of the best outside sales candidates.  Their names are Joe Dogre and James Watson.

Joe Dogre presents himself very well during the interview.  He is about 5’9″ tall with a slender appearance.   He has thin wire rimmed spectacles and slightly curly hair.  He is neatly dressed in his best blue pin-stripped suit and his favorite red tie.  Joe holds a masters degree in business administration from a prestigious university and makes a very favorable impression during the interview.

James Watson has a bachelors degree in business administration with a major in marketing.  James is 6’1″ tall and is slightly overweight, but carries it well with his larger frame.   In order to down play his slightly larger frame, James is dressed in a gray pin-stripe suite with a dark blue tie.  James is very direct and quick with his responses during the interview.  He is quite enthusiastic about the position and also makes a favorable impression on the sales manager.

The experience levels between the two sales candidates are almost identical and it is pretty much a coin toss in deciding between the two.  Joe’s resume does seem slightly more impressive in regards to his accomplishments.  His appearance was slightly more favorable than James’ and he seemed perhaps just a little bit more warm and friendly.  The reference checks are done but little useful information is obtained regarding either candidate.  The fact that Joe has a masters degree tips the scales more heavily in his favor and Joe is offered the position.

Three months down the road, Joe’s sales performance is less than expected.  The training manager reports that Joe seems to be a little slow and has a problem grasping the material in the sales training classes.  The sales manager has observed the same thing and figures Joe is a little slow on the learning curve.  Another three months passes and sales are declining in Joe’s territory.  The sales manager realizes that it was a mistake to place Joe in the position to begin with and a new search for a replacement is initiated.  The sales manager wonders if the next hire will work out any better.  He instinctively feels that there has got to be a better and more reliable way of hiring sales people.  Six months of salary and benefits costs are down the drain, not to mention training and recruiting cost.  There is also the loss of revenue from the sales that have not been made and the loss of market share.

The sales manager wonders what he can do to improve his chances of hiring a top sales performer in the next recruiting effort.  He knows that he missed something with the last salesman that he hired, but what?  There has got to be a better way than the old trial and error method.  The sales manager knows that if he keeps doing what he has always done, the results are not likely to change very much.  What mistakes were made and how can they be prevented from happening again?

The first mistakes occurred during the interview.  Very little useful information actually came out of the interview.  The candidate told the sales manager what he wanted him to hear.  Too much emphasis was placed on warm and fuzzy feelings, visual perceptions and gut feelings.  There was very little objective information obtained prior to making the hiring decision .  Another problem was that the reference checks did not reveal any real clues regarding the candidate’s shortcomings.  What the sales manager needs is more reliable and objective information upon which to base his hiring decisions.  The addition of one simple step in the hiring process could have provided that information and prevented this hiring mistake from ever being made.

To make a better hiring decision, contact us at www.bluefinmanagement.com.au