Traditional job advertising attracts the bottom third of the candidate pool by using traditional techniques of job advertising. Learn how to improve your job advertisements so that you can begin to attract top talent for every role in your organization. Discover the power of a Compelling Marketing Statement to bring outstanding candidates to your doorstep the next time you have an opening. Replace your outdated and ineffective job descriptions masquerading as classified job advertising. In this radio program, Brad and Barry walk you through the key elements of replacing your traditional job ads with a Compelling Marketing Statement.
To listen to or download this recording from our audio library CLICK HERE. Then scroll down to the recording.
As I look back over the past 13 years in my recruiting experience, the one question I am most often asked is “What are the keys to helping sales people stay focused, engaged and successful long term?”
This is a very good question that is sometimes very difficult to answer, as there are many moving parts to the success equation for sales professionals.
Most people consider key skill areas such as those listed below to be critical for success in sales:
prospecting
cold calling
lead generation
skills
negotiating skills
good questions
being a good listener
being a “good closer”
The problems is that many good sales people who excel in many of these areas still over time break down, lose their focus and firepower and get out of the game prematurely.
Why is this?
The light bulb went off in my head last summer.
In 2009, as I was training to break a world record in long distance swimming. As an endurance athlete, I have seen many parallels between what it takes to train and perform at very high levels of athletics and what it takes to be successful as a sales person and stay successful long term. Principles such as focus, repetition, efficiency, discipline and good coaching are ones that are more obvious.
Let me set the stage to explain: In October of 2008, I decided to take a shot at breaking the world record for the longest distance swum non stop in a pool, which I learned was 101km (about 63 miles). I train in what is called a Masters Swim group. To give you an idea of distance and difficulty, a normal workout is about 1hr and 15 min and covers about 4,000 meters. Most triathletes and people I train with do this workout about 4 times a week for a weekly total distance of about 15,000-18,000 meters per week. To achieve my goal, I was swimming about 70,000 meters per week which averaged about 4-4.5 hrs per day in the water, 6 days a week. I did this for about 8 months to prepare for the record. By the way, this distance is what Olympians do to train for gold medal performances. The most common question I got was, “how can you do this and not get bored or go crazy?” The answer is that I built my “Staying Power” by discovering what my “Optimal Rhythmic Zone” was and staying in this zone.
Let me explain more clearly what this zone is and how it relates to sales people staying successful. One’s Optimal Rhythmic Zone is a particular pattern and speed of activity that is pertinent to each person’s ability and current condition. That speed of activity is defined as not being too slow, as you need a certain amount of speed to keep momentum and a rhythmic pattern of activity, and it is not too fast, as you can not burn your fuel at too high of a rate or you will run out long before the race is over. Think of a car burning gasoline at its most efficient point. If the car goes too slow, you don’t get optimal gas mileage, as the car engine is running too long covering a given distance. On the other hand, it is not too fast, as the rate of consumption relative to the distance covered is too high. That is why it is often stated as somewhere around 50-60 mph is optimal for maximum fuel efficiency. This would be the car’s optimal rhythmic zone.
Transition to sales people. I will contend that if a sales person is going to be successful and stay successful for the long haul, it is imperative that a sales manager help each of their sales people to really identify each person’s Optimal Rhythmic Zone and manager their activity relative to that number translated into selling activity. For each of 10 sales people, those zones may all be different. That is OK. Only when a sales person is operating in this zone can they operate efficiently and then make progress in realistic increments and stay successful for the long haul.
Check and see if your hiring methodology is in the zone of attracting top performers. Download our FREE Hiring Methodology Assessment Scorecard. CLICK HERE to get yours.
When was the last time you and your team assessed your culture. Take our Culture Quiz and see if your team all describe the culture the same way. CLICK HERE to download the quiz.
LinkedIN is a powerful tool for hiring top talent. Join our Hire and Retain Top Talent Group. There is a wealth of articles and discussions for you there. CLICK HERE to join.
Have you selected one or two key roles and upgrade the positions yet?
If not, what’s holding you back? Don’t miss out on this wonderful special time in history to attract a level of talent to a couple of key roles that you might never again have the opportunity to acquire.
What’s holding you back from taking the first step?
Here are some of the “arguments” I hear against upgrading when I mention this idea in our workshops and to our CEO/President clients:
This person has been with me a long time and is loyal
The individual in that role might have a hard time finding a new job
I’m embarrassed that the hire didn’t work out – I’m hoping it turns around
I think the person will eventually get better
I don’t have time to spend on hiring someone
The person is okay – they do some things well – no rush to make a decision
Not sure I won’t make a mistake the second time around again
No idea where to start or find this person
I can live with this person – I’ll do part of their job
What if I screw up the hire – then I wouldn’t look good to my ____ (fill in the blank)
Does this sound dysfunctional? Sure it does.
The number ONE trait of success for managers and executives is the ability to hire and retain an outstanding team of people. Are you a great manager/executive or an average one?
Do you have an exceptional team in place right now?
Why are you tolerating average/mediocre performance?
Are you doing part of the work your team should be doing?
Do you have some people on your team that are good at doing 70-75-80% of their job, but stink at the other 30-25-20% of their job. Who gets to do this piece your subordinate cannot do? You guessed it – you do.
Before you can blink, 50% of your workload is doing the work your team should be doing. You’re doing 8% of Mark’s job, 5% of Susan’s job, 20% of Kelly’s job. Now you can’t do your job because so much time is being consumed by doing the work of your team.
Why are you continuing to accept this less than stellar performance.
Take action now and upgrade a few key roles that are below your expectations. Emerge from the recession with a team that truly is a strategic advantage.
Recognize that right now is a unique historical time period for hiring. There are some exceptionally talented individuals who might consider your opportunity. As the job market recovers – you may never again be able to acquire and/or afford this talent.
You rarely lose a top candidate at the end of the hiring process. It’s usually in steps taken along the way. In this case the client made a series of seemingly small mistakes that resulted in the candidate declining to go forward. It started simply by the hiring manager keeping the candidate waiting 30 minutes, then, he compounded the problem by not being prepared for the interview. “He didn’t seem to remember much about my background”, the candidate later confided in me. Despite the rocky start, the candidate returned for a series of additional interviews with other members of the management team. All went well, but the last interview was to be with a senior manager who was on a sales trip in Europe. No problem, we would arrange a phone interview. Week one resulted in no interview being arranged. It wasn’t until week two that the senior executive could “make room on his calendar” to call the candidate. The executive was 30 minutes late making the call and it lasted only 30 minutes. (Eight or nine time zones difference and he couldn’t find 30 minutes on his calendar for two weeks?) Finally, the client told me that all of the executives were very excited about the candidate and they wanted to move forward with an offer. I was told to inform the candidate that an offer would be sent to him “in a week or so”, as soon as the hiring manager could get all of the required approvals. At this point the candidate declined to continue. “To me, a hiring process is a reflection of how a company operates and makes decisions. I didn’t like what I saw.” The candidate took a job with a much larger company which had moved faster and more efficiently than this client.
Lesson learned: The best window any candidate has into the culture of an organization is the way it goes about the hiring process. If your process isn’t tight, professional, organized and strategic, top quartile candidates will go elsewhere, and they may tell their friends about their experience. One bad hiring process can equal two problems, the loss of a top candidate and a bad public relations moment.
Check your culture by downloading our Cultural Assessment. CLICK HERE to download a free assessment.
Is your hiring process effective at attracting top talent? Our 8-Point Hiring Methodology Assessment Scorecard will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your hiring process.CLICK HERE to download a free scorecard.
Mike is the founder of Hagerthy & Co, an executive search, training and consulting firm. For information on how to arrange for their complimentary Hiring Process Assessment go to: www.hagnco.com/page13.html#HiringProcess.
How do you build up your sales and customer service force in a down economy? The quick answer is don’t be a dodo bird.
While researching our book, Cracking the Personality Code, we examined the essentials of what managers and business owners need to know about hiring and managing sales/customer service people with the help of in-depth work style & personality testing.
An interesting sales management guru we discovered along the way is Lee B. Salz. In June 2007, his widely acclaimed book “Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager” was published. In it, he deals with one of the biggest problems companies face, the chasm between managers and sales and customer service people.
He uses the metaphor of the dodo to show what happens when one fails to adapt. Those who adapt, thrive. Those who don’t, become extinct like the dodo bird of ages ago. Some laugh at the use of the word ‘dodo’, but there is nothing funny about a business losing its competitive edge due to unmanaged change.
To hire the best sales and customer service people, and keep them on the team, your sales or customer service manager needs to know what makes them tick. We believe the sales and customer service personality code can be cracked. If that sounds like a bold declaration, consider this: Studies show that personality tests are a far more reliable predictor of performance than interviews and resumes.
A proper test should reach beyond simple profiles and decipher a sales or customer service person’s underlying needs. This is key for employee development, team building, conflict resolution and succession planning. If you want to retain the best, you need to treat them the way they want to be treated.
Below are some ways to use personality testing in the workplace to help attract and retain sales and customer service people:
1. Get the real picture. Of course, every sales and customer service candidate wants to put their best foot forward during an interview. However, through a personality test, you uncover a great deal about their ability to work well with other personalities, their problem solving abilities, their thought processes, and their ability to tolerate stress. Personality testing gives you objective information that can help you make an informed decision about if this person is a good fit for the job and for the team. If you decided to hire the person, the questions you ask during the hiring process will reduce your learning curve as a manager on how best to manage this person from day one.
2. Help them be all that they can be. Every sales and customer service person has strengths and weaknesses. Find out the real truth with an objective measure. Once you pinpoint the good and the bad, then you place them in the right position and coach them on where to improve.
3. Take me to your leaders. Personality testing gives the manager and sales or customer service team a common language about how they like to interact. The assessments can help you train future managers on how to get the best out of the team.
4. Know how to manage difficult people. Face it, there will always be difficult people and flare ups on the job. Use objective personality assessments to diagnose potential sources of workplace conflict. The best way to deal with a problem is to prevent it in the first place.
We will have additional ways to attract and retain your sales and customer service people next week. While in-depth work style & personality testing can be a valuable resource before you hire sales and customer service people, perhaps the true value of any assessment comes in using the insights it provides along the entire spectrum of employment. Personality assessments lend objectivity to decisions that may otherwise be largely subjective.
Remember, it is not how many great people you hire. The true measure is how many great people you keep! For more information, please visit our Web site, www.lighthouseconsulting.com to sign up for our Open Line webinars and monthly articles.
Join our Linkedin Hiring and Retaining Top Talent group for more discussions and articles on this topic. CLICK HERE to join.
Our best selling book with over 10,000 in circulation, You’re NOT The Person I Hired, A CEOs Guide to Hiring Top Talent, is available as a resource to help your company improve its hiring of top talent. CLICK HERE for more information.
Author’s Bio
Dana Borowka, MA, CEO of Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC has over 25 years of experience in the area of business consulting and helping organizations both nationally and internationally in raising the hiring bar through using in-depth work style assessments. Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC provides a variety of services, including in-depth work style assessments for new hires & staff development, team building, interpersonal & communication training, career guidance & transition, conflict management, workshops, and executive & employee coaching. To order the book, “Cracking the Personality Code” please go to www.crackingthepersonalitycode.com
CEOs and Senior Executives in our survey assumed that all retained executive recruiters must have a rigorous process to help clients hire key executives that will deliver expected results.
How many times have you crossed your fingers in the hope that the recruiter you hired will hit the bullseye? Conversely, how many times have you felt like you’ve thrown good money down a dark hole – never to see an appropriate outcome?
After all, if you visit the recruiter’s website, doesn’t it always identify that the recruiter has a “process” to do search. This assumption represents the number one mistake that is made in working with recruiters. Falling victim to this mistake results in searches that do not get filled in a timely manner, do not get filled with a top caliber candidate, or do not get filled at all.
Industry statistics show that less than 65% of all executive searches are completed by the search firm. The Success Factor Methodology is a process which overcomes the #1 mistake when it is used both by the recruiter and by the company.The vast majority of recruiters have no process. If you go to their website, they claim they have a process – but there is no real process. There is no application of best practices in sourcing, interviewing, assessing, and recruiting top talent.
It’s random, willy-nilly, and seat of the pants. Most recruiters approach is superficial and lacking in substance.
The next time you interview recruiters to select one to help you fill an important position – ask what their process is? Probe for their specific methodology on sourcing or interviewing. Ask what specific questions they use, the research it’s based upon, and what the uncover through those questions. Discover how they build sourcing plans, where they fish, the precise techniques they use to fish in deep waters for the best candidates.
Most of the time, you’ll hear fluff instead of substance. Having a phone and asking interview questions does not make for a great recruiter. Understanding the best practices in sourcing, assessing, recruiting, and interviewing – then applying these on a consistent basis – does make for a great recruiter.
Like the failure behind hiring in many companies, the vast majority of recruiters fail because they have no process.
For over two decades we’ve been using a highly structured process in our Retained Executive Search Practice called the Success Factor Methodology. Using this process has resulted in a success track record over 95% of helping clients hire key executives. We’ve taken this process, and modified it so that you too can implement a rigorous hiring process to find, interview, and select Top Talent. A few years ago we wrote a book, “You’re NOT the Person I Hired”, detailing the steps to implement the Success Factor Methodology in your company. We’ve built an ecommerce site around video, audio, templates, and tools to help you implement the process. Finally, our website contains a wealth of free products, downloads, audio archives, and examples to reinforce improving your hiring process.
STOP relying on recruiters who have no systematic and rigorous process to help you hire top talent. Take back your searches by implementing a simple and effective process field-tested in thousands of companies.
This mistake just by itself leads to so many problems in the hiring process it is no wonder only 56% of hires are successful. In a research project we commission of over 130 companies and 230 executive hires we identified the 10 biggest mistakes companies make when hiring. There wasn’t even a close second.
This one mistake is so powerful it impacts, sourcing, interviewing, references, compensation, title and on-boarding.
It is truly the powerful hiring mistake. We give you the simple, but not necessarily an easy, solution that all companies can do to ensure they don’t make this mistake.
I asked a candidate after an interview, “How did the meeting go with the CEO?”
The candidate sarcastically replied, “Remind me again, why would I want to leave my current position and go to work there?”
Not exactly the sort of answer I was searching for.
He was what we refer to as a, “passive candidate.” Meaning, he wasn’t actively on the job market. He wasn’t in any hurry to make a job change. He was open to exploring opportunities and seriously evaluating them, but would only make a change if all aspects of the position were beneficial to him and his career. He had to have good chemistry with the CEO, understand the company’s vision, and his role in helping achieve the vision. Basically, he wasn’t going to just make a move.
In the same way, the stars have to align for the company to want him. They also had to align for him to want them. A new concept for many companies to really comprehend at a deep level.
Yes, the hiring process is a two way street.
Needless to say, I wanted to understand what happened. As the candidate explained it, “I have now been out to the company three times and spent approximately 4 to 5 hours interviewing. I first met for an hour and a half with HR going over my background. I then met with the person leaving the position. Once again we spent roughly an hour plus going over my background. Both gave me an overview of the position and about 10 minutes to ask questions. Then comes the CEO. Both previous interviewers spent time explaining how the company was reinventing itself and how this role was critical to helping in that process. I expected when I met with the CEO that we would discuss some of those issues, his plan for the reinventing, how my background would add value, and that I would finally have time to ask some of my questions.”
Sounded right and reasonable so far. As he continued to explain the problem, “After taking the morning off work for the 9 AM interview, I waited in the lobby for 25 minutes for the CEO. I was ready to leave when the assistant came to get me. The CEO explained he has to leave for a plane by 10:30, so I’m thinking why are doing this? There isn’t enough time to discuss any of the issues in any depth. Instead of discussing any of the issues, he proceeded to go through my background now for the third time. Don’t these people communicate? By the time he finished it was about 10:20 and he asked if I had any questions. I indicated that I did, but there wasn’t enough time to discuss them, and would it be possible to schedule another meeting, which we did.”
My conversation ended with the candidate asking me to cancel the meeting they scheduled, as he wasn’t really that interested, so why waste the time. Is it any wonder?
The company was surprised the candidate wasn’t interested. Even after I relayed the above story to them. This had never happened before.
A candidate turning them down?
A candidate canceling a meeting with the CEO?
A candidate that doesn’t want our job?
A candidate that doesn’t understand waiting 25 minutes in the lobby for an interview?
A candidate that isn’t desperate for our position?
They didn’t respect the candidate, his time, his position, and didn’t take any time to build rapport. They didn’t give him any time to address what was on his mind.
Why would a passive candidate be interested?
So I recommended the following changes:
All candidates must be met in the lobby at the designated time, the same way a customer would be met.
Spend some time marketing the position.
Learn about the candidate’s motivations and interests.
The candidates meet the CEO on the first interview. This demonstrates the importance of the position to the candidate and starts the rapport building process which is critical to passive candidates.
It is an interview, not an interrogation. Make it a discussion.
Every candidate is given ample time to ask questions and interact. The interviewer will learn more from the candidate’s questions than from the answers they give.
More time to explain the position, the importance this role will play, the impact on the organization and time to build rapport with the candidate.
These simple changes would have made all the difference with the candidate. Instead, they lost a great candidate for not treating the person as an executive and a person.
Every interview is a PR event. It is doubtful this candidate will have much good to say about the company should he encounter another candidate considering employment at the company.
Which is a shame as it really is a good company with good people.
Our “Cost Of A Bad Hire” calculator is available to help you get a handle on your total cost of hiring. Download for free worksheet. http://www.impacthiringsolutions.com/index.php/cost-of-hire
Business guru Peter Drucker has said, “Of all the decisions an executive makes, none are as important as the decision about people because they ultimately determine the performance capacity of the organization.” Warren Bennis, professor of business at the University of Southern California and author of Managing the Dream, calls the search for top talent “the most significant problem facing all organizations.”
According to a study by the Corporate Leadership Council, hiring the wrong executive can cost an organization as much as three times their annual salary. The Gallup Organization has noted that the cost of poor hiring decisions may even be much higher than previously estimated. Some researchers have calculated the cost of a bad hire can be as high as twenty four times the position’s base salary.
Presidents, CEOs, Boards of Directors, and Hiring Managers should never underestimate the ramifications of a bad hire. The fallout can affect an entire organization, doing far more damage than leaving the position empty would have.
While reasonable experts may disagree about specific salary-to-cost ratios, the fact remains that the cost of new executive failure is much higher than merely search costs and salary. Those are just two of the direct costs.
Indirect costs typically add up to much more.
Some of the direct and indirect costs noted in various studies we reviewed include:
wasted salary, benefits, and severance
lost recruitment fees and training costs
lower personal productivity among dissatisfied employees
disruptions caused by dissatisfied employees
higher turnover rates among productive employees
damages to reputation and market share
lost management time
increased stress and anxiety from people problems
The person hurt most just might be the executive who was set up for failure. This person accepted a position based generally on a vague job description, and then found reality did not match up to their or the hiring manager’s perceptions.
Having a structured, formal, and sophisticated hiring process, with well trained people in the process will ensure that these bad hires are significantly reduced and often eliminated.
Calculate the total cost of a bad hire using our “Cost Of Bad Hire” worksheet. CLICK HERE.
A much better approach is to define the success you desire in a role. This can be done for any role in your organization, from the customer service rep position to the senior vice president of marketing. It is the core of our entire hiring process, the Success Factor Methodology. We’ve verified, validated, and field-tested the use of defining success to attract, assess, and retain top talent.
Over the last decade, thousands of companies around the world have defined success for positions in their companies. Through this simple exercise, they’ve increased hiring accuracy, improved execution of major projects, raised the reliability of obtaining important results, and strengthened the ability to retain top performers.
In our Success Factor Methodology, we call the end product of a definition of future success for a position – the Success Factor Snapshot. The process of building a Success Factor Snapshot is through S.O.A.R.ing. The SOAR process has 4 key components. You don’t have to be great at defining any of them – you just need to work through each one step-by-step. The 4 components of the SOAR job definition process include:
1. Situation – what’s not working or what is the missed opportunities?
2. Obstacles – what are the obstacles standing in the way of achieving the results
3. Action Steps – what are the quantifiable/time-based outcomes
4. Results – what specific results will tell us the situation/opportunity was achieved?
Brad and I have posted all our Internet Radio Show Programs in a FREE radio archive. We frequently talk about defining success and creating Success Factor Snapshots through the SOARing process. We’ve also posted real-life examples of Success Factor Snapshots.
If you use the SOAR process to develop Success Factor Snapshots and then use those in place of traditional job descriptions, you’ll immediately start attracting better quality candidates, you’ll make better assessments and evaluations of candidates in the interview process, and you’ll be able to keep your top performers engaged and excited about their jobs.
STOP using outdated tools, like the traditional job description, to define work. Use a tool that permits you to hit the target every time on hiring top talent.
Never blast your #resume out to recruiters. It is a complete waste of money. Few if any recruiters read them. It is just plain SPAM.about 26 minutes agofrom HootSuite
