The Hire Sense
A business blog dedicated to all topics pertaining to successful sales recruiting, hiring, managing and retaining in today's evolving market.
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The Two-Pizza Rule
Full confession – I despise meetings. I have spent much of my career sitting through insanely inefficient meetings – I prefer to call them “boil the ocean” meetings. The topics in these meetings usually lacked clarity and focus so the meeting would drift…badly. Of course, when your boss is sitting in the meeting (or worse, was the one who called it) it is difficult to exit early. But alas, I have found an inspiring article with a fantastic idea. This is from Inc.com (emphasis... |
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Hiring Like A Detective
Yes, the title is a bit quirky, but it is true. A significant portion of successful hiring involves being a good detective. I have always taken that approach when helping our customers find the right salesperson for their position. To be a good detective, you need to be a bit skeptical. Sales candidates blow sunshine. Few have ever missed quota, most state their primary weakness is being a workaholic and all have earned everything they have accomplished. Right. In reality, most have... |
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Doctor Dollars
This CNNMoney.com article is fascinating, at least to me. A doctor opens up about his clinic/practice in terms of the financials of it. As a small business owner, I have a complete appreciation for the decisions he has to make in terms of his business. At the end of the day, it is a business. If you think your business has to fund some extraordinary insurance policies, wrap your mind around this information: Fixed costs for a private practice also include malpractice insurance. He pays about... |
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Bou Branding
Being a coffee addict, this news is huge for me. Caribou is rebranding itself with a new logo an some drinks/products (I’m in it for the coffee so these ancillary items are inconsequential to me). The logo change: Here is the part of marketing/branding that catches my attention: Alfredo Martel, Caribou’s senior vice president of marketing, said that the new logo focuses on “optimism and an optimistic outlook on life.” Don’t you love that? That is a pretty heavy analysis of what... |
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Double Dip
The title of this post is one that brings pause to many people. Are we headed towards a double dip recession? I don’t think we can say one way or another quite yet. However, today’s numbers are not good: The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance surged to just below the 500,000 level last week, and have climbed more than 12% over the past two weeks, the government said Thursday. … The 4-week moving average of initial claims was 473,750, up 6,000 from the previous... |
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Infinite Pay
I had this thought when talking to a customer – he has an employee to whom he pays a set wage (hourly pay, but same number of hours every pay period). Week in and week out, there is no discernable, tangible output of work from this employee. Does this fact make this employee’s pay infinite per hour? Just a thought. |
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Hiring Time
According to this CNNMoney.com article, 2010 hiring will be steady and growing (emphasis mine): “We see a healthy expansion under way, although it will take time to reduce economic slack and repair damaged balance sheets,” said Lynn Reaser, president of the National Association for Business Economics, which conducted the survey of 48 top economic forecasters in late January and early February. I wonder if those are the same “economic forecasters” who are perpetually surprised by... |
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Battle Lines
I’ve been busy over the past week or two handling a myriad of business topics and tasks which has decreased my blogging time dramatically. One item has come up during this time at one of our customers – a battle of wills amongst managers. This is no small battle, it has turned into an ongoing war for which I am now in the midst of the battlefield. Without going into specifics, I can tell you where we start in these situations – motivations. The first place to look when there is interpersonal... |
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Quality Is Overrated
I picked up a business card this week from a business associate that had this tagline on it: Were Quality Is #1 Absolutely not kidding. |
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Geography Matters
I just read an ad for a mid-level sales position. Interesting part was the location listed in the ad: Milwaukie, WI The hiring company is based in Fresno, CA which is, I suppose, in relative proximity to Milwaukie, OR. However, the Wisconsin town of the same name is spelled “Milwaukee.” In hiring, details matter. (And wouldn’t you think Monster would have a checker of some form for these errors?) |
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The Illegality Of Facebook Due Diligence
Well, there isn’t any precedence yet, according to this StarTribune article. Clearly the proper use of social networking sites during background checks for candidates is going to be a tremendously important legal topic soon. This topic has been percolating for some time. The article references an obvious starting point: “We can suggest to employers that they include in their application process some statement that says ‘we do reference checking including use of information... |
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The Social Motivation
I have recently come across the Social motivation when assessing some sales candidates for a couple different customers and now I just heard a sales rep on the radio revealing his motivation. Here is what the salesperson said on the radio: I just met with a company yesterday who was paying almost twice as much to our competitor for the same service. They were getting ripped off and it isn’t right. I don’t deny the nobility of his position, but the reality is that very few services are... |
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Monster HotJobs
Breaking news from the big job board world (via press release): Today, we are excited to announce that Monster has entered into an agreement to acquire HotJobs that will provide you with unprecedented access to job seekers and make Monster the leading site for job seekers in the U.S. Upon the close of the acquisition, Monster will also enter into a multi-year strategic agreement with Yahoo!, becoming the jobs and recruitment engine on Yahoo!’s homepage for both the U.S. and Canada. I’m... |
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Why Companies Hire
From abcnews.com regarding the “jobs proposal” working its way through Washington: Obama’s proposal has an additional provision that would award $5,000 tax credits to companies that add workers in 2010. Honestly, has anyone in this administration ever run a private company? I’m no economist, but my experience is this – companies hire more workers when revenue increases (i.e. growth). One-time minimal tax credits do not spawn hiring booms. This fact puts the pressure solely on... |
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A Steakhouse Ad
From a sales employment ad I read this morning: Proven, world-class technology with plenty of sizzle I can’t decide if I like that last turn of phrase in an ad or not. For software sales, it sounds positive. For slick-talking salespeople, it sounds like a negative stereotype. I would recommend leaving the “sizzle” for steak. |
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Rudeness At Work
From Shine on Yahoo comes one of those surveys that makes me think we are over-surveying (emphasis mine): …96% of Americans report experiencing rudeness at work, and 48% say they are treated uncivilly at least once a week. This kind of manners meltdown can have a direct effect on the bottom line. According to surveys conducted by Pearson and her colleagues, 48% of poorly treated employees have intentionally decreased their productivity and 12% say the boorish behavior compelled them to quit.... |
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Social Networking Series
I received a PR email notifying me of a 3-part series starting tonight on Nightly Business Report. Here are the details: “Social Networking” Tuesday, January 26, 2010 Wednesday, January 27, 2010 Thursday, January 28, 2010 Similar to the introduction of TV in the 1950’s, social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are rapidly becoming a core component of many Americans’ daily lives. But where businesses could easily impact the American consumer through TV advertisements,... |
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Fastest Growing Employment Industries
I received a press release from IBISWorld with some interesting data about where the employment growth will occur over the next 4-5 years. Of course, I would be a bit skeptical about number 2 considering the recent announcements from the White House concerning the banking industry. Nonetheless, still an interesting picture: Rank Industry Employees 2009 Employees 2014 Annualized Growth 2009-2014 1 Voice Over Internet Protocol Providers (VoIP) 17,110 34,850 15.3% 2 Private Equity, Hedge... |
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Tone Deaf Management
Remember back a few years ago when Radio Shack fired employees via email? Well, here comes another tone-deaf approach by retail management. I think the title of the Inc.com article explains it well – PetSmart Fires Employee Who Brought Dog to Work. Here it is: Eric Favetta, a 31-year-old PetSmart employee, was fired for "theft of services" after bringing his dog to work during an overnight shift he’d picked up as a favor to his manager, according to the Newark... |
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I Don’t See The Point Of Twitter
I know the Twitterheads are going to flame this, but I have to agree with Ricky Gervais: But after composing only five Tweets, Gervais gave up on January 9, telling his 13,000 followers he was going to stop his updates because “I don’t see the point.” He followed up with an explanation on his blog, calling Twitter “undignified.” (As opposed, say, to David Brent dance.) “I just don’t get it, I’m afraid,” Gervais wrote. “I’m sure... |