Over the past 30-plus years, I’ve been involved in thousands of searches, worked with hundreds of hiring managers, trained 3,000 to 4,000 recruiters, and worked closely with dozens of major companies. Following are some of the common threads among the best techniques, processes, and tools that I have seen and used.
Over the past decade, when it comes to human resources, the IT industry has been living in an atmosphere of doom and gloom. Many reputable organisations and individuals went on the record stating that the shortage of IT workers would reach critical proportions and severely impede economic growth. The contraction of the sector in 2001-2003 made the prophets of doom retreat for fear of being ridiculously irrelevant, as even the greenest of IT pastures, like the Bay area, were going through a severe drought.
Over the years, we’ve helped many companies apply the principles of Performance-Based Hiring to find talented and productive sales people. When we first engage with these companies their conversations often begin with similar words… “Help me find sales people who are competitive, multitaskers, closers who don’t take ‘No’ for an answer. It would be great if they came from our competitors and brought with them a few clients, contacts, or knowledge that will help them hit the ground running. And oh, by the way, I need them NOW.” At this point in the conversation we have to intervene and help our clients think differently about the process of consistently hiring outstanding sales professionals. Below are three common sense secrets for doing just that.