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Hiring assessment articles for the hiring of sales personnel
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This is a collection of hiring assessment articles written by a variety of authors. New articles are added regularly. If you are a publisher, feel free to use these articles as they appear, or edit them to fit your publication's needs. Make sure that you print and return the publication terms of agreement if you decide to use any portion of the editorial content offered here. Thank you - and enjoy! |
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by John W. Howard, Ph.D.
Most everyone has heard of, or experienced the 80/20 rule - 80% of the sales come from 20% of the salespeople. For businesses with 5 or more salespeople, it is very common to discover that the top producer generates 3 or 4 times the production of the bottom producer, and it's pretty obvious that it would be desirable to have more top producers! For businesses with only 1 or 2 salespeople, it's even more critical that these positions be filled with top producers. While few experienced sales managers doubt the "rule", equally few know what causes it, or how to fix it.... [Read More]
by Jeff Schroer
Psychometric assessment products exist in great variety and quantity. Many businesses have employed assessments to support their recruitment, retention, development, and succession planning strategies. However, few are aware of the U.S. Department of Labor's position regarding the use of tests and assessments in areas of employment. They provide 13 basic principles that employers should follow when considering and/or designing an assessment initiative..... [Read More]
Statistics concerning customers who change from established business relationships to new ones are startling. 67% of customers who started new business relationships report that they were "satisfied" with their old ones. 85% of all "satisfied" customers indicate that they would be willing to try a new supplier. Why would satisfied customers leave? To some extent most businesses function as customer service call centers. Where else will customers go for service when face-to-face contact is not feasible?.... [Read More]
When you stand in front of fitting room mirrors at your favorite clothing store, you get a 360° perspective about your "look." You receive visual feedback from all sides and can readily see if what you're trying on is a good fit. Much like that fitting room mirror, a job-related view of a key employee from all angles can be valuable. Such a view can be accomplished with a multi-rater, 360° feedback review. There's understanding to be gained by managers when feedback comes from supervisors, direct reports, and peers, each giving a view of management skills and competencies from their own unique perspective.... [Read More]
by Dave Kahle
Good question! It seems that everyone has a favorite response. Some people only use recruiters, and others swear by networking. But classified ads continue to be the most common choice. Almost everyone who hires salespeople will, at some time, search for prospects via the "help wanted" section.... [Read More]
A good-sized credit union is thoroughly committed to a learning culture, and development of superior leadership from within its own ranks. It was a natural step in their evolution to institute a strategic hiring system with multiple goals; to reduce turnover and increase retention of quality employees, to improve the overall quality of employees hired, and to hire people who were likely to succeed and develop within their service and sales oriented culture. To accomplish these goals the credit union.... [Read More]
Your company will profit vastly when you plug the dollar "drip, drip, drip" that employee turnover steals from your bottom line. Too often, executives look the other way and accept employee turnover as a nuisance, but necessary fact of business life. The cost of employee turnover does not show up on a P&L statement making it easy to overlook when analyzing expenses. However, if your business has a revolving door in the HR department, you could increase profits by thirty percent just by better implementing hiring practices and by reassigning employees to jobs for which they are better suited.... [Read More]
The age-old confusion between correlation and causation is alive and well throughout our daily living. For example, everyone knows that higher speed limits cause more highway deaths, right? Actually, today's higher speed limits, combined with better vehicle design, have resulted in a traffic fatality rate that is less than half what we had under the national 55-mph limit! Which part is correlation, which causation? The same kind of question, and confusion, may lead us to false conclusions about the success or failure of our attempts to make positive change in work-related outcomes..... [Read More]
Employee evaluations are the central topic of hundreds of books and thousand of articles. The schemes and systems run the gamut, from complex and mathematical, to simple and commonsense. Here is one that you can do quickly and efficiently. If you just tabulate the results as a percentage of YES answers, you can gauge your success in hiring and retention in a way that's meaningful and easy to understand..... [Read More]
by Jay Werth
I'm sorry, but this just isn't working, I think it's best if we part company. Have you been on the giving or receiving side of that statement? Do you recall the unpleasant sense of regret, the foreshadowing and worry that led to those words? A performance-based dismissal is typically preceded by a period of discomfort when everyone realizes there's a bad fit to the job. Remedial steps may be taken in the interest of fairness, but there's a sense that the situation will not improve..... [Read More]
All too frequently, you hear HR departments talking of developing an assessment of some sort customized to their own business and its unique characteristics and needs. When this topic is under serious discussion, unless they are Fortune 1000 material, you can count on several things: They can't afford the process of developing, validating, testing reliability, and testing for discrimination on a local level.... [Read More]
As the new year unfolds, it seems clear that the economy is gradually improving, and that new jobs are being created. It's equally clear that this year's scene is likely to be different than the one we enjoyed at the end of the 'roaring 90's'. It will bring new challenges, as well as some old and familiar ones.... [Read More]
Reviewing last year, many of us will find that we did not pay much attention to our hiring process-because we were not doing much hiring! Looking ahead, whether we are already hiring, or will begin soon, we have an opportunity to make our businesses better for many years, just by improving the process of hiring. Here are some suggestions for improvement.... [Read More]
In the marginal employees group there are two sub-groups - those who can be resuscitated and those who cannot. The Profiles Performance Indicator is an ideal management tool to assess these employees and discover those whose potential for effective productivity is the greatest. The information provided by the Profiles Performance Indicator is used by managers to communicate with and motivate more effectively the people under their supervision. It suggests areas in which individuals can use their strengths and positively affect areas in need of improvement. There is even a Motivational Energy measurement that helps the job matching process.... [Read More]
A growing chorus of concern has occupied the attention of business news writers for the past several months-workers, pinned in place by the depressed job market over the past few years, seem poised to run from their employers at the first light of an improving job market!.... [Read More]
by Jay Werth
Think of the hiring process as an elevator ride, and your manager as the elevator operator. Job candidates are people trying to squeeze into your elevator. The load of all these passengers puts a strain on the elevator and your manager who must also attend to other pressing issues. It's tempting for your manager to quickly eyeball the passengers, letting only a few of them onto the elevator at the first floor and turning away the majority.... [Read More]
As the first quarter wound to a close, the government not only reported meager job growth for March, but also revised the already-anemic numbers for the preceding two months-downward. While economists debated whether the numbers were accurate, many maintained that the methodology missed the thousands of new micro businesses being created by former employees turned entrepreneurs.... [Read More]
In the 1980's and 1990's, the use of multi-rater feedback blossomed in North American business, and the process acquired another name, 360-degree feedback. Jack Welch of General Electric endorsed the process and the name in the early 90's, giving it even wider popularity. Unfortunately, even though they share the name, not all 360-degree processes are created equal.... [Read More]
Since the first human threw his spear at a saber-toothed tiger becoming chief in recognition of his performance (or becoming dinner because he missed) we have been performing performance appraisals. According to Dulewicz (1989), we share a basic human tendency to make judgments about those one is working with, as well as about oneself. While the consequences of performance appraisals are rarely life-or-death in the working world, they can be severe, and the real potential for damage may be greater than the probability of positive outcomes.... [Read More]
Traditional hiring systems (application, interview, reference checks, selection) are notoriously ineffective in producing quality hires. Not as obvious is the amount of valuable time and productive energy that is wasted on outdated hiring systems. A recent survey of over 100 businesses recently produced enlightening results. Each new hire required interviewing between three and ten candidates, the number of interviews per candidate varied from one to four, and each interview required from one to four managers' participation.... [Read More]
If your business has hired several people who disappointed you by failing to live up to your expectations, you may have doubts about your hiring process. You are not alone. Many executives wonder the same thing. There is probably nothing wrong with your process other than it is incomplete.... [Read More]
Have you fully considered what happens when you lose an employee, particularly one who has been with you an extended period of time? A chunk of your business leaves with the ex-employee. Let me explain.... [Read More]
Therapists, and others who devote their work to effecting change, talk about two kinds of change: Prosthetic change, and therapeutic change. Prosthetic change is relatively easy to effect, and usually short-lived. It is exemplified by the sales force attending an inspirational sales seminar, and then breaking new records for sales... for a few weeks.... [Read More]
"Too much of a good thing is bad for you" is true for both "sweets" and for interviews. I was at Agilent Technologies the other day when one of their many talented HR reps described "over interviewing" with the accurate and humorous phrase "death by interview." I laughed and I couldn't have agreed more! Because of the threats of lawsuits, HR departments have become increasingly conservative in how they screen candidates.... [Read More]
When using job match assessments to improve the selection and promotion process, success may depend largely upon how top performers are identified. Since the process is designed to help a business select candidates who share the job-related characteristics of top performers, misidentification of those characteristics by misidentifying members of that group can lead to poor results and selection of candidates who do not perform well. Ask a manager who his or her top performers are and you will usually get a quick answer. Ask for the basis of that selection, however, and you may be surprised how fuzzy or imprecise the criteria are. It is not unusual to discover that managers have no measurable, repeatable criteria for identifying this most important group of employees! [Read More]
The focus of this case study is a gaming operation owned and operated by a Native American Tribe. The operation includes a large casino with restaurant and entertainment venues, a substantial hotel and an adjacent RV park and has expectations of future growth. Located on a major Interstate Highway, the development is in a rural environment with a very limited employment pool. For years, the area's economy rested on the timber, mill, and mining industries; the collapse of those industries resulted in out migration and further shrinking of the population of available workers. The challenge for the HR team includes recruiting an adequate supply of workers and finding workers with the qualities required to succeed in the 24-hour, seven-day-week environment of gaming. In addition, integrity of workers is essential in a cash-rich environment.... [Read More]
A recent press release from the Institute for the Future of Aging Services (IFAS) points out the impact of turnover on long-term care providers in the U.S. Based on conservative estimates of 45 percent turnover and $3,500 per hire, the annual nationwide cost of high staff turnover in this industry is nearly $4.1 billion! The price tag of high staff turnover among nursing and home health aides is starkly presented in a new Better Jobs Better Care practice and policy report, "The Cost of Frontline Turnover in Long-Term Care." The report, authored by labor economist Dorie Seavey, highlights how increased retention in long-term care can reduce costs and improve quality.... [Read More]
The subject of this case study was a credit union for the first 17 years of its existence. It became a federally chartered bank about five years ago. The bank operates in one of the nation's most competitive banking markets and has been recognized as being well-managed with a strong asset base. In the early years of the new century, the bank's success led it to open new branches. By the end of 2002, it had doubled its employee count. In this process, the bank hired at virtually every level, from vice president to teller. To compete as a bank, management endeavored to hire in a different model from what was described as a credit union mentality, looking for new hires who were more driven by sales success and profit than by the warmer and less competitive values of their old organization. Near the end of 2003, the bank reviewed its successes and failures in making these changes. The review revealed a rash of job failures toward the end of 2003, concentrated in the employees who had been new hires during their expansion. Examining the failures, the bank identified three major contributing causes, in order of declining frequency: [Read More] |
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