Additional Tools and Resources for a Job Search
Every day I meet with talented sales professionals who ask me what other resources should I be utilizing in supplementing my job search?
If I were to start a job search tomorrow I would use two major websites - linkedin.com & jigsaw.com
There are a handful of social networking websites on the net but Linkedin will give you the most leverage in a professional setting. As sales professionals we all know that networking is the most important trait we have in building a pipeline and closing business. This couldn’t be more similar in your job search. Beyond the ability to network and build connections, you have access to hundreds of thousands of blogs. Start reading and start commenting on blogs. Start building relationships with these sales professionals by commenting on their blogs. Typically, if you frequently comment on blogs your name becomes highly recognized by the blogger and the organization that publishes it. You can build credibility by making frequent and topical comments regarding their posts. Why should you do this? People buy from people they like, they also hire people they like. Find a VP of Sales, a Director, a manager who works for a company that you have interest in and start building relationships by contributing to their blogs.
Joining LinkedIn and commenting on blogs are great starting points but how do you take your conversations to the next level? Well there is a wonderful sales tool called jigsaw that is an online business card networking site that has over 12.8 million contacts online. You can use their service in two different ways: you can purchase the contacts on a per-card basis or you can add to the community and receive free points. Think of it as a “put in”/”take out” system. You can access direct contact information and then pick up the phone and call the decision maker.
Too many people think the start to a job search starts with HR and submitting your resume online. If you break your job search down and compare it to the sales process you will realize that the hiring manager, director, or VP has the actual pain. They have an open seat or an underperforming rep that is holding the team from their goals and ultimately the commissions or over rides. Pick up the phone and start pitching your background. None knows your story better than you do, right?
Happy Internetting….
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How to maintain a Work/Life balance as a sales professional
Well, how do you do it? As a sales professional, we understand that “9-5″ job does not really exist. Think about it, sales people are always on cal and always working! So how do you balance your professional life from your personal life?
I have been in sales for the past 6 years and I found myself going in early, leaving late and checking work emails from my Blackberry when normal humans are sleeping. I can’t put my finger on why I’m always working, but I believe that it has to do with the passion, the drive and the willingness it takes to become better at your sales career. I have been in the staffing industry for the past 5 years and in order to be a successful recruiter, you constantly need to network. I constantly find myself talking about my job, whether it be in or out of the office. The first year on the job, I found myself constantly talking to friends, colleagues and acquaintances about business. Whether I was at a small gathering of friends or at a night out on the town, I found myself taking notes on potential clients I could call on or people I could do business with. I was so caught up in work that I had noticed a strain on my relationships with friends and family, not to mention the extreme fatigue from all the long hours. So I took a serious look at my life and started working on a better work/life balance. How did I do it?
First thing that I do now is get prepared. I want to maximize my time during office hours, so being organized and having a plan of attack is a good recipe for getting things done. Typically, I prepare the night before in order to gain a clear perspective of what I need to accomplish the next day. Creating a daily “To Do List” is a great way to organize your tasks and prioritize them by importance. Writing things down keeps me in line and of course ensures that nothing falls through the cracks.
After I start to dig into my day, it is also important to not get distracted by things that are going to waste your time. It’s incredibly easy to get distracted at work. You find yourself chatting with colleagues about irrelevant topics, checking Facebook or MySpace, or browsing your favorite websites. It’s a huge waste of time and then the next thing you know it’s 4:30 and you have nothing accomplished. Sometimes, you have to step away from your desk and take a “mental moment” and it may be better for production to take a deep breath or a quick walk outside to refresh yourself, but make sure you complete the tasks that you’ve outlined on your “To Do List”. At the end of the day when you ask yourself “Did I do everything that I needed to do today!?”, the answer should always be “yes.”
The reason that you want to push yourself so hard during the day is so you can literally leave your work at the office and take time to enjoy your own personal time. For instance, have you found yourself skipping out on things that you typically do after work such as dinner with friends, sports league, working out, taking time to spend with your significant other or spending time with your children? Is work your #1 priority or life outside of work? For every sales professional it should be both. Personally, I need one to satisfy the other. Eliminating the activities I do for myself could lead to mistakes in the office or the detrimental feeling of being burnt out. Work hard and work smart, but don’t forget to enjoy yourself and do things that make you happy! This will certainly fuel your fire! Remember: All work and no play makes sales professionals dull boys and girls!
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Great balls of FIRE!!
About a month ago there was a whole big bowl of Fireballs on our kitchen table in the office. I never really liked Fireballs for the simple fact that they burned my mouth. I also could never figure out why so many people liked them. So, I decided to have one Fireball every day until I could figure out what people like about them and I can tell you, it was certainly not the HOT feeling I got when I first put the Fireball in my mouth. To be honest, the first couple times I ate one, I could not finish it. I really did not like the burning sensation that it gave me.
After about 10 days of spitting theses things out I finally had enough guts to keep one in my month the entire time, until it was gone. To my surprise, I enjoyed the center of the Fireball. The next day I was more excited about the Fireball. I started to think about the sugary center of the candy and not think about the “hot shell” the encases it. After about 20 days eating Fireballs I found myself growing akin to them and actually looked forward to not only having one, but eating about two a day.
The thing that I realized about eating the Fireballs is that it is a lot like sales. NOBODY likes to cold call or the heavy lifting of any job. But, EVERYBODY loves the sugary center or the closing of a deal. Now, after eating the Fireballs for a month I understand that it is not the HOT feeling that people enjoy but it is the sweet center. In life or the working world it is the same thick shell with a sweet center! The thicker the shell, the sweeter the center and that is what we are all after. So remember, every day when you wake up, you too will have a “hot shell” to go through before you get to your “sweet center”. Some days the shell will be thicker than others but there will always be a sweet center.
As a reminder, I now brush my teeth with a cinnamon tooth paste to make sure I never forget that I that I need to get through the “thick shell” before I enjoy the “sweet center.” Plus, I will get fewer cavities.
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Age Bias: Has it affected your search?
As an executive search firm we often hear from many individuals about different challenges they find in the job market. All candidates struggle through a job search. It is never easy and is always an emotional roller coaster ride. There are many highs and lows in the search. We ride that roller coaster with each of our candidates and offer as much support as possible. In today’s market hiring companies are picker than ever. In some cases this has caused challenges based on experience.
I was recently asked if I would comment about the challenges of finding a senior sales position for those in their 50’s and if age issues factor into the process.
This is a tough question to answer so first let me share what I know from www.GO60.com:
- There are over 16 million Americans over 55 who are either working or seeking work.
- Older workers are getting new jobs at an annual rate of 4.1 percent. This is more than double the .8 percent rate in the general population.
- Older Americans make up 10 percent of the workforce, but account for 22 percent of the nation’s job growth.
- By 2015, the number of employees over 55 will reach a record 31.9 million, compared to 18.4 million in 2000.
- Extensive research has found no relationship between age and job performance.
I think these stats are very positive. I also think there is a lot of anxiety when conducting a job search and there are many worries. Worries that you have too much experience, too little experience, too many jobs, not enough jobs, made too much money, made too little money, etc. The list goes on and on. We have no control over what the hiring authority is thinking and it is impossible to try to predict the final candidate that they will hire. Internalizing these fears is a distraction so no matter what happens during an interview process; do not let it affect your positive attitude. Let’s face it, hiring companies will always have concerns, even if you are the perfect person for the job. Not only are they trying to figure out why you are the right fit, they are also trying to figure out why you are not the right fit.
At this point in time, candidates are flooding the marketplace and hiring companies have the luxury of choosing their candidate from the pick of the litter. Interviewing and finding a job is not easy and never has been. You need to out-sell the competition and convince the hiring company that you are the perfect fit despite the numbers of other candidates they have seen. Try to focus on all the reasons why a company should hire you and not why you think they should not. Don’t fall into a negative belief system; it will have no positive effect on your job search. If you fall down, pick yourself back up and get back out there. At the end of the day, the only aspect of your job search that you have absolute control over is your attitude – what kind of attitude would you hire?
If you read this blog I would recommend Taking Charge of your Career. http://blog.treeline-inc.com/blog/?Tag=Take+Charge
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Job Search: Are you being realistic?
How long have you been out of work? How is the job search going? Any interested companies? How many interviews have you been on? How far have you gotten in the process? Any offers?
Take a look at these questions and answer them honestly. What do you think of the answers? If the answer to the first question is over 3 months and the answer to the last question is zero then it is time for you to reassess your search.
This blog is not going to give you advice on your search but is more of an exercise to see if you are being realistic in this unique job market. It is imperative for all job seekers to know that this job market is not like any market that we have seen before. More importantly, it is not the same market as the last time you may have looked for a job. Companies are being more and more selective about whom they hire and if you are not positioning yourself as a dead hit to the role they are looking to fill then you are positioning yourself as a risk to a company. The days of leveraging ‘intangibles’ are gone and now it is all about painting yourself in the right light for each opportunity that you are going after.
What is your background? Who have you sold to? What have you sold? How big was your quota? What was your base salary and total earnings for the past 3 years? Answer these questions and compare them to the roles that you have already interviewed for – are they in line with each other? If not, time to reassess the search and start going for roles that are a little closer to your background. If your search is in line with your background and you are still not seeing traction, then you need to reevaluate how you are pitching yourself to companies.
In order to conduct a thorough job search in this market you must stick with what you know. Identify what type of sales professional you are and when you are looking at opportunities, create a pitch as to how you would sell yourself to a hiring manager. Be realistic, get your foot in the door and take interviews for roles that you feel confident in. Once you are in a company, you can climb the ranks from there – just give yourself an opportunity to get on the ladder. This does not mean that you should be undershooting for roles but instead, be realistic in your search and you will start getting some offers. Open your mind to a plethora of opportunities and your success rate will rise.
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Taking charge of your career in a pension-less world
It is not unusual to open the newspaper and read about another company whose employee pensions are in jeopardy. Over time, benefits like these have started to disappear – but so has the loyal employee who puts in 30 years of service with a single employer. From baby boomers to GenXers on down the line, we’re changing jobs more frequently than ever before. In fact, many of us will work for 8-10 companies or more in our lifetimes. So in a job market permeated by change and uncertainty, how can we find career security?
Fear not, career security still exists, although not in its traditional form. In today’s job market, security comes through experience and knowledge, not through any one corporation or organization. The knowledge you have accumulated since entering the workforce is what will propel you forward in your career. If, in your current situation, you are not learning new skill sets, increasing your income, or advancing your career, you may be losing precious time.
The first thing to realize is that regardless of the level of success you have achieved, job security is never guaranteed. Successful organizations protect their interests and those of their stockholders. They devise complex strategic plans that lay out specific goals and objectives that act as a roadmap for the future. They have a plan; so should you.
The key to designing your own career plan is to view yourself as a business – and you’ve just been appointed CEO. Before you begin to develop your own personalized blueprint for the future, you need to ask yourself some basic questions: am I growing intellectually? Am I meeting my revenue projections i.e. salary goals? What are my greatest assets and skill sets? Where do I add value?
Only you can accurately assess your professional development to this point. Though it may be daunting, a critical part of your new job description as chief executive officer is to take an honest look at yourself and inventory your professional strengths and weaknesses. This personal analysis will help you determine your future career viability.
The next step in achieving career security is to educate yourself about your industry. You can certainly do this yourself; the web is an undeniably convenient tool. Another option is to align yourself with a professional who can help you understand the latest market trends, identify key industry players, and pinpoint opportunities that will help grow your career.
A common misconception is that people initiate a job search only when they are dissatisfied with their current situations. But this isn’t always so. According to U.S. Labor Bureau statistics, 30-35% of the workforce is job hunting at any given time. On average, 20-25% of all U.S. workers change jobs each year. Even if you are relatively content in your present role, it may be an optimal time to make a change.
The best time to be looking for a job is when you’re at the top of your game. It is when you’re most productive and successful that you maximize your marketability. Coming from this position of strength, you can leverage your track record to negotiate the best salary or career opportunity. Alternatively, waiting until you are unhappy to explore new prospects can be time consuming (the average job search takes 3.8 months) and can result in hasty decisions that are fueled by emotion instead of logic. When emotions drive business decisions the likelihood of making poor choices increases.
Finally, know your professional worth. Interviewing with different companies can serve as an effective barometer for your career search. If you come to discover that your market value and potential is greater than it is in your current situation, you have greater impetus to make a change.
In today’s rapidly evolving job market, anything can happen. Achieving security – financial or otherwise – requires us to run our careers like we would a business. Chances are, at some point in your career, whether you realized it or not, marketing was part of your job description. Now, as CEO, you’re about to embark on the most important marketing mission of your professional life: promoting yourself. So take charge. Be empowered. Align yourself with resources that will help you remain educated. By doing so, you will significantly reduce the risks inherent to living in this pension-less world.
Dan Fantasia is the president and founder of Wakefield-based Treeline, Inc., one of the area’s fastest growing executive search firms. Treeline specializes in the recruitment of sales professionals for the medical, technology, business to business, and financial industries. For more information about Treeline, Inc. visit http://www.treeline-inc.com/.
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Sales Book of the Month: The Perfect SaleForce
Every month here at Treeline we read a book about Selling. This month we read, The Perfect SalesForce by Derek Gatehouse.
Although Gatehouse could of thought of a more suiting name, because clearly he knows that there is no “perfect” sales force, his book didn’t do what I hate so much about other books. It did not suggest some sort of complex selling formula that is going to completely change my sales results after 30 days of practice. In fact, Gatehouse argues the opposite that you can’t actually teach salespeople to sell much more than they currently do.” He argues that sales are about the people, not the exact process they use to sell, but their personalities and the subtitles in their styles.
Gatehouse interviewed more than two thousand executives and tested thousands of sales professionals, managers, and experts. He also took time to test almost every personality assessment tool, sales process, management system and training system. In the end, he said they are all a waste.
Instead, Gatehouse feels the best sales teams share six simple practices. They all:
- Hire for talent exclusively, not experience or specific skill sets
- Divide the different stages of the sale and have the right salesperson handling the stage(s) they are best at
- When hiring, understand the exact talents required for their specific type of sale
- Train, but not on specific processes, rather on just overall successful selling practices.
- Measure results not micromanaging processes.
- Blend positive and negative motivators.
I liked this book a lot… Sales are about people: people connecting and building relationships. I go back to the title: The Perfect Salesforce, because even the super-stars on your team – think of them….they are far from perfect. But they have the RIGHT TALENTS for that specific sale. This book is genius and I can’t believe I haven’t read something like it before. It is genius in its simplicity. A great read…..
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The new #1 quality to look for in a sales professional
As a sales manager looking to build a team, you always try to define the major characteristics that you need in a candidate to have them be successful with your team. Typically speaking, if someone were to ask you what the #1 quality you would look for in a sales professional you would most likely say one of the following: confident, positive, ambitious, hungry, smart, articulate, well educated, passionate, money motivated, a go-getter mentality, etc, etc…
I, on the other hand, believe that these are all essential and well needed characteristics for any career especially in this marketplace.
I believe that the #1 quality to look for in a sales professional is someone who can deal with change. I describe that as someone who has the ability to put the blinders on and power through what ever happens. In this marketplace it is essential to be able to cope with restructuring, new compensation plans, territories, teams, leaders, and possibly new business models.
As we come up on the 18th month of the “Great Recession,” all the previous characteristics that were desired are considered standard. Without the ability to deal with change you will become extinct and a victim of capitalism as we know it. I saw an advertisement in the Wall St. Journal last month. It was a full page picture of Charles Darwin with the phrase “Meet the New Boss.” This is truly a “survival of the fittest” economy.
The training or the sales classes you have put your team through are now old and obsolete. The typical numbers for success no longer apply. For example, if a year ago your metrics said that your sales representatives needed to make 100 dials to get 10 appointments to close 1 deal, then you should expect that now they have to double or triple the number of calls to find success. As you are talking to prospective members of your team, you should consider how well they can adapt to a market that is constantly changing. Consider what you are doing different now than you did a year ago. Can this person adapt to a constantly changing world? How will they adapt when you ask them to change their prospecting methods? Every sales professional still needs to be confident, articulate, ambitious, etc, but the real #1 characteristic you should be looking for is a candidates ability to change. This economy has paved a new landscape, therefore we need a new kind of sales professional.
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Transitioning Industries
Can a Top Sales Professional that only has experience selling online advertising transition to selling medical devices? With the economy in a current recession, many individuals find themselves re-evaluating their career path, but aren’t sure of their options especially if all there experience is selling in one specific industry.
When you’re evaluating your sales career and considering transitioning industries it’s especially important to organize your thoughts to organize your search. First analyze the quantifiable data of your position. What’s your average size deal? What’s your average sales cycle? Who’s your target market and who are the key decision makers? The answers to those three questions will help you to focus your job search and will also help you to ultimately sell yourself to a potential hiring manager in a different industry (look for our blog on interview skills 101).
The biggest concern I have when people speak to us about transitioning industries is that they sometimes think that a new industry is entirely different and what they need. Unfortunately sales is sales, whether you’re selling a medical device or advertising. You learn the product and then you sell and close deals. The major differences in a job description between industries or within the same industry are the 3 questions I mentioned above. The answers to those questions can define the role much better then the product you’re selling and help you to realize if you really want to transition industries.
For example, if you’re selling advertising and you want to get into medical device then recognize the change in your job description… Typically advertising sales reps have an average size deal of about $200 with an average sales cycle of about 1 week and their key decision makers are small to medium size business owners. In turn, a typical medical device sales job has an average deal in the thousands with a sales cycle that takes months and targeting doctors and Medical Officers.
Transitioning industries is incredibly difficult and I recommend taking more of a sniper approach to align yourself with an industry that’s somewhat comparable to your current industry. Evaluate your current position but don’t get caught up in the hype of an industry – you have to educate yourself on a product before you can effectively sell it. In this case, the product is you.
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Need a break? Take it!
Do you need a vacation? Have you been thinking about some taking time off? In stressful times, everyone needs a break. Agreed? Well how many of you are actually hesitant to request the time? With frequent company layoffs and downsizings some are concerned that taking time off may reflect poorly on their job commitment. However, what is worse: not taking time off and burning out, which ultimately may lead to low productivity or taking some time off to recharge your batteries to come back to work refreshed and ready to get back in the game? There are ways that you can take time without the guilt.
- Plan around the activity of your job. Depending on your job and industry there may be times of the month that are busier than others. Reassure your manager that there will be little to manage while you are away.
- Job share. Pick a buddy that you can rely on to share responsibilities while you are out. In return, you will do the same for them while they are out. This would create a win-win solution for both people.
- Remote Access. Most jobs these days can be done remotely. Let your manager and colleagues know that you will be out of the office but will check your email once or twice a day. This will allow you down time but still be accessible if questions arise.
So before you fade away, recharge the batteries and freshen up your career. Be responsible with your time off but be attuned to your needs.
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