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No One Smokes in Church

Dec 17, 2020 2:17:37 PM

Heinz Chapel, Pittsburgh PAWhy Hiring Is Still a Challenge When There is Talent Available?

The pandemic is not necessarily a negative impact event, particularly if you are looking for quality sales talent to add to or upgrade your sales team. With many employers downsizing or “smart-sizing” during the Covid impacted economy, there are quality professionals looking for new places to go to work. Bad things happen to good people, and that is particularly true as we head into the new year as some people have been caught in circumstances beyond their control and find themselves suddenly unemployed. Now just might be the right time to start hiring, but it is not the right time to hire poorly and just add bodies to the roster.

The front half of the title of this post should remind hiring managers everywhere that anyone can be on their best behavior long enough to get through your interview. Even the most addicted smokers can put the butts down long enough to sit through church services and appear like all the non-smokers in the congregation. The same holds true when trying to pick the right candidate that gets into your hiring process. The least productive peddler can sound like a President’s Club member long enough to fool you into believing he or she will kill it out there.

With more quality to pick from comes the need for more discipline in making these decisions about who makes the grade and gets an offer to join your team. The old adage of “hire slow and fire fast” could not be more important, particularly on the hire slow side of the equation. The odds are finally back on the side of the potential employer after many years of picking from a very slim talent pool. Now, there are more people looking and you can take your time to do all the things to disqualify the pretenders to end up with someone that can prove all those awards in their resume are not fabrications. Slow down, there is another one in line that wants the job and will do the work you expect not just talk about doing it.

Follow these guidelines:

  • Write an ad that keeps all the duds from applying, do not sell the good stuff without noting the reasons why everyone is not a desired candidate
  • Employ the tools that utilize the science of selection best practices. Use an assessment that is based on selling rather than one based on style or personality. They will tell you how that person will attempt to sell, but not if they have the Desire, Commitment and Will to Sell. If you are ready to go with this, we can help you. 
  • I know it is hard but check references thoroughly. There are questions you can ask that do not break laws and expose the real experience a past employer had with this candidate. Call me for help on this.
  • Develop an interview that imitates the world you people work in. Do not sell the company because you love your company. Make this step like a tough sales call and watch how someone handles the pressure of selling themselves.
  • Ask for decisions and commitments because that is the role of a salesperson. They will ask your customers to do that so find out how they react when you ask them to do the same thing.

Do all of this with an abundance mentality. Some will, some won’t, so what, next!