Isn’t it strange that even with an unemployment rate of nine percent, people still feel uncomfortable saying that they are looking for work? It seems to me that people hesitate sharing this information because they think the only way to tell someone they are looking for new employment is to use words and phrases like, unemployed, seeking a new position, and between jobs which have negative connotations. So, often times the approach is to say nothing… but as a recruiter, I can’t help but argue the exact opposite.

Admitting that you’re looking for new employment doesn’t make you any less desirable than everyone else in the job market, especially  if you know what to say, how to say it, and who to say it to. 

Each of us has countless interactions every day with a wide variety of people. We talk to family, friends, neighbors, the Starbucks barista, the owner of the local dry cleaners – the list goes on and on. But what people forget is that any one of these interactions could result in their next career opportunity. Rather than keep quiet, you should tell anyone and everyone who is willing to listen you’re looking for a new job. You never know, your neighbor might work at a company that is looking to hire someone with your exact skill set, or a family friend may have a great contact for you to interview with. The key here is to get out and talk about it; explain to people your current situation! 

Now, I’m not telling you to go shout it from the rooftop and sit back waiting for job offers to flood your way – you’ve got to think strategically.  Simply telling people that you’re looking for work isn’t enough.  Here are a few tips to help you get started thinking about what to say and how to say it:  

• Be straight forward
• Be specific
• Be Authentic
• Never Assume
• Focus on the positive
• Ask for advice, not a job

Now that you have a better idea of what to say and how to say it, who do you tell? I recently read an article stating that 60 percent of all new hires come from referrals and a recent study conducted by Facebook and researchers at an Italian university found that 92 percent of Facebook’s users are connected by four degrees of separation. So, that means that at any given time you are only three friends away from connecting to the hiring manager at your next job! With statistics like that, what are you waiting for?  

Social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn provide a superb platform for referrals because you can easily keep people in your network up to speed on your current job situation. It is vital to utilize as many of these tools as possible to further your ultimate goal of securing a new position. Additionally, more and more recruiters are using the same tools to seek out new talent.  For them, it’s a cost effective and efficient way to secure candidates and for you it’s a simple change to your profile that will undoubtedly increase your odds of finding you next job.  

So, what are you waiting for? You know what to say, how to it, and who to say it to – tell someone! 

Donal O’Donoghue is an account manager at entreQuest who specializes in expanding work forces by finding the best talent with the ideal personalities to place in a wide range of positions across all types of industries.



Over the past few months, I have encountered several job candidates whose resumes revealed a past position which they had only held for a mere matter of months.  For the most part, all of these candidates had stellar work history before and after this particular position so it struck me as very odd.  I know there are two sides to every story but after conducting interviews with each of these candidates, there seemed to be one common thread to their tales.

Each person had been set up to fail in their respective role.  Now obviously this was not a conscious decision by their employers.  No one sets out to fail but as a direct result of the employer’s actions, failure was the end result.

So what happened, you ask?

All of the managers had done their due diligence when it came to their hiring process.  There were several interviews conducted between the important decision makers in the company and the candidates.  All references were followed-up and proved excellent.  The offer was extended and then accepted so naturally corporate confidence soared as everyone felt they had done their part to make recruiting a success. 

But within a few months, each one of these teams was back on the search for a replacement.

The reason that this happened was clear in all situations.  Nobody at the organization took the time to explain the company’s expectations for the new employee and more importantly, training was either inadequate or nonexistent!

It is essential for every new person to get a comprehensive orientation and training program.  No matter what skills and prior experience a candidate brings to a job, every company has their own way of doing things.  It is completely unfair to assume that a new employee will automatically know what these idiosyncrasies are.  To quote Benjamin Franklin: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

While training is vital for all new employees, it is equally important to put down in writing your expectations for the employee.  If a salesperson should have sold $20,000 in the first 3 months and they did not hit this goal, you will need to have a candid conversation.  This chat will be very different depending on what was said at the start of employment.  If you did not explain to the employee that this was a requirement, it is almost impossible to hold the person accountable for not hitting the goal.

While it may seem like common sense, many companies fail to do these best practices when onboarding new talent:

1. Have a complete orientation packet in place for all new employees.
2. Give a complete job description to all new hires.
3. Ensure that there is a comprehensive training program in place for every position.
4. Have each manager sit down and clearly explain the job expectations to the new member of the team (this could include check points at 90 days, 6 months, and a year to keep everyone on the same page).
5. Provide adequate support to all staff members to help them become as productive as possible.
6. Be frank and open in all communications so that expectations are not misconstrued.

While it may take some time to initially get organized, the long-term results will fully outweigh the short-term inconveniences of putting a plan together.  For example, if it takes 2 months to source a new employee, another month to complete the hiring and onboarding process, and they then fail after 6 months due to lack of training, what is the net result?  You have just lost 9 months of time, energy, and effort.  Not to mention the cost of having to repeat the process all over.  However if all this could have been avoided by two weeks of training and a clear explanation of expectations at the start of new hire’s job, which would you rather choose?

Muhammad Ali put it best:  “The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”

We here at entreQuest work daily behind the lines with our client companies to make sure that everyone on their team has the best chance in their dance.  But whether you take up our assistance with your recruiting process or initiate improvements on your own, don’t neglect incorporating the six best practices listed above into your job placement process.  Make sure that your new hires are set up to win every time.   

Donal O’Donoghue is an account manager at entreQuest who specializes in expanding work forces by finding the best talent with the ideal personalities to place in a wide range of positions across all types of industries.

No two people are alike so it makes sense that no two candidates are the same either.

Years of hiring for companies and hundreds of interviews with candidates have certainly ground this law of human nature into our heads here at entreQuest.  Of course we wouldn’t want it any other way.  Not only have we been lucky to meet so many qualified individuals with truly unique attributes, passions, backgrounds, and skill sets but we’ve been able to place many of them in positions with our partner companies.

Before anyone can get a membership to our pool of talent though, their resume has to catch our attention.  One question that our recruiting team hears time and time again is how does one stand out in the stack?

If you have a connection, use it!  If you can get a referral, do it!  But even without networking, you can still rise to the top.  You just have to apply yourself while applying.

Here’s an example of what we mean.  We were recently contacted through our website by a young woman who graduated college two years ago and was looking for a job.  Our recruiting team doesn’t receive the emails that go through our web contact form so this hopeful was already at a disadvantage having to get through the gatekeeper first before making it to the hiring desk. 

She made it though.  In fact, she made it all the way to the desk of our President!

How?  Because she had spunk.  Not the perky kind common among cheerleaders but that sophisticated energy that intrigues through natural enthusiasm and sharp presentation. 

In her first two sentences, she managed to clearly state her purpose of contacting us AND demonstrate that she had done some serious research on our company AND make a witty joke.  We couldn’t help but feel flattered by her sincerity and be enticed by her effort so we immediately reviewed her resume.  Subsequently she was brought in for an interview.

With the job market as competitive as it has ever been, it’s not enough for unique, qualified candidates to just apply.  You have to find a way to uniquely apply your qualifications.  This doesn’t mean cracking jokes for the heck of it or submitting applications to every email address you can find on a company’s website.  It does mean though that you’ll have to use the best of your abilities before the interviewing even begins. 

After all, they don’t say finding a job is a job in itself for nothing, now do they?!

Misti Aaronson is the Vice President of Operations at entreQuest and has spent years leading its recruiting division to make successful matches between client companies and candidates.

The Small Business Optimism Index recently rose to its highest level since December of 2007.  This survey finding by the National Federation of Independent Businesses revealed that small business owners are more confident they’ll experience an increase in sales over the next few months.

Interestingly this same Baltimore Business Journal article that reported the above ray of light also cast a shadow of doubt stating that only 3% of small business owners plan on increasing their workforce in the next three months.

So what does this tell a sales growth consulting company like entreQuest?  That small businesses are on the cusp of confidence but they need reassurance before taking action and reinvesting their capital into hiring the right people again.

This type of behavior is not surprising at all with the current state of the economy.  In fact, the optimistic but cautious attitude of most small business owners is completely appropriate.   That said, if your self-assurance is stepping up, why are you sitting still?

There is a better exit strategy from the recession than remaining in a hiring freeze especially when conditions are warming up for a brighter business outlook.  What is it?  Well that depends on the nature of your particular business and the mission of your particular company.  One theme runs central, however, and that is that if no business can be too big to fail than no business can be too small to succeed.

entreQuest knows this to be a fact because we just spent the entire recession watching our client companies grow.  They were hiring while most businesses were firing.  They were ramping up their strategies while most businesses were shutting down part s of their operations.  They were up-selling their offerings while most businesses were downsizing their divisions.

As an outside source of corporate growth solutions, entreQuest can assess every aspect of your organization and determine the best strategy for your team to act on your intuition and actually increase sales in the next few months.  Maybe hiring is the right move to make now, maybe it’s not.  Maybe outsourcing your sales management roles is a better course to take now, maybe it’s not.  Maybe your company’s story is the best piece to create now, maybe it’s not.

Whatever we may discover alongside you and your team about the present state of your organization and its future potential for growth, you’ll have the confidence to do more than just hope and wait.  Like our current partners, your optimism will turn into action which will turn into growth over the next three months and long after that.

Kristen Zatina is a writing specialist at entreQuest who scours worldwide business news for corporate inspiration.

(Information Source: “Feeling Optimistic?  Many Small Businesses Say They are in 2001″ by Kent Hoover.  Baltimore Business Journal.  Friday 11 February 2011.)

Around the world, the costs of commodities are coming up strong.

Really strong.  Gold and copper are at record prices.  Oil is at a two-year high.  Cotton has increased 22% already this year (and that’s after a 92% surge in 2010!).  Dehydrated garlic power prices have tripled, black pepper doubled.  Sugar, coal, wheat and cocoa – up and up they go and go.

Scrambling to act before prices increase even more, big banks are getting in on the profitable trade , mills are buying up contracts, factories are stockpiling materials.  Inflation fears have businesses mounting their inventories at such a rate, they might as well star in the next episode of that reality TV show about hoarders.

Raw materials aren’t the only commodities businesses should be concerned with nabbing up as prices continue to skyrocket though.  The time is also ripe for taking advantage of talent.

Simplistically speaking, the laws of supply and demand are just as applicable to the job market as they are to the commodity trade. Our economy’s current high unemployment rate translates to a bigger pool of educated, skilled, and personable people available for work in professional positions.  With less demand for hiring from business leaders weary of their own financial futures, salary rates have become more negotiable.  In many instances, top talent has become willing to take dramatic pay cuts for job security with a reputable employer.

As reported today, top economists predict that the unemployment rate will remain above 9% in 2011.  In time however, the economy will bounce back, unemployment will fall, and first-rate professionals will become more scarce.  Hence why we have to wonder, in applying free market principles towards the commodity of human resources, why aren’t businesses that can afford it stockpiling staff members?  Investing in their intellectual inventories?  Taking advantage of top talent?  Hoarding humans who are hungry for work?

At the same time, why isn’t every job opening that’s posted being immediately filled with the ablest of applicants, the best of businesspeople, the premium of professionals?  In commodity jargon, there is an abundance of precious metal out there.  For employers, why not seize this opportunity as the perfect time to set a new gold standard for your staffing needs?!

And for the unemployed too – why not put your worth to work as the valuable commodity that you are?!  Consulting companies that provide recruiting services for their clients have a variety of prime positions available even in these times of high unemployment.  Here at entreQuest, we’re scouting for superior talent in the areas of executive leadership, management, sales, and support across a variety of industries.  If you yourself are looking for a job, and you prize your value in energy, enthusiasm, experience, and earning-potential, we would love to consider you for placement.  If you know of someone looking for a job who possesses the aforementioned qualities, we welcome all candidate referrals.  Our current career opportunities can be viewed at this link:  http://www.entrequest.com/careers/.  

eQ makes its matches based on the best of supply and the best of demand.  Right now this country is on the cusp of an economic climax where a high unemployment rate has top talent available for work and where an optimistic outlook is beckoning businesses to restore their staffs.  There’s no better time to capitalize on this commodity market – before the cream of the crop candidates become as scarce as the cream of other commodity crops.

Kristen Zatina is a writing specialist at entreQuest who scours worldwide business news for corporate inspiration.

(Information Sources:

” Ashworth Tops Economy Survey” by Justin Lahart.  The Wall Street Journal.  Monday 7 February 2011.

“Fearing Inflation, Firms Stocking Up” by Liam Pleven and Matt Wirz.  The Wall Street Journal.  Thursday 3 February 2011.

“Deutsche Bank Wants to Join the Commodities Boom” by Laura Stevens and William Launder.  The Wall Street Journal.  Friday 4 February 2011.

“A Cotton Market Targets Speculators” by Carolyn Cui and Leslie Josephs. The Wall Street Journal.  Friday 4 February 2011.

“Pricey Cocoa Won’t Bar Hershey Profit” by John Jannarone.  The Wall Street Journal.  Friday 4 February 2011.

“Bernanke Denies That Fed Is Stoking Inflation” by Sudeep Reddy and Brian Blackstone.  The Wall Street Journal.  Friday 4 February 2011.

“Coal Port Takes Its Lumps” by Joel Millman and Kris Maher.  The Wall Street Journal.  Friday 4 February 2011.)

Studies show that sales people on average stay at their jobs for approximately 21 months.

Studies also say that if you hire 10 sales people, it is likely 6 will be gone in the first 12 months.

So how do you mitigate your downside risk?

Selections Tests: YES (Predictive Index, Myers Briggs)

Better Interviewing: YES (See below)

One of the most common “asks” for help we get at entreQuest is what do you ask in an interview.  What are the questions?  What do you look for?  How do you know?

These are all GREAT questions with unfortunately not easy answers.  Leaving out what are the attributes of the best sales people and selection testing, below is a simple list of questions we have seen work pretty well.

1. What should we expect of you in your new role?

2. Tell me about a failure and what you learned from it.

3. What motivates you? How do you motivate yourself?

4. What do you feel are the appropriate steps to selling something?

5. Do you read? What was the last book you read? Why did you select it? What did you learn and apply from that reading?

6. Have you ever been given any formalized training? Attended seminars?

7. What would be most important to you about your new working environment? What type of support would you need?

8. What recommendations would you give us to best work with you in supporting you to do and be your best?

9. Tell me about a time when you received constructive feedback, and then made changes as a result?

I am POSITIVE there are more… in fact, please share your favorite interview questions and stories.

The SOURCE for Sales Growth,

Joe

The 28 variables of Sales Growth:

1)     Sales Strategy

2)     Customer Gradation

3)     Account Planning

4)     Client Experience Defined

5)     Strategic Account Planning

6)     Lead Generation Program

7)     Sales Talent

8)     Sales Productivity

9)     Hiring

10)   Sales Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

11)   Sales Management

12)   Training

13)   Self-Directed

14)   Sales Structure

15)   Sales Process

16)   CRM

17)   Accountability

18)   Business Metrics

19)   Compensation Plan

20)   Communication Schedule

21)   Reporting

22)   Environment

23)   Culture

24)   Career Path

25)   Communication

26)   Morale

27)   Teaming

28)   Trust Quotient (TQ)

More later on what to do with them… but one question: are you YOUR best with them all yet?

Joe