Don't show initiative or you'll be eliminated?

[yellowsnow]

I think they are saying they won't hire people who won't follow instructions. They don't want you cluttering up their office, email, phone lines, etc.

[jwiley]

Originally Posted by sskink

Have you ever hired for outbound sales?

I have. Many times.

I can understand that perhaps they're completely process-driven, which is about the only way you end up with this kind of recruiting method. But in doing so, they'll likely be eliminating the best prospects, considering they're hiring for sales.

Thus they want passive people, who by that characteristic, are not best suited for sales.

I agree, either the ad was written by someone who does not understand sales people like HR or someone in management that has never dealt with sales people, or even worse the sales manager believes their systems and his training are enough to make someone a salesman. Problem is you are not going to take someone who is naturally passive and turn them into an aggressive salesman willing to do what it takes to make deals happen.

[Staggerlee666]

Interestingly I work in sales and I have gotten plenty interviews by taking initiative and calling. However, I have never had success with the HR department, only with the actual hiring manager. As a matter of fact, unless the hiring manager pushes for a certain candidate HR wouldn't even bother with you no matter how qualified and it may even backfire to contact them directly.

My guess is that they probably have advertised in the past and gotten burried by phone calls and e-mails from folks taking initiative. My question though is this - are they hiring a person or are they hiring their application? Who will actually do the job? A real human being or a piece of paper?

[rosie_hair]

My brother in law is a hiring manager at Caterpillar. Last time we visited them, he told me about a recent hire. 2 completely equal candidates. They could only bring in 1. They sat on it for 2 weeks. They were both told to wait for decision. One candidate sat quietly at home waiting for the word. The other called in every other day for two weeks. In the end, they hired the one who called in constantly. He told me they didn't tell him the reason he got hired instead of the other guy, but the decision ultimately came down to that.

[runswithscissors]

Originally Posted by rosie_hair

My brother in law is a hiring manager at Caterpillar. Last time we visited them, he told me about a recent hire. 2 completely equal candidates. They could only bring in 1. They sat on it for 2 weeks. They were both told to wait for decision. One candidate sat quietly at home waiting for the word. The other called in every other day for two weeks. In the end, they hired the one who called in constantly. He told me they didn't tell him the reason he got hired instead of the other guy, but the decision ultimately came down to that.

The difference here is, THESE candidates already had interviewed, correct? They had gone thorough the long tedious process from beginning to end and were waiting for the FINAL DECISION.

They weren't in the first stage of the process only sending in the "envelope" cold.

[arleigh]

I worked for a major prosthetic manufacturer making cardio stents.
The procedures for making the product are precise not flexible , and great deal of work and material gets trashed, due to one person not fallowing procedure.
That is one of the things that drive the price of the product up.
It's not just business , even on line dating relationships , people don't fallow instruction and make excuses or exceptions for them selves.
That hurts every one.
Secondly companies look at PR.
An employee that is caught doing something illegal out side work, is put under much more close examination by the business hoping to weed out LIABILITY .
Because Liability is a big issue , a persons habits often are reflected in their work as well.
A compulsive liar on the sales staff, is likely to be cheating both, the company and the client . Opening the door for the client to sue the company.
Fallowing company procedures keeps one off the hook.
If I have found discrepancies in the MPI, I bring them to the attention of the QC (Quality control ) and write a "red line" to make management aware of the problem .
I am still required to fallow the MPI procedures, till the MPI is actually changed . the law does not recognize my diversion no matter how noble it is , it recognizes the MPI as law (manufacturing as per patent).
FDA is pretty picky about that.
The reason many kids don't last on jobs is not fallowing instruction.
They didn't have to in school , nor do they are home,, now all of a sudden they are face with losing a job because they can't fallow instruction.
I visit a new Mc Donald's from time to time and you can tell a new kid is on the assembly table ,the hamburger is not centered on the bun , I'm not picky but half way on is pretty sloppy.
Unless these habits are addressed, and pride in ones work isn't being cultured, these kids no matter how much school they get, won't matter.

[MPowering1]

Does no one really understand that the very people they are looking for are the ones most likely to call them and try to sell themselves over the phone??????? And that they are trying to avoid getting those calls???

This isn't that complicated.

[L210]

Is there evidence that being really aggressive makes a better salesperson? From what I've seen, that's just an assumption.

The conventional view that extroverts make the finest salespeople is so accepted that we’ve overlooked one teensy flaw: There’s almost no evidence it’s actually true.

In Grant’s study, ambiverts earned average hourly revenues of $155, beating extroverts by a healthy 24 percent. In fact, the salespeople who did the best of all, earning an average of $208 per hour, had scores of 4.0, smack in the middle of the introversion-extroversion scale.

Why extroverts fail, introverts flounder and you probably succeed - The Washington Post

What was most interesting about that study is that extroverts only performed slightly better than introverts.