How to Hire An Ex-Dot-Com - Brief Article

Publishers who saw their sales staffs depleted by the lure of the dot-coms are now facing a growing number of disenchanted employees anxious to return to print. But in the flood of applicants, how do you spot the true superstars?

With dot-coms laying off workers faster than Steinbrenner goes through managers, hiring sales people has suddenly shifted from Listening to insane salary/benefit/option demands to having to separate the wheat from the chaff. Given the vagaries of accountability in many dot-corn businesses, it is often difficult to gauge a sales person's prior performance. But it's not impossible. Here's how.

Listen to what they don't say. By now we all know not to hire people who trash their ex-bosses or companies. But if their dot-coins die, how do they describe the crash? Do they talk about the work they were doing right up to the end? Did they hang in there, or did they run at the first sign of trouble? If they are good ad sales people, they will talk about the deals they were pitching, clients they were seeing, ideas they had. Beware of, and run in the other direction from, the ones who say things like, "Because we faced early challenges of having no marketing, we couldn't sell."

Discover how are they known. Don't call their references--call their clients. Good sales people will be remembered by their clients, whether the clients bought from them or not. Pay attention to the way the clients talk about your candidates. If they were good sellers who worked for sites that failed, the clients will say things like, "I really liked him." Or, "I wish I could have bought from her. The property just didn't work for us, but she was great." If the sellers were bad, you'll hear about it--or, worse, you'll hear silence: "I don't know him," for example, or, the kiss of death, "He never called on me."

Ask for the acid test A presentation. If you really want to take the measure of a potential ad sales person, ask for a sales presentation. Someone who balks is either not a real sales-person and can't do it, or is already close to another offer and does not want to take the time, or feels above doing presentations or selling, or doesn't seriously want to work for your company.

Look for the go-getters. Real sellers talk about what it took to get in to see the senior vice president or the chief executive officer. They want to talk about the creative things they did to get those meetings. Ask them how many calls they go on in a week, and never hire someone who does not go out on meetings unless your phone just rings off the hook with orders and all you really need is an order taker.

Seek the idea people. If you suspect the job candidate you are interviewing really is an idea person who was unfortunately stuck in a toxic organization, you can quickly ferret out the truth by asking about his ideas and strategies. You'll get responses like, "I pitched a sponsorship of X. The client loved it, but we couldn't execute."

Consider the source. We have all read the headlines. We've all suffered the precipitous stock-price falls. We all know about the founders who are up on charges of sexual harassment, the sites that spent more on parties than they did on products, and so on. If the reps you are considering come from those organizations, you will need to listen very carefully to determine how good they were and if you want to hire them. If they sound nostalgic for the launch parties and think those were the good old days, take a pass. Ask the old, 1985-style interview question, "What was the best thing about your last job?" If the answer is the ice-cream Fridays, you have your answer.

Consider the source, part two. Along the same lines, if a reference says something terrible about the salesperson you are considering, make sure you know how reliable the reference is. The dot-coms were littered with hideously unprofessional managers, executives and founders. You may be talking to one.

Trust your instincts. If you are in doubt about a person, trust your gut. If you don't want to have dinner with him, you won't want him to work for you. If she won't do a presentation for you, she won't do one for clients, either. If he doesn't send a thankyou note or at least an e-mail, he won't send one to clients, either. So if she really doesn't want the job, don't offer it to her.

Separate the risk takers from the widow makers. Risk takers take chances--on a new product, on calling high, on a start-up, on a position that's over their heads, on a dream they really believe in or a cause they love. This is good. Widow makers jump for $5K more, go to a dot-corn to "join the gold rush," then leave because the going gets tough (or because they are about to get axed) and leave a mess behind them.

Ask job candidates what metrics they held themselves accountable to, or were held accountable to. Real sales people hold themselves to numbers--for example, making sure they go on 10 to 25 sales calls a week, or make 25 to 50 phone calls a day, or close one sale a week. Real sales managers know the metrics that work for their properties and demand them. A salesperson who can't site numbers probably has no discipline.

Catch their drift. Listen carefully. If a sales rep's conversation is peppered with the words of disempowerment, of irresponsibility, resignation and laziness, run in the other direction. Some tip-offs: "Management wouldn't let us ..." "We didn't have demos, so I couldn't sell..." "I had a bad account list ..." Real sales people make something of their lists; wanna be's make excuses.

Patricia Clark is a consultant who specializes in revenue growth. She has been vice president of sales, Talk City, and Eastern director of sales at GeoCities. She can be reached at pclark@condottfera.com

COPYRIGHT 2001 Copyright by Media Central Inc., A PRIMEDIA Company. All rights reserved.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group