HIRING
First…Sell Yourself JAKE RENI
You’d think sales professionals would shine in job interviews. After all, a job interview is the ultimate sales call – and nobody should know the product better than the seller.
After 15 years of interviewing sales- people, however, I can tell you that 95 percent of the candidates I talk to can’t sell themselves. Does that mean 95 percent of sales pros aren’t good at their jobs? I don’t believe that. So why am I wasting so much time on calls with candidates who have great resumes but can’t show me how they’re special when sitting on the other side of my desk?
I ask people what they do that’s dif-
ferent from their peers and they can’t tell me. I ask them why they think they outperform their peers and they can’t tell me. I ask them how they deal with failure and they can’t tell me. So what can they tell me? They tell me they won, but not why. They tell me how many hours they put into a win, but
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not what they did during those hours. The interview ends and I have no idea who I was talking to. Resume, meet trash can.
YOUR NUMBERS AREN’T YOUR WHOLE STORY
I get that you ran the marathon. So did a lot of other people. I’m more interested in the how than the what – how you dealt with a challenge, how you demonstrated grit throughout, how you came up with your secret sauce. I need to know what you learned that you’re going to bring into my organization so you and I can run 10 marathons together. If you can’t talk to me about your
process, I can’t tell if you’re really a winner or if you just got lucky. Maybe
that great success you had during the six months you spent at your last job wasn’t your success at all – maybe purchase orders jumped into your lap because the seller who had covered that territory before you did a fantas- tic job. So don’t expect a hiring man- ager to be impressed by your mara- thon unless you can describe every knee you skinned, how much it hurt, and what the bandage looked like.
EDUCATE YOURSELF SO YOU CAN EDUCATE YOUR INTER- VIEWER If you’re serious about getting an offer letter, you have to prepare like you’re responding to an RFP. That means showing numbers, explaining processes, knowing the customer, and building confidence.
1. Know your numbers. What are your monthly, quarterly, and annual attainments? If you can’t answer this question, you’re either hiding something or don’t care enough about your profes- sion to know. Either way, I’m not interested.
2. Know how to back into your quo-
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