Client Tips
Can you gain some interview tips from these core values?
I listened to Tony Hsieh, the founder of Zappos, talking about core values at his company, here are 5 of them:
•Deliver WOW Through Service
•Embrace and Drive Change
•Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
•Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
•Pursue Growth and Learning
At interview at Zappos they ask a couple of questions about each of these core values like:
How much do you like change out of 10?
Out of 10 how weird are you?
When did you last set aside time to learn something?
How lucky are you?
The company culture at Zappos is so good, that companies all over the world are trying to copy aspects of it. Is there something you can use at interview?
Hiring great Software Sales people and what to ask them at interview
Hire great sales people and live happily ever after! The Hollywood view of sales people is either:
Super slick manipulators who twist the will of their customers
OR
Threadbare losers driving 20 year old Datsun Cherrys and drifting through life.
The reality is that great sales people tend to work hard, deliver good results for their clients and employers, and importantly they actually care about being good at selling. So if you want to hire great sales people here are a few questions to ask them:
- How do you open a new relationship with a prospect and create an opportunity?
- What have you sold in the last 12 months in monetary terms?
- How many new deals have you done in the past year?
- Can you tell me about a sale that you lost and what you learnt from it?
- How many new clients do you see each month?
- Can you take me through how you would handle an initial enquiry / lead?
- What training or personal development have you undergone in the last 6 months? Any courses / seminars? Have you read any sales books? Any online training? Any industry training?
Try to get them to talk about what support they have in terms of lead generation, marketing and pre-sales.
Selling your company to a candidate at interview
In the current job market it is vital that you give a good impression of your company to candidates at the interview stage.
Try to sell the benefits and features of your company during the first 30 minutes of the interview. Give a brief overview of what you do, what sort of culture you have, the growth potential, how your finances look, the perks and benefits, and anything else that a candidate is likely to find enticing.
If you assume that every candidate has multiple interviews you are probably right, so, you are selling to them as much as they are selling to you.
You need to cover your history but you also need to address this key question in the candidate’s mind: “What is in it for me?”
So plan ahead and think about how the candidate will progress during the first 12 months of the job:
•What projects would they be involved in?
•What technologies would they work with – anything new to learn that would be attractive?
•What people will they work with and what will they learn from them?
•What clients do you have?
•What job roles are available now and in the future?
•What training courses would you send them on and / or finance?
It needs to be completely obvious to the candidate what they are going to get out of accepting a job with you.
Putting candidates at ease in an interview
Relaxing the candidate at interview
A great interview starts with relating to the individual and building rapport. Even experienced senior candidates can feel nervous at the beginning of an interview. So give the interviewee a chance to warm up with a few personal questions that anyone should have a good answer to; this will relax the candidate, humanise your interaction and maybe provide some interesting stories!
“How was your journey? Did you find us easily?”
“Where did you grow up?”
“What was the best thing about your time at school?”
“What do you enjoy most about your current role?”
“Who have you worked with in the past who has inspired you?”
“What has been the best job you ever had, or the best period within a job?”
Linked In Tip
When you get an in-mail through LinkedIn the person sending it has purchased that in-mail from LinkedIn, so it is a real message. So have a look at it, consider if it is relevant to you and consider a quick reply, rather than just ignoring it.
Selling your Company to candidates at interview
Part of the interview process is selling your company to your candidate; when you tell the company story you have to focus on the past, but you also need to talk about the future and what that means to the person being interviewed.
Here are some examples:
1.We expect this group to grow by 5 people next year, so if you join now you can expect opportunities to take on more responsibility
2.Joining this team you will get to work with the legend that is Jon, his naked passion for ERP software makes him an amazing tutor and your understanding of ERP will grow exponentially
3.Everyone undergoes formal certification, so you will get an industry recognised qualification that will be on your CV
4.The sales pipeline is looking good, which means bigger more challenging projects next year, so lots of interesting work for you to learn from and work through with your team
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