We’re recruiting – but I feelwe ought to be firing.

We're recruiting - but I feel we ought to be firing.

With the recession in full swing, companies are shedding staff or putting a freeze on recruitment.

Yet Backup Direct is still hiring.

It fills me with a mix of feelings: guilt (are we risking too much?), paranoia (what if things get worse - ‘cos only the paranoid survive), weakness (why aren't we being bolder?), and frustration (shouldn't someone be helping us - we add more value than some banks after all!). I could go on...

Backup Direct supports the small-medium business - and there are 2.5 million of them in the UK alone. Today we service two thousand - so there's some way to go before we run out of opportunity. Independent studies (IDC, Gartner, etc.) predict our particular sector will grow at 20-30% per year - and there's no reason to suggest Backup Direct cannot grow faster than this, as we have over the past six years.

Thus logic tells me to continue to invest (and recruit), but the media and emotions say hold-back and cut-back.

But logic should prevail, shouldn't it?  Can we afford to invest? Yes; we remain profitable, with strong positive cash flows and a strong cash-based balance sheet.

We need to continue to invest in new product innovation, brand development, service delivery and sales - just about every area in fact. Even if growth is dampened during the coming quarters - we need to ensure we have the products, processes, skills and systemic efficiency to capture the growth when the shackles are off.

So there you have it - we are hiring despite it all.

Finding new sales graduates

We are midst finding three new graduate sales staff to start in September. We have taken on graduates in the past and found it successful.  But with little work experience, finding the right ones is hard. Judging which will make great sales people is harder still.

Part of the logic behind taking a ‘batch' of three is the overhead required to train them and integrate them into the company. It takes the same effort for one as it does for three.  As for the graduates themselves, being one of three allows them to feel more secure and comfortable as they enter the world of work. And, it means less of a set-back for Backup Direct when/if any one of them doesn't make it and we have to let them go (it happens!).

To help identify those with the basic traits needed to be successful in sales, we have opted to use specialist graduate recruitment agencies that focus on sales staff. We are working with Pareto Law and 1^st Place Graduate Recruitment for this process and I can recommend both companies - they work in slightly different ways, but have the same end goal. Each provides a filtering process to identify those that are likely to fit a sales role and then provide a series of training courses in various aspects of selling once they begin work.

I begin the selection process with a one hour face-to-face interview. (Candidates have already been through at least a telephone interview and a full day's assessment centre provided by the agency.) The objective here is to identify a short-list of 6-8 candidates that would be invited back for final selection down to three (to be held on the 25^th August).

At this stage I am looking to see if the candidate has a real desire to achieve.  Have they actually achieved anything thus far - it could be travelling, an award, learned a musical instrument? It doesn't really matter what it is, so long as it points to a work ethic, initiative or risk-taking.

Side note: Even before I had started university, I had already worked in a supermarket 17 hours a week during ‘A' levels, joined the Territorial Army Medical Corps and learned to be a Field Medic, taken a year out and travelled around Europe, studied the clarinet to Grade 6, and won a number of school prizes. The point is that I expect graduates today to have at least done something by the time they are 21!

This ‘achievement' evidence is the simplest and best guide to their likely success in Backup Direct and, in particular, sales.

Next, I try to see how honest or open they are. Those who arrive with an ‘interview head' on rarely succeed in this. I cannot cope with stock answers.

Side note: the downside of looking at candidates from such specialist agencies is that they brief the candidate to ask stock questions - I wish they wouldn't. Almost invariably they will have been drilled to try to get a ‘closing' question in at the end of the interview - as this will ‘demonstrate' a core sales skill. But it never does - firstly, I've already made my decision before the end of the interview; secondly, I know it's coming and therefore ignore it; thirdly, it always sounds scripted. Other words to look out for are ‘leader', ‘drive', ‘competitive', etc - all briefed in by the agencies. The key is to know that these traits are important and look for evidence.

When trying to identify sales traits, I like to probe honesty with this question: "how do you feel when someone doubts the truth of what you have been saying".  It's powerful in its simplicity. It probes emotionally and tests how honest the candidate can be. It's also hard to answer, especially for a 21 year old.

Research from Gallup (First Break all the Rules) hints that the way the person responds to the question can reveal important information. Those that respond in a certain way (I won't reveal here which way - but email me if you want to know) make either the best or the worst sales people. Those that respond a second way, make the average or typical sales person.

So at the end of the first round of interviews I end up with seven candidates that have demonstrated some form of initiative / achievement and have shown honesty / openness. That's about all I can realistically determine in under an hour.

The assessment day

The assessment day is due to take place on the 25^th August and will take all day. At this stage a wider set of staff members are involved in the process. This helps to ensure aspects such as team working and personality, etc are understood. It also helps the candidates get to understand how the company works and the types of people already on board.

We are also trying to test core competencies and core traits such as: integrity, responsibility, communications skills, and more...

I will post more once the assessment day is completed and let you know how we got on. Importantly, I will try to expand on the process of inducting the newbies into Backup Direct and the training / nurturing that takes place.

Side note: I wonder how many candidates will read this post before these upcoming or any future interviews?