Sales Manager Tip – Hiring Sales Professionals (Reading a resume vertically)
Does your company go through countless resumes to find a “good fit” for your sales positions? Would it help you to have a faster way to quickly and easily understand if a person is a sales person, or something else? Try reading resumes “vertically” instead of “horizontally”.
How does one “read a resume vertically?” Simply read the first or second word of each line on the resume. Look for themes. You can tell very quickly if this person is a sales person, a business development person, a marketing person, etc. Examples…
Resume #1 – Mr. Smith
- Aggressively sold…
- Won contract…
- Executed…
- Achieved…
Resume #2 – Mrs. Smith
- Participated in…
- Established…
- Managed…
- Collaborated…
If you are hiring a sales person, its very likely that Resume #1 would be more of a hunter than Resume #2. Obviously there are entire books written on interviewing skills, and best practices for understanding someone’s resume. This tip, originally provided by Skip Miller, CEO of M3 Learning, has been a time saver, and great way for me to weed out the non-selling candidates from the selling candidates.
Give it a try, you may be surprised!
