I want to tell you a little story about a meeting that I recently attended. A presenter came up to talk to the group and the first thing he said was, “I am not here to sell you anything.” I thought back to the movie, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, where the madam says to her daughter, “don’t trust anybody that ever says, trust me” and I think I have learned that same lesson whenever anybody says to me, “I am not here to sell you something.” That’s the time that you want to reach for your wallet and hold it with both of your hands , because clearly the person is there to sell you something.

It’s so interesting that people take the approach that says ” I am not here to sell you something.” Isn’t the reality that we are all here to sell everybody everything, and its so much better if you can just admit that. When I am talking to my clients about the behavioral profile and the value that we bring to the table, I am obviously trying to sell them on the value . If a candidate is talking to me about why they are a good sales person, they are trying to sell me on that. I really think that you need to be careful if you take an attitude that says I am not here to sell you something . Either its an indication that you are trying to be devious or you really don’t know why you are there.

If you are there to sell something to somebody there is nothing wrong with letting them know that you really believe in what you have got and you hope that after you have been able to talk with them that the value that you see in what you offer they are able to see as well.

Sales is an honorable profession, don’t ever forget that.

I want to talk with you today about a situation that just recently happened with a candidate. I had an opportunity to do a personality profile and candidate assessment for a person who is applying for job as product development manager. We reviewed the personality profile, and as we always do, talked about his career path. When I asked him to recount his work history, the candidate said to me, “Gee, I don’t know which version of my resume you have in front of you,” which I thought was a pretty interesting statement. So, I had him talk to me about his career and what he did, and while he was talking, I flipped open his LinkedIn page. When I looked at that, it made perfect sense why he asked about what copy of the resume that I had, because his experience on the LinkedIn page didn’t really bear a whole lot of resemblance to the resume that I was looking at.

For instance, it did show that they had been a product manager back in the early 2000’s, 2001 to 2004. It also showed that he had been the senior VP of sales and marketing since 2005 and the VP of finance for that time as well. Well, neither of the sales and marketing role or the finance role were listed on the resume. The only thing on the resume showed from 2000 to present was the role of being a director or VP of product development. So it raises the question, what do you really expect to see on a resume? Do you expect it to be geared for you, only focused on the things that are important to you and your job, or do you expect the resume to be an accurate reflection of that person’s work history. Does it concern you when you realized that not everything is listed on the resume and that goes to job functions, job titles, dates; and maybe even leaving off certain jobs that they have determined are not relevant to the position that they are applying for. So take a minute if you will, fill out the survey on these questions and let everybody else know what your perspective is.

Thank you very much. We’re really trying to figure it out that as it relates to a resume, should it be bold or bull? Thank you.

I want to talk to you today about an interesting conversation that I had with a candidate who is applying for a position with one of my clients.  I had a chance to review her personality profile with her and she liked the results very much and she was very animated, so she went on to tell me that she has always been a top sales person, everything that she has every done is life, she has always been the best.  In fact Bob, she said to me that I was the very top girls scout cookie sales person, when I was at girls camp. And I said, oh! That’s great.  She says, yeah, let me tell you how I did it.  On the days that the girls scout cookies were delivered to our house, I faked being sick that day, so I could go home from school early and get a head start on all of the other girls that were in my troop and as a result of that I got out to all the houses first and I got all my cookies sold.  And she was obviously very proud of this otherwise she wouldn’t have brought it up.

Now, when I had an opportunity to talk with my client to review the personality profile, and the conversation that I had with the candidate, my client was a bit perplexed about a person who would readily admit to being devious in selling girls scout cookies.  And they said to me, we’re a very high integrity organization and if this person who readily admit to being devious about selling cookies, I don’t know that I can trust her when selling my software.  I said, well, I understand where you stand.  So later that day I had another conversation with another hiring manager and talked about the conversation regarding the girls scout cookies.  That manager’s reaction was completely different.  That manager said, that’s exactly what we need.  I need people that think outside the box and you know what if they are a little devious I think that’s okay.  So interesting conversation, curious to know what you think, do you think you’d be interested in going after the person who figured out a way to sell more girls scout cookies by faking being sick or would you see that as a behavioral trait that you would want to avoid in a person?  Thanks for your time.