Names & Numbers Adds Facebook Page

My current copmpnay has just launched our official Names and Numbers Facebook page.   You can find it at http://bit.ly/avIFS7.  Once you have accessed our page and logged into your own personal Facebook account, you will simply need to click on the “Become a Fan” icon located next to our company name.

While it is new and a work-in-progress, I am excited about the kinds of information we will be able to share such as:

1. Book distribution dates for each market along with links to respective online market pages
2. Yellow Page industry articles that help support the print yellow page cause
3. Tips for using our web site and IYP product
4. Tips for using our print product and the types of special information one might find in our books

and most important to me – jobs that I am recruiting for. 

Check it out………….

Things That REALLY Upset People

Both recruiters, and candidates…

Talk about a messy hornets’ nest – in this jobless recovery with such high unemployment one has to just shake your head when you read the responses out there to this discussion item which appeared on LinkedIn (link to discussion):

Things that the recruiter, HR or hiring manager do/don’t do which tick you off.

We’ve all read tons of stories about the worst interviewees, worst resumes, stories about what an applicant should have done or did do. But how many out there are sometimes frustrated with the other end, the hiring guys, the HR, the recruiters? I’d enjoy seeing everyones’ stories.

The comments are growing daily.  As Director of Recruiting for the sales organization here at Names & Numbers, I can only tell you I try to let each and everyone who sends  us a resume know what’s going on with their info.  It may take me a couple of weeks, and it may be simple, sometimes negative, but honest response on why we are interested,  or not interested .  If the reasons why we aren’t interested are regarding experience or skills that wasn’t clear in the resume, and the candidates let me know that, I may call them to talk more once I receive that information. 

But potential candidates need to know that the company needs do change and evolve, almost daily.  That’s how the company has grown to over $50 million in annual revenue over a 36 year history.  I may not like it.  It doesn’t make my job any easier.  I know the candidaties sometimes don’t like it.  But that’s just the nature of the business world these days.

Your Resume – How Long Should it Be?

Hardly a day goes by that I’m not providing council on how long someone’s resume should be.  Seems the length of a resume is one of those issues that can really confound job seekers.  But it doesn’t have to be so hard.

The online job board Monster just ran this article where they asked a panel of experts to provide their thoughts on the weighty matter of “a one-page resume or a two-page resume?”

As someone that spends much of their day looking at resumes, here’s my thoughts and suggestions:

Two pages to me is optimal unless you are new entrant into the work world and really don’t have the content to fill two pages.  One page is ok, but immediately places some doubt in my mind that you are hiding something.  Definitely no longer than 2 pages.  When I get one of those 6 page War & Piece dissertations with way to much detail in it, most of the time it’s going to the bottom of the pile. 

Keep the summary short.  Give me the two or three sentence version of what I’m going to find when I read the resume, but I don’t need 5 paragraphs.

Reverse chronological order on the jobs please.  Don’t make me hunt to find your most current jobs.  They need to be at the top.  Depending on the position I am recruiting for, is a secondary thing to know what you were doing in detail in 1995.

Tell me specific achievements YOU had.  It’s nice that the team brought in $20 million in Q2.  What was your contribution to that effort?  I want to know what you are bringing to our team.  I’m not hiring the entire old team, just you.

Don’t list a bunch of achievements, and then just bullet point the jobs.  Make it easy for me please – tell me who the company was that you worked for, during what time period, your title, and then the bullet points on YOUR achievements.  Other formats get very distracting, and when you have a recruiter looking at potentially 100’s of resumes a day, you don’t want your format to make you standout – in a bad way.

Be 100% honest.  Normally, if we find even a single thing that is misrepresented on your resume, you’re toast.  How could I hire someone who has knowingly lied into a position of trust??  It will not work.  And depending on the position itself, you may NOT have to have been a superstar that managed 50 people for 5 years.  So why take the chance?

Those are some of my thoughts.  How about you??

Don’t Expect Some of These Jobs to Come Back

As a Wall Street Journal article today (link) suggested, should that day come when the U.S. labor market starts adding more workers than it loses, many of those that are unemployed will need to reinvent themselves as the types of jobs they once had simply will not exist anymore.

Over the past two years, the economy lost  7.2 million jobs, pushing the jobless rate 10% nationally, and even higher in the  state’s worst hit.  No doubt that when the economy recovers again, some lost jobs will come back. But others are gone forever.

Some are obvious.  For example, as of November, there were 36% fewer people working in record shops than two years earlier and 46% fewer at photofinishing establishments (Labor Department).  Many of the jobs created by the boom in the housing and credit markets are probably gone for a long time.  With 1.6 million jobs lost over the last two years, the construction sector which has accounted for more than a fifth of the jobs lost since the recession began is not liked to see a substantial uptick in hiring for a while.  Finance jobs will probably be fewer and far between, estimates that the financial sector’s share of the economy was nearly 20% larger than it should have been. Since the start of the recession, the financial sector has lost 548,000 jobs, or 6.6% of its work force.

Specific to the some of the traditional advertising media, estimates are that there were 23% fewer people working at directory and mailing list publishers.  Credit some of the bankruptcy issues at larger publishers such as R. H. Donnelley and Idearc (now SuperMedia) for that.

At Names & Numbers, I am still hiring experienced B2B sales professionals, in the Springfield, MO; Lubbock, TX; and Northwest Arkansas (Bentonville) areas.

One thing there is never enough of – new business hunters.  People who enjoy and excel at the search for new business.

If you are one of those, send me a resume at kclark@namesandnumbers.com so we can schedule some time to talk.

Employers To Hire More in 2010

U.S. employers expect to hire more new workers in 2010 than they did in 2009, according to CareerBuilder.com’s 2010 Job Forecast released this morning.

Twenty percent of employers plan to add full-time positions next year, up from 14% in 2009.  Just 9% plan to cut head count further in 2010, down from 16% the prior year survey. But 61% said they have no plans to change staffing levels, at least at this point.   CareerBuilder’s Michael Erwin noted that “employers are waiting to see what the economy does and what the new year brings.”

These results further indicate that while the economy may be improving, it certainly isn’t surging forward.  While CareerBuilder noted that the job market also appears to be improving, the company said it doesn’t expect a return to growth until at least Q2 of 2010.

At Names & Numbers we are hiring Account Executives for outside sales, working with small to midsized local businesses helping them establish a marketing plan which includes print, online and mobile advertising.

While they are commission only positions, an average rep (not a superstar, just average) at plan should expect to be in the $70k+ range.  We also provide medical, dental, and vision coverage.  We prefer to promote from within.  Tell me what other sales position offers  such a diverse range of businesses that you will interact with daily, professional sales training, and a realistic opportunity to make over $100k??

Specifically, I’m looking for people in:

• Springfield, MO
• Ft Collins, CO
• Lubbock, TX
• Sun Valley, ID
• Roswell, NM
• And several other markets….

If interested, send us a resume at jobs@namesandnumbers.com

Ten Things Your Clients Don’t Like (at all)

No matter what industry you are in, this rotten economy has made selling anything difficult.  So if you are in sales, don’t make your job any hard by doing any of these top Ten Things that salespeople do which your client/buyer/customers don’t like (identified in a Purchasing Magazine survey).  My comments have been added (in the parenthesis):

1. Failure to keep promises (always, ALWAYS do what you said you would do…no matter how insignificant.  What’s not significant to may be to them)
2. Lack of creativity (having that one track mindset that there’s only one way to do it.  When I interview people, this is one trait I’m looking for — bringing creative solutions to  a common problem/objection)
3. Failure to make and keep appointments (pop-ins are generally not welcome, late arrivals are rude)
4. Lack of awareness of the customer’s operation (“so, what does your company do?” — don’t be the 5th sales person that day to ask that question)
5. Taking the customer for granted (“they buy, they pay, so I don’t have to worry about them, right?”)
6. Lack of follow-through (when the sale closes, the real work begins — in our business let’s get the contract in so we can insure the company information is accurate and the ad built to specification)
7. Lack of product knowledge (“I’m not sure if it this will help your problem/need or not”)
8. Over-aggressiveness and failure to listen (“Look, let me tell you all about how our company products work,” before you have done your fact finding to identify what the need is)
9. Lack of interest or purpose (please sign here, I’m just looking for a sale)
10. Lack of preparation (“I think I have one of those brochures here….somewhere”)

The Value of Promoting From Within

If you take a step back, you would find that the majority of recruiting activity is more reactive than proactive — an opening occurs and off we go on an immediate, often frantic pursuit for talent.   But recruiting can (and should be) proactive too.  By looking ahead to the future to see what talent will be needed, developing a policy of always trying to first promote from within, your organization may be able to fill those needs in a more thoughtful, consistent manner.  So this may sound a little strange coming from a recruiter (and may result in my recruiter’s club membership being revoked), but I am a big fan of a company promoting from within whenever possible.  Why?

Promoting from within:

• is a very powerful morale and productivity tool for your team
• is an equally attractive recruitment incentive for potential employees.  Career path often is high on job seekers lists of key criteria they will use when looking for their next job, their next company.
• provides an excellent first step to successful succession planning, an effort many smaller to midsized companies avoid.
• verifies the culture of a strong company.  What company doesn’t want employees who show initiative, have a strong work ethic, and display visionary thinking aligned with business objectives??  Then why would you let them leave to go to work for another company?
• Makes your team stronger because you will have to provide additional training (another high priority item for younger works), mentoring, cross-department transfers, additional responsibilities, and special projects to develop that next wave of leaders.

At Names & Numbers, we always prefer to promote from within whenever possible.  One recent example was the promotion of Shawn Brown from Account Executive to District Sales Manager of our Lubbock, TX sales office. 

Over the past 4 years Shawn demonstrated key leadership traits in his desire to achieve success in his position:

“As our teams culture statement states ‘Believe, Achieve, Succeed’. As my promotion shows, the sky is the limit and the opportunities to enhance your career are available here. If you believe in yourself, set high goals then you will find a wonderful home here at Names and Numbers Five Star Phone Books.”

Good luck Shawn.  I think Names & Numbers has found itself a winning sales manager.

A New Challenge For Me

Big changes in my work life have just occurred.

This week I started as the new Director of Recruiting at Names & Numbers, a leading media advertising/Yellow Pages publisher based in Pittsburg, Kansas (www.namesandnumbers.com).

One of the first questions, I was asked is whether I am out of my mind?  Yes, but good friends already knew that.  This is a company which is privately owned, was started in a garage in the early 70’s and has now grown to be a $50+ million company, and they aren’t done yet.  Their footprint currently reaches over four million homes in 66 markets located in 11 states (among them – Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Idaho, Colorado, etc.) with an organization of around 300 people.   Despite the economy, they are still growing and want to expand.   I like playing for a winner, and this company has a winning culture.

Where?  Pittsburg (spelled like the Pittsburgh, PA you know of but with no “h” at end) is in the southeastern (lower right hand corner) of Kansas.  It is strategically located near nothing, 2.5 hours from KC  or Tulsa airport, but just 30 miles from the sprawling metropolis of Joplin, MO, 1 hour from Springfield, MO. 

You are kidding, right?  Actually, no I’m not.  I have truly enjoyed the opportunity to work with Robert Hawthorne and the rest of the good folks at Hawthorne Executive Search.  They are a top notch recruiting firm.  But at my fast advancing age you don’t get too many opportunities like this to shape and build something which, while already successful, can be even more so.

Career wise this is a unique and challenging spot.   These are also good people – this has been one of my bigger clients where I have helped them find their COO, the VP of Sales (whom I will now be working for), and a number of sales managers and reps.  And while Pittsburg may sound like the end of the earth, it is exactly the kind of cute little small town my wife and I have always enjoyed living in.

So I will cotinue to blog, and even share with you open positions that we have at Names & Numbers.  But it will just be from a different place.  I can now be reached at:  kclark@namesandnumbers.com.

Asking for Help

It’s one of the most awkward things that job seekers need to do – calling people in your circle of business contacts, friends, or even family to let them know you just got laid off and are looking for a job.

Of course the person getting that call hates to have to tell you that they don’t have any open spots, or that their company isn’t hiring, so in a polite fashion they quickly try to distance themselves from the caller as if H1N1 was being spreading through the phone connection. A face-to-face conversation can be even more embarrassing for both sides.

Any suggestions Mr Big Recruiter??? Actually, yes.

First, you are just one of some 8 million people in this situation, so as the saying goes, it’s not personal, it’s just business. With this down economy the stigma that was associated with a layoff has disappeared – a lot of very talented people are out of work and not because of any deficiency in their work performance.

Second, change what you are asking for – ask if they can be a reference for you, and not give you a job lead.

Why does this work better?

• To begin with you’ve let that person know you are looking for a job, but avoids the social awkwardness of forcing your “reference” to say no.
• It allows them to do a good deed which doesn’t really cost them anything to say “yes”. Imagine the lift they will get from a request like this!
• Most people will feel a bit honored that you would want them as a reference. A little ego stroking is good for all of us.
• It opens ups the door for that “reference” to invest in helping you do some creative brainstorming on options you could explore for new jobs

So try asking for a reference, not a job.  It should make those conversations a lot easier for both you and the person you are reaching out to.

Twitter, Twitted, Twitting

I’ve add a new Twitter account that you can follow me on:  http://twitter.com/KenCRecruiter

No I’m not going to be sending updates on what I ate for breakfast or my views on global warming. Instead I will be letting followers know about new open positions I am working on for clients, or other relevant business information.

Do you have a twitter account?  If so, follow me….