Attitude. One word, with a big punch, and some make or break connotations for your career. How many times have you heard people extol an employee for their great attitude, no matter what, or condemn them for having a bad attitude when, by all accounts, the rest of their work performance was fine? Attitude, and other people’s perception of yours, plays a big role in the workplace.

Research suggests that 85% of job success can be “determined by ‘attitude’ and the ‘ability to deal with people,’” according to the Carnegie Foundation. Combine that with our own anecdotal evidence of people’s perceptions, and you can see how important a positive attitude is for any career—but especially in sales, where your “ability to deal with people” is critical.

Attitude in Job Interviews

Attitude is also a major factor when interviewing for a job, in any industry. Knowing all this, it seems logical that anyone pursuing a career in sales would invest in some sort of “attitude adjustment,” but that’s where it becomes tricky. What qualifies as a legitimately “bad” attitude, and what can be chalked up to personality differences? Can you be realistic, or even pessimistic, and maintain a good attitude?

We’ve all heard horror stories of customer service representatives who put their company to shame and inspire nothing but laughs at what they call “service.” But everyone has bad days, head colds, breakups and personal problems. The difference between a great salesperson and an average one really does come down to attitude: who is able to rise above a bump in the road, and who cannot.

Fake It ‘Til You Make It

You don’t have to be an Oscar winning actor to succeed at work, even when you’re having a bad day. You just need to put things in their place and focus. Bringing your personal life to work can be beneficial when it allows you to connect with customers, but on a bad day, you may need to focus just on the 9 to 5. Prioritize, organize and by all means, slap a fake smile on your face—it really can help. Then take a deep breath, and focus.

The ability to segment two parts of your life in order to regroup and refocus on one will help tremendously on bad days, but it can also have residual effects on everyday performance, giving you the edge you need. When you’re able to put yourself aside and focus on the person you’re talking to, you can’t help but do a better job. Whether you’re in sales, customer service or hospitality, people like to feel that they are the center of attention. And when you give them that sense, you’ve automatically done your job a little bit better.

Try it out: give yourself a mini attitude adjustment, and see your performance improve.

Everyone is clamoring for this recession to end--quite possibly, no one more so than sales recruiters. We want our client companies and prospective hires to do well, and that means hiring the best and brightest for employers, and landing the perfect job for employees. Media outlets have been suggesting that the recession is over, and that an upswing is on the way.  While the worst may be over, we must be careful not to celebrate too soon. [http://selectmetrix.com/blogs/2009/10/dont-trust-the-dow/] I don't want to be the one to cast a shadow on this positive outlook, but when it comes to hiring, employers (and employees) need to be realistic. And that means learning from the past, in order to secure a better future.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from a recession, and as a recruiting firm, we might be in the best place to observe and teach what we've discovered over the past year. When times are tight, we learn to make due without some of life's little extras: bringing lunch from home, making out own coffee, taking public transportation. These little changes are common practice in our personal lives. But what about professionally? There are many recession tactics (besides layoffs) that can help you grow now, with a little caution, without breaking the bank later. Here are just a few ideas to get you started, and we'd love to hear more, so please, share your tips as well.

Focus on Employee Satisfaction

You have great people working for you now, but even with the worst behind them, they're probably still a little nervous. Or, as things start to look a little brighter, they might be grumpy and feel safe enough to complain about previous cost-cutting measures. Now is the time to make sure that your core team, your rockstars, are with you not only when the going gets tough, but as it gets better. Brainstorm some easy, inexpensive perks that will brighten their day without busting your budget. If big company lunches are no longer on the table, try offering a beer cart on Fridays, or gourmet goodies on Mondays. Provide employees with a way to unwind, and make sure they know how much you appreciate their hard work over the past year.

Maintain Flexibility for Maximum Productivity

This can help with employee satisfaction, too. Think about it: your employees are adults. Shouldn't you treat them as such? We live in a world where the Internet makes telecommuting possible, and employers should embrace that. Allow employees to work from home when the need arises, instead of faking sick. Encourage them to break outside the box of their cube and take a break while at work, and promote professional development initiatives. Work with your employees to offer them tailored perks and benefits that they really want; it could end up saving you money and making them much happier and more productive.

Value Honesty (In Both Yourself and Your Employees)

Yes, this means you, too. Change freaks people out, and being upfront and honest with your employees can go a long way to curbing rumors and keeping people on track to meet their, and your, goals. Tell your staff before things change, for better or worse, of if they are staying the same when other companies in your industry seem to be in flux. It's human nature to gossip, and once the rumor mill starts it can be hard to stop. If you let everyone know what is going on ahead of time--even if it's not great news--you won't give false information a chance to spread.

These tips are meant to help employers create a better working environment, but employees should take note as well. If you're looking for a new job, try to gauge how well a company is acting on these tips. And if you're happy in your job, see if you can suggest or implement these ideas to help everyone stay motivated.

Sales recruiting is obviously about sales, but in many ways, it’s also about marketing--as a job seeker, a recruiting agent or company. Selling yourself, even if your job is in sales, takes a certain finesse, particularly when times are tight. And this hold true whether you want to market yourself as a potential hire, your candidate as a recruiting agency, or your brand as a company.

It’s no surprise that job seekers need to market themselves, both to a recruiter and to hiring managers or other people along the interview process. By extension, recruiters often need to help sales candidates by selling them in a slightly different way. But recruiters can and should sell themselves, and therefore their candidates, by focusing on the right kind of marketing for their recruitment process and track record. Companies aren’t exempt either; they need to work with a recruiter to create a triple-win situation.

Here’s some advice for all parties that will lead to better candidates, more accurate placement and higher job satisfaction all around.

Be Professional

You’d be surprised at how often professionalism flies out the window when dealing with hiring, even among those looking for a new job. Everyone involved in the hiring process should use polite conversation, and job seekers especially should be sure to dress the part; casual attire may fly for those who work there, but you need to impress at an interview. And please, refrain from slamming companies on social networking sites; it will come back and bite you. Same goes for interviewers and recruiters; never trash other candidates.

Be Honest

Honesty may seem counter-intuitive to traditional marketing advice, but it plays right into the need to be professional at any and all levels of a job search, no matter what side you’re on.  Job seekers, be upfront and honest about your resume and experience; never lie to fill in the gaps. Likewise, HR people need to provide accurate job descriptions and requirements. As for recruitment agents, we often have an insider perspective into companies where we’ve placed people, and that feedback is valuable to both applicants and hiring managers.

Be Promotional

If you’re in sales, this goes without saying, but it holds true in any interview situation, and on both sides of the table. And while it may be your job to sell for the company you want to work for, or to sell your candidate to the HR manager, you often need to sell yourself first. The trick is to demonstrate your skills and abilities without bragging or inflating them; see the above two pieces of advice if this is unclear. Examples and track records work great here to prove your point. If you’re just starting out, doing your homework can go along way to tailoring your pitch to exactly what they need.

The bottom line? To be in sales, you need to be able to market. At least yourself. And whether that means building a reputation as a recruiter with great placements, earning the esteem of recruiters with the badge of a “great place to work” or showcasing yourself as a necessity for your next employer, sales and marketing skills go hand in hand.

In dealing with a recession, it’s can be difficult to look on the bright side of a not-always-promising economy and job market. But recent studies provide some hope, and helpful advice, for both job seekers and recruiters.

The good news: this will end. The bad? No one’s quite sure when. But what we do know is the recession will have lasting effects on employers and job seekers. Sounds like a no-brainer, but a lot of the changes we see coming out of this economic climate are leading to good lessons and even better tips for employers

and employees alike.

Become a Rockstar.

Figuratively, not literally, of course. The best and the brightest stand out, time after time, and are worth hiring even when budgets are tight. In fact, many have speculated that tough times are the perfect opportunity to reach for a rockstar—with greater competition than ever and a more level playing field, you want the best working for you. And having one amazing talent is better than three mediocre workers. Be that rockstar, in whatever field, and you’ll greatly increase your hiring advantage.

Market Yourself.

While you’re working on this rockstar status, also called professional development, you should start thinking about how to stand out from the crowd. Even if you far outshine all the other applicants in terms of skills and ace every interview, you need to make sure your name gets noticed before they meet you. That means marketing yourself. Spruce up your résumé, use social media and be a little adventurous. Do your homework, check out the company culture, and then find a way to sell yourself specifically to them. Get creative.

Aim for the Future.

Outside of working for yourself, which can be tough to do, the next biggest business and hiring growth will occur in medium-sized businesses.



So plan ahead and look for companies that have optimal growth potential and hiring power as things begin to look up. And above all else, keep working on your “personal brand” and making yourself the best, and easy, choice in your field.

Times are tight right now, but that doesn’t mean that an intrepid sales recruiting consultant can’t thrive. Now is the best time for recruiting sales people, and an even better time for new recruiters to get creative and prove themselves. If you can recruit effectively now and survive until the upswing, you’ll be at the top of the game when the flood for new hires comes in.

Sales recruiting in an economic downturn can go one of two ways: a slam dunk, or right in the garbage. On one hand, a lot of talented, qualified people may be out of jobs, making the applicant pool full of excellent candidates eagerly looking for a new position. This gives recruiters a lot of applicants and résumés to go through, creating more work, but it also ups their chances of finding the perfect fit for a position.

However, the other side of the coin is that people might not be hiring, or if they are they may not want to spend money on a recruiter and prefer to spend time looking for themselves.

Now is the best time to be recruiting sales people: when you need them most

Let’s look at the second scenario first: companies aren’t hiring, or don’t want to work with a recruiter. When times are bad, sales people are often the only employees bringing in revenue, so this is the one area employers should be looking to hire. Once they see that, your job is to convince them that a recruiter will do the job better than they can—faster, more efficiently and with more promising results. How do you do this? Think outside the box.

With more people looking for jobs, you can be more selective in sales recruiting

Now we’re back to the first situation, that companies are hiring, albeit selectively, and from a larger applicant pool. This makes the sales recruiting process a little more time consuming, but easier in the end. You have better people to pull from, and the best will naturally rise to the top. But how do you narrow it down? Here’s where you need to put your thinking cap on and get creative.

Social networks can make recruiting sales people a self-selection process

Now more than ever people are using social networks and the internet to pre-screen potential candidates; if you haven’t been doing this, get familiar with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter—fast. Recruiting sales people can involve a lot of talking and social sites are all about conversation, so they’re a good way to see (or hear) the candidates out there and weed out the ones who don’t fit the position you’re looking to fill.

Once you have a list of people you’d like to talk to on the phone or meet with, figure out what you can offer them. A lot of companies may not be in a position to provide the salaries they used to, but some of these candidates may be willing to work for less if they are not currently employed. What can you give them if not a raise? Perks.

Get more creative than commission: offer time and flexibility

When recruiting sales people, one of the first things to think about is commission. People work hard when they get a tangible reward, and commissions are a great way to increase salary without draining the employer. But don’t stop there, what else can you offer? Non-monetary incentives can be just as valuable as more take home pay.

One thing every employer can offer is time. More vacation time, flexible hours, telecommuting options. These things mean a lot to people and can cut down on their spending (commuting costs, childcare), resulting in a win-win situation for the new hire and his or her employer.

There are tons of other sales recruiting ideas you can think of to entice candidates; use these suggestions as a jumping off point to discuss what kinds of perks and benefits you can offer when recruiting sales people. Remember, sales recruiting is all about selling, and the best way to do that is to offer something no one else has.