A new survey last week reported that despite high unemployment, 40 percent of companies are having trouble finding qualified candidates. And which division is struggling the most to find capable applicants? Sales.
In the survey employers said applicants lacked experience and knowledge of specific industries. This trend is especially interesting when you consider that college attendance has never been higher: Applicants are educated, but not necessarily qualified.
I loved college, but unless whale imagery in Moby-Dick becomes office fodder, my English degree is totally useless. I learned the most for my job from my previous internships, not from the classroom.
Are colleges failing to groom their students for the sales environment? Is higher education ignoring sales when it comes to preparing students for the real professional world? Or are university sales programs stepping up to fill that void?
What do you think? Is the dearth of competent candidates due to what they learn in school? How can schools impart real world knowledge in the classroom? Or are sales skills something that needs to be learned on the job and not in a classroom?
Do you know how to hire and retain top salespeople? Take our quiz.
Almost all of my MBA class time was devoted to managing large endeavors, organizations, accounts, etc. By contrast, most business people are not part of big businesses. We cannot look to academia to prepare students to work for companies smaller than the "Big Six". The small business community (folks who deal in millions not billions) has accepted the role of trainer for our own needs. We do surprisingly well.
Posted by: Primo | March 16, 2006 at 08:13 AM
There are significant differences between academic education and experience education. This is not an academic problem... but, a business/corporate problem.
Slashing training budgets and mentoring programs, more companies just want to steal a trained sales person with a book of customers from another company. Thus, stealing the time, expertise, investment and talent away from those businesses that see value in development.
I hired an veteran salesman as a sales manager once. He came highly touted by my superiors. I didn't train him and found him to be lazy, dishonest, and incompetent.
As I was about to let him go, he jumped ship to join our sales representation agency which he was to manage. In turn, when he was about to be fired from the rep firm, he got a job as a sales director for my competitor.
This guy was the Peter Principle gone sideways.
This same fellow is currently interviewing for VP of Sales jobs as we speak. My old competitor is ready to dump him.
Meanwhile, I have trained, developed and retained some of the tip top talent in that industry. Liberal Arts graduates... all of them.
Go figure?! I can have companies profit from teaching new pups, old tricks!
Posted by: Will Dettmering | March 02, 2006 at 11:30 AM