As many of you who regularly visit this blog know, my life mission is relatively straightforward: to stop small company owners and managers from running their companies like big ones.  And nowhere is it more tempting for entrepreneurs to emulate their larger counterparts than during the hiring process, where they compete directly with Fortune 1000 firms for the world’s best, brightest, and most upwardly-mobile talent.  For weeks at a time things like resumes, grade point averages,  personality assessments, letters of reference and “skills inventory surveys” are reviewed over and over again, until the best candidate for the position is eventually uncovered.

Sometimes.

You see, while large firms go out of their way to minimize risk and variation among staff (big company managers: don’t even attempt to deny this) small company managers looking to post significant growth need to dig deeper than a resume or assessment can take them, and find high-impact employees who don’t fit the traditional ‘big company’ mold.  If you are a small company owner or manager in the process of hiring your next employee, be sure to keep an eye open for these five traits of great small company employees.

Trait #1: Street Smarts

At most big companies, Educational Background and Grade Point Average are often used to separate candidates early in the hiring process.  Although the implied prestige of a University and the candidate’s GPA can tell some of the story, neither of these criteria is an accurate measurement of what matters most: common sense.  The world is littered with straight-A students who can’t critically think their way out of a wet paper bag—and small companies need employees who can think on their feet, adapt to constant change, and succeed where a competitor’s big company employees regularly fail.

Trait #2: Passion for the Job

One of the most difficult things to do in a job interview is separate candidates who are looking for any open position from candidates who are looking for YOUR open position.  In today’s economy, most job seekers have been trained to automatically tell hiring managers how much they want the job.  But more often than not, the candidate is merely communicating how much they need it.  Employees who are passionate about what they do—marketing, sales, human resources, accounting, or whatever—will carry those feelings over to the company they work for.  And there is no more valuable employee than one who truly cares about the well-being of your organization.

Trait #3: A Non-Standard Personality

When you think back to your formative years (whenever they happened to occur) which friends made the biggest positive impact on your life: the ones who were very much like you, or the ones who were nothing like you?  When used the wrong way, tools like personality assessments and strength-finders do nothing more than allow companies to hire ‘cookie-cutter’ employees who act and think alike.  Sure, people with non-standard personalities can at times be more difficult to manage and communicate with.  But they also push boundaries, challenge traditional thinking, and generate ideas used long after they move on to the next opportunity.  And I can offer Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison as three examples of world-changing people who wouldn’t have a chance in hell of passing your company’s personality assessment.

Trait #4: Something to Prove

When I look back on the half-dozen small companies I worked for over the past 18 years, something interesting occurs to me.  As counter-intuitive as it may sound, the most valuable employees I ever hired were not the smartest, most educated, or most charismatic—they were the ones with the biggest chips on their shoulders.  As a general rule, people who are repeatedly told they can’t accomplish something will accept the bad news and move on.  But small companies need to load the employee roster with the few who refuse to give up, and spend the next three decades of their lives trying to prove everyone who doubted them wrong.

Trait #5: A Firmly Implanted Backbone

If I had a dollar for every time an entrepreneur said “I don’t want to be surrounded by ‘yes’ people” I could a) walk away from this blog, b) pay off my bills in cash, and c) pursue my dream of doing absolutely nothing for a living.  But surprisingly, most business owners don’t follow their own advice. The more entrepreneurial a small company is, the more valuable employees with backbones become.  In fact, employees who are well-trained in politics and ‘neutralism’ actually HURT small companies.  Why?  Because they refuse to challenge management, question ideas,  or stand up to ownership when critical mistakes are about to be made.

If you have an employee trait you would like to add to our list, please submit it in the Comment Field below.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• A Hiring Manager’s Guide to Small Company Interviewing
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At one point or another, it has happened to all of us.  An exciting job opportunity that matched our background, experience and education finally came along.  And not only was the job well within our salary range, but it was a PERFECT fit for our resume—to the point we convinced ourselves “They actually wrote this job posting for ME!”  So we dusted off our resumes, wrote a quick cover letter, and sent our information directly to the hiring manager . . . and never hear back.  Yet another job opportunity passed us by, and we were, quite inexplicably, NOT included in the process. Which forced us to repeatedly ask ourselves the same burning question.

“What the hell happened?”

Those of you who are currently unemployed, or actively looking for a job-related change of scenery, have no doubt realized things are finally starting to loosen up a bit.  And now that the employment market is turning positive, it is a great time to dust off your resume, make a few updates, and start selling yourself to the world.  But before you start mass emailing your information, there is something you need to know.  In addition to the obvious resume mistakes every savvy job seeker on the planet avoids (hard to read layout, mis-spellings, too many pages, etc.) there are a few not-so-well-known red flags experienced hiring mangers look for—red flags that can put your resume on the fast track to an industrial-sized paper shredder.

If you’ve ever missed out on the interview process for a job that seemed like a perfect fit for your resume, chances are good you’ve made one of these five resume mistakes.

Resume Killer #1: Listing Religious, Political or Controversial Causes as Volunteer Work

In my 18+ years in business, I’ve seen hundreds of candidates make the mistake of padding their resumes with activities that put their belief systems on full display.  Sure, acting as the Chair of your neighborhood “Christian Democrats for the Fair Use of Water” meetings shows both commitment to a cause and a willingness to unselfishly donate your time.  But what if the hiring manager who looks at your resume is an Atheist Republican Anti-Conservationist?  The fact is, you NEVER know the political, religious or moral views of the person vetting your resume.  Understanding it isn’t ethical for a hiring manager to eliminate a candidate because of their political or religious views, don’t fool yourself by being naive—it happens every single day, and there is no point in taking the risk.

Resume Killer #2: Communicating Personal Drama in Your Cover Letter

If you are an experienced hiring manager, odds are good you’re nodding your head right now. As adults, we all understand things like car accidents, divorces, serious medical conditions and family deaths are an unfortunate part of life.  That said, as heartbreaking as these things may be, they have absolutely nothing to do with your qualifications as a potential employee.  Look at it from the standpoint of the hiring manager: if a candidate is willing to share ultra-person details in a cover letter, how many hours per day might they spend venting to fellow employees—or their boss—once they actually have the job?  The best hiring managers look for low-maintenance employees who are smart, care about their work, and come with minimal baggage.  Before you apply for your next position, re-review your resume and cover letter and ask yourself, “Do I sound high-maintenance?”

Resume Killer #3: Pointing Out Your Own Flaws

One of the most common impulses among job searchers who aren’t technically ‘perfect’ candidates for a position (especially in the Midwest) is to be honest about their shortcomings up front.  This high degree of ethics might allow you to sleep more peacefully at night, but it will NEVER help you gain an interview.  In fact, admitting  your previous position was in a different industry, or that you’re two full years short of the experience requirement, will only get you one thing: eliminated from the hiring process.  The fact is, there are very few ‘perfect’ candidates who apply for open positions, and hiring managers will often overlook missing requirements in exchange for something else they happen to like.  Don’t be tempted to do the hiring manager’s job for him or her.  If  you’re not a perfect fit, let them figure it out on their own.

Resume Killer #4: Listing Yourself as the CEO of Your Own Company

To most hiring managers, starting and successfully running a business (even for a short period of time) shows ambition, entrepreneurial spirit, and an ability to handle a variety of responsibilities. That said, C-level titles on a resume rarely work in an applicant’s favor.  If you’re applying for a VP or Director position, claiming a CEO stint on your resume says “I’m used to calling all of the shots.”  And if you’re applying for a middle-management position, listing a CEO position screams “I’m overqualified, and probably want too much money.“  Here’s a tip: if you ran your own business in the past, focus on what you did to make the company successful —Marketing Consultant, Flash Developer or Project Manager, for example—not on what your business card said.

Resume Killer #5: Overlapping Timelines in Your Work Experience

For those of us who had to work our way through college, a certain sense of pride comes with being able to claim we juggled two (or in some cases three) jobs at one time.  Back when we were young, balancing multiple jobs made us look like ‘entrepreneurs’ and  ‘go-getters.’  But in the real world, working two or more jobs at one time is a sign to hiring managers that we will be distracted and chronically tired employees, whose minds are usually somewhere else.  As an applicant, you need to keep in mind that every employer wants his or her job to be the ONLY focus in your working life.  Giving a potential supervisor any reason to think otherwise will significantly decrease your chances of even getting an interview—much less actually landing a job.

And to wrap it up, I would like to point out that my goal for this article is to create a living, breathing, extraordinarily helpful document for job seekers.  Therefore, if you are a hiring manager and would like to add your own “Resume Killer” to the list, PLEASE use the comment field at the end of the article to share your knowledge and experience with job seekers around the world.  Thank you for your help!

Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated as well.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• 3 Tips for Finding (and Getting) a Small Company Job
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• 5 Job-Related Lies You Might Be Telling Yourself (Guest Post)
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• Strategic Self-Promotion: 8 Rules for Marketing Yourself

As recently as ten years ago, Marketing Departments were widely viewed as little more than service bureaus for most organizations.  In the eyes of many businesses, marketing existed only to perform low-level tasks like generate marketing collateral, assemble presentations, and coordinate trade shows.  I know this not because I read about it, or because someone told me, but because I was there.  During the mid to late 1990s, I watched as companies large and small maintained under-staffed (and under-skilled) Marketing departments.  I listened to people tell me how easy my job was.  I talked to sales people who were getting things like cell phones and support staff and car allowances, while I was stuck in a cube and forced to use the oldest computer in the building.

Then the Internet happened.

And literally overnight, the view of Marketing’s role in a growing organization changed.  Small, innovative companies leapfrogged market leaders by realizing that building brand awareness, generating interest, making sales, and developing loyalty could be done without meeting customers face-to-face.  Hiring plans were modified to include investments in high-level marketing personnel who could build skilled and agile marketing teams.  Marketing processes were changed to leverage the latest technologies and perform functions sales people were once responsible for—reaching potential customers, sorting through them, and identifying those who are ready to purchase.  And I finally got an office, complete with a door and the most expensive computer in the building.

But although life is good for many of us, even in 2009 it seems there are a number of companies who haven’t caught up yet.  Many of you reading this article work for or manage organizations who still do not give Marketing—specifically, Internet marketing—credit for being able to do anything but send mass email and publish web pages.  If your company is having trouble getting its Internet marketing efforts off the ground, here are five steps you can take to start moving in the right direction:

Step 1: Admit That Marketing is No Longer Overhead. First and foremost, supporting a successful Internet marketing effort requires a company-wide change in attitude.  Until you begin to view the dollars spent in this area as investments and not overhead, your Internet marketing department will always be set up for failure.  Internet Marketers need to be reassured that they won’t be let go (and that their budgets won’t be scaled back) the minute business slows down.  Plus, a good Internet marketer has the ability to make a living with or without you.  So if you don’t make sure they feel like a valuable part of the organization, they’ll just leave.

Step 2: Hire a High-Level Marketing Resource First, not a Rookie. Instead of building a marketing team from the bottom up, find an experienced management-level Internet marketer first.  Companies often become enamored with marketing people who have experience in a specific industry, or who are specialists in certain types of marketing.  But in this case, your search should focus on people who are familiar with a broad range of Internet marketing initiatives, and have a track record of experimenting with new methods and technologies.

Step 3: Allow Your Internet Marketers the Freedom to Experiment. Because marketing technologies and audiences change so rapidly, it is critical that your marketing personnel have the freedom to try new things, and the reassurance to know that an occasional failure is OK—as long as a solid business case was made up front.  Not every Internet marketing campaign is going to be a hit.  But on the flip side, there are millions of dollars to be made by companies who can figure out creative ways to reach a previously untapped market.  Allowing your Internet marketing team some room to roam once in awhile will pay back your company ten times over.

Step 4: Invest in Ongoing Training and and Networking. To ensure your company is utilizing the latest in Internet marketing technology and techniques, it is critical that you support the department’s thirst for knowledge.  In the Internet marketing world, knowledge is often tightly held; passed from person to person like a Mayan legend.  Part of running an Internet marketing department is to support the transfer of this knowledge through conferences, workshops, and professional memberships in networking organizations.

Step 5: Dare to Dream. To run a successful Internet marketing department, you have to understand the rules of the game have changed.  Given the databases, techniques and technologies that Internet marketers have access to today, almost any type of marketing campaign you can envision is now a possibility.  Once your Internet marketing team is in place, don’t be afraid to challenge them by thinking big.

Conclusion

Visionary company owners and managers understand that embracing the value of Internet marketing can allow a company to reach unreachable audiences, generate a steady stream of interest, and compete with companies much larger in size.  But in order to accomplish these things, you must be prepared both mentally and financially to not only assemble an Internet marketing effort, but support it successfully for the long-term.  The fact is, there have been more marketing-related innovations in the past six weeks than there have been sales-related innovations in the past six decades.  Gaining a customer has grown far beyond phone calls and personal appearances, into a comprehensive strategy that includes multiple customer touches in dozens of different forms.

Companies from two-person shops to Fortune 500 members are driving more revenue (and significantly more margin) by shifting their outbound focus to targeted, quick-response Internet-based marketing methods like social networking, PPC, blogging, direct email, organic and paid search, e-newsletters, podcasting, webinars, portals and downloads.  And the Internet Marketers who hang out at websites like Sphinn and Search Engine Land are leading the way—pushing search, marketing and Internet technology to places your brain won’t allow you to go.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

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For whatever reason, most people prefer to acquire their job search advice from store bought career guides.  If this wasn’t the case, books like What Color is Your Parachute?, Internet Your Way to a New Job and Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters wouldn’t be flying off the shelves right now.  But these factory-produced manuscripts all have one thing in common: they cater to people who are looking for jobs at LARGE companies.  Those of you who are not interested in being part of the Fortune 500 have been forced to fend for yourselves . . . until today!

As I scan through the stacks of marked up resumes in the drawer to my left, I estimate that over the last five years I have interviewed at least 90 people, for positions ranging from Administrative Assistant to Director/VP.  14 of these people were eventually hired, and 13 of them still work with me today.  As a self-taught Human Resources amateur, my instincts tell me this is a pretty good track record.  With this in mind, what I would like to do today is use my experience behind the interview desk to help those of you who are now sitting in front of it.

Below are three easy to follow strategies for finding—and getting—a job at a small company.  Will these tips work for you?  Maybe.  But whether or not they do, if you have an opportunity to actually try them in a real-life situation, please reply to this post and tell us what happened.

Tip #1: Talk to Your Friends Who Work at Small Companies. When people are looking for a new job, they almost always contact their friends at large companies first.  The theory, of course, is that larger companies by sheer numbers have more ‘opportunities’ available.  But the reality is, while most of the Fortune 1000 are laying off people in previously unheard of numbers (check out LayoffBlog.com and LayoffTracker for more information) many of their smaller and more conservatively-run counterparts are either holding steady or growing.  And even if your friend’s small company is not ready to hire full-timers just yet, smaller firms are significant users of contractors and temporary employees.  Working as a part-timer until the economy turns around might not be your dream situation, but a reasonable contract rate like $25 an hour—even for half-time—is more than you will make collecting unemployment in most states.

Tip #2: ’Expand’ the Items on Your Resume. If you want to successfully enter the small company world using a large company resume, keep one thing in mind: small company hiring managers are NOT looking for specialists.  Catching the eye of a small company hiring manager requires a resume that makes you look flexible, adaptable, and able to handle a wide variety of job functions.  If you’ve spent the last five years at a large company stuck in the same role, do your best to break that role down into as many smaller parts as you can on your resume.  Also, be sure to highlight small company ‘hot button’ experiences in your background like managing multiple priorities, dealing with two or more bosses, participating in special projects, managing teams and vendors, and measuring results.

Tip #3: Don’t Give Corporate Answers in the Interview. When you do end up getting to the interview stage at a small company, PLEASE take this one piece of advice: tell it like it is.  Consciously fight against your years of training in politics and neutralism (remember . . . you have a backbone) and choose a side when the interviewer challenges you on a specific issue or presses you during a line of questioning.  Also, avoid dropping big company buzzwords like “value proposition,” “thought leader,” “touch points” and “leverage”—especially if you’re interviewing for a management spot.  Small companies are keenly aware of the difference between managers who just manage, and managers who actually DO things.  Bringing the interview down to a real-world kind of level will help prove that you can, and are willing to, roll up your sleeves and get some real work done.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

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A few months ago at a professional meeting, I had a chance to speak with the VP of Marketing for one of the country’s largest for-profit online Universities.  The focus of our discussion was marketing strategy; or more specifically, how the company generates potential students (a.k.a. leads) to pass along to the Enrollment Counselors (a.k.a. sales team).  Using their Online MBA Program as an example, the process was explained to me as follows.

At this particular online University, the Marketing Director for the College of Business and Public Administration would first choose an audience she wanted to market the Online MBA Program to—mid-level IT managers, for example—and contact the University’s outside marketing agency for help in formulating strategy.  The outside agency would perform a full-scale analysis of the IT management marketplace, and prepare a detailed report for the Marketing Director which included the following:

• A list of potential print advertising targets
• A list of websites and e-newsletters for web-based advertising
• Proposed market positioning and sample messaging
• A 3-page report of competitive activity within the channel
• A list of upcoming industry trade shows and speaking events, with suggested speaking topics for various University representatives
• Sample ad designs

In addition to the above, the report typically included a comprehensive demographic profile of the mid-level IT manager, in which average income, roles and responsibilities, career paths, buying patterns and even personality traits were outlined in detail.  The Marketing Director would spend a few hours reviewing the report, select the pieces she liked (and which fit into the budget) and turn execution of the plan back over to the outside agency.  From there, the Marketing Director received regular updates on plan performance, as well as recommendations for changes and improvements.

With all of the above in mind, do you see any potential issues or long-term problems within the marketing department for this online University?  I sure hope you do.  In fact, I would guess those of you who have spent ANY time in a smaller company spotted the problem right away.  In a nutshell, the problem is that all of the specific knowledge related to the industry, the customer and the messaging resides with an external agency.  Or, to put it a bit less politically:

The Director-level marketing people at this company are nothing more than overpaid vendor managers, who have the company’s strategy fed to them by an ad agency.

In the early stages of running a small company, owners and managers often find it easier and less expensive to utilize outside help than to develop skills internally.  And when you consider the financial and administrative commitment involved with adding full-time employees, the leveraging of contractors, vendors and agencies is almost always the correct decision.  But at some point every growing business must face the reality that being self-sufficient enables companies to be more flexible, more innovative, and less exposed to risk than their contractor-dependent counterparts.

This is not to say that small companies should do absolutely everything for themselves.  Even when companies are pulling in tens of millions of dollars per year, there are still certain functions better left to outside parties.  But this was a company with thousands of employees, hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales, and shareholders.  They should have known the following small company lesson:

You cannot grow a small company by leaving knowledge of your market, your processes and your strategy in the hands of contractors, vendors and consultants.

The point here is that all companies, even $100 million ones, can be too small to justify bringing certain functions in-house.  But functions directly relating to strategy—like messaging, lead generation and product development—must be brought in-house early in a  company’s growth, and retained under any circumstances.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

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When it comes to the hiring process, small company managers are used to carrying the bulk of the load.  While our counterparts within the Fortune 1000 have access to things like on site recruiters, online assessments and multi-departmental search teams, small company managers rarely have the time or the patience to endure an interview process of more than two rounds.  But at the same time, inserting the wrong employee into a small company environment can be devastating to both the culture and the bottom line.  Balancing these two things—a lack of hiring infrastructure and the need for a quality hire—is as much an art as it is a science.

With the rapidly changing priorities, mix of personality types and lack of structure that almost always comes with working in a small company environment, successfully surviving one requires a mix of political savvy, street smarts and straight out survival skills.  Standard interview questions like “Where do you see yourself in five years?” and “What is your biggest weakness?” might protect you from an eventual lawsuit, but they will rarely uncover the best candidate for your open position.

And with small companies, simply asking interview questions—even really good ones—is a much smaller piece of the puzzle than actually getting an answer.  Accepting a response of “I like all of them” to the question “Which parts of this job would you dislike the most?” will result in no useful information.  The point here is straightforward: when leading an interview process at a small company, you MUST do two things:

1. Ask Good Questions – avoid the temptation, even with lower-level hires, to take the lazy way out and rely on the same list of questions every job seeker in America is prepping for.  How?  Go to the local bookstore, grab the least expensive interview prep guide you can find, and declare all of the questions in it ‘off-limits’ for your process.  For a very well thought-out (and free) list, check out Alex Rudloff’s blog for a list of Common Interview Questions.
2. Get Complete Answers- too many of us accept answers that border on “it depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is” or answers repeated verbatim from the interview guide mentioned above.  If you feel a candidate is not showing his or her true self in an interview, force it out.  And if you can’t, move on to the next candidate.

Although I can’t assist you with getting complete answers (it takes a great deal of practice) I can definitely help you ask better questions during the interview process.  A few days ago I wrote and posted the seventh free .PDF resource on my “Free Downloads” section, this one titled Sample Interview Questions for Small Company Hiring Managers.  Within the tool I have left some space for note taking after each question, so feel free to print this document and use it during your interviews as-is.  Also note this tool does NOT include all of the questions a hiring manager will want to ask during an interview.  Questions relating to the candidate’s industry-specific experience, knowledge of the product line and educational background must be included as well.

And finally, if you would like to improve this tool by sharing some of your favorite small company interview questions, please reply to this post.  If I use them in the next release of the document, I will give you full credit for your submission.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• 5 Unique Traits of Great Small Company Employees
• 5 Survival Tips from Successful Small Company Managers
• 5 Secret Resume Killers Every Hiring Manager Looks For
• 3 Tips for Finding (and Getting) a Small Company Job
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