These are large percentages! Check out this infographic by clicking on the link below, then decide if you may need to reconsider how you manage your social media profiles online.

How Recruiters Use Social Media

Beyond organizing your personal workload you also want to make sure you and your client are on the same page. Some things to take into consideration at the onset of the project: expectations, how communication will take place, when you are paid for your work and what the end result should look like, of course.

Check out this Mashable post for some details on how to set clear expectations and make sure the communication airwaves are clear. Click here.

All a company has to do is embed a small snippet of code on their website to get things rolling. Where applications are routed to is customizable as is the look and feel of the user interface. This way, employers can maintain a consistent brand image.

As a job applicant, you can edit and update your information on the spot. You’ll also be able to see connections who work at the company to which you are applying — a time-saver if you are looking to network and make the most of your job search. Submissions are manageable both from the employer and candidate side.

Check out the full article on TechCrunch here.

If you haven’t already heard, we were recently acquired by Yodle, headquartered in New York. So when I came across the Mashable post on developing a company culture for remote teams, I was interested.

At Outrank, reviews of how we manage to maintain our unique culture are frequent. We have added on new team members at a fast pace. Naturally, with that growth comes change and leadership teams have been cognizant of the concerns veterans have had about being able to maintain the vibe that they love here at Outrank. In reviewing how we leverage culture to motivate our teams, we’ve found that traditions have remained solid and we just have more people joining in on the fun while they work.

Beyond that, we were extremely excited that our new family in NYC has such a vibrant and hard-working team, just like us! So, onto the 5 ways to promote a culture for remote teams:

Create a mission statement

Hire the right people

Create a close-knit team

Allow your staff independence

Recognize and reward

The post provides insight and useful tips that can help leaders evaluate their management style. We like.

Mashable plans to submit at least one question and is taking a poll to determine what to ask. Here are the options they are asking readers to vote on:

How do you plan on fostering the growth of tech innovation in the United States?

As social media becomes a popular job-searching tool, how will the government help people understand these new platforms to help them find work?

What changes will be made in education to better prepare students for a heavily tech-based job market?

Great questions and we look forward to hearing from President Obama. You can cast your vote here.

Erica Swallow at Mashable outlines some general guidelines on what to include in a job description:

Job Title & Summary: Develop a job title for the position you’re looking to fill — the title and level (assistant, senior, lead, etc.) should accurately reflect the work that the employee will perform. Be sure to choose a job title that reflects your industry’s standards and organization’s culture. Once you’ve defined the position, write a brief description of the purpose of the position and an overview of the position’s main responsibilities. This summary should be short and to the point — one to three sentences should suffice.

Key Responsibilities: List all of the essential functions of the position at hand. Generally, this includes between five and 10 responsibilities. Begin each responsibility with a present-tense, action verb — “research social media trends” or “mock up new UI graphics” are good examples. Be transparent about how frequently a task will be performed or what percentage of the employee’s time will be spent with each task. This helps applicants form an idea of what a typical day may look like.

Department & Supervisor: Include details on who the person would report to and where that person falls within the company’s structure.

Skills & Qualifications: List all qualifications that are mandatory, along with those that are preferred. Such qualifications should include skills, years of experience, certifications, licenses, education level and necessary technical proficiencies.

Company Overview: While it is ideal that a candidate would already know essential details about the hiring company, it is helpful for potential applicants to have a description of the company (as written by the company) at hand. Include information about the company’s mission, goals, industry and headquarters location. Other useful details could include the number of states and countries where the company is present, number of employees, annual sales and so on.

Location: Include details on where the position is located. If travel is necessary, note what percentage of time the employee will spend traveling and where he or she will be traveling.

Type of Employment: Be very clear about whether the position is full-time or part-time. If the position is an internship, note whether it will be paid or unpaid — be sure that the internship follows the six federal legal criteria if it is unpaid.

Salary Range & Benefits: If your company is open to publicizing the position’s salary range and benefits (such as 401(k), vacation days, or medical and dental insurance), include those details within the job description.

Recruiter Contact Information: While it may seem obvious, there are plenty of job listings on the web without contact information. Include contact information so that potential applicants can apply and ask questions.

Make information easy to find by formatting the description by using bullet points and clearly outlining steps to apply.  

Additionally, make an effort to convey the company’s culture through your writing style in the job description itself. If you embody your company’s overall personality, you’ll attract those who are the best matches. Of course, the employer always has the upper hand or the final say in the hiring process but it’s imprtant to remember that recruiters have a responsibility. As a recruiter, you are trying to draw and impress the right people. The more information you can give candidates up front, the better the chances are of making the rigtht choices for your company.

To check out open positions, click here!

We’ve been watching Google try to play catch up and break into social but, for the most part, they’ve been comparatively unsuccessful. In Wired’s post by Sam Gustin, we learn that Schmidt said, “I clearly knew I had to do something and I failed to do it,” … “CEOs need to take responsibility. I screwed up.”

I think Schmidt’s message is clear. I also think his honesty is respectable. The message is two-fold.

1) Don’t miss bigger picture opportunities because you let yourself get bogged down in day-to-day tasks.
2) Be able to distance yourself enough from your role or your project to be honest about what is working and what has failed.

I want to talk about the second point. It’s not directly related to the issue at hand, but it’s in the same vein as taking responsibility when in a position of authority. And responsibility can obviously equate to humility.

In the past, I’ve seen CEOs or managers birth a special project they think is going to be an easy win. For whatever reasons (it was not well thought out, it just wasn’t of quality, it targeted the wrong demographic, the product launch was ill-timed or there was no marketing plan in place) — the special project fails. The CEO isn’t sure why and when he/she asks for feedback from the team, he/she puts up a shield, chalks it up to something out of his/her control and fails to really consider his/her role or the team’s input and hence, misses yet another opportunity to come up with tangible solutions. Whether the CEOs was directly involved in the project or he/she failied to delegate effectively – the level of responsibility is still the same.

The timing of Schmidt’s “confession” is interesting – right as Google’s +1 is released as well as Google Offers. +1 is the equivalent of Facebook’s “Like” button and will be used in determining personalized search results. Google Offers are daily deals like Groupon or Living Social. Both offerings fit into the social realm. Whatever the motives, I appreciate the honesty.

Qualifications:
•Good working knowledge of SQL, HTML, PHP
•Mozenda and Sugar CRM experience a plus
•Strong database experience required
•Strong analytical skills— must be a logical, diagnostic, and methodical thinker
•Strong in multitasking — Ability to plan effectively and prioritize accordingly
•Excellent verbal and written communication skills; Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions from groups of managers, clients, customers, and the general public
•Ability to write reports and business correspondence
•Knowledge of internet advertising a plus
•Computer and internet literate – be able to navigate the internet competently and be able to proficiently utilize a computer including programs like Excel, Word, Power Point, Outlook, SQL Server. Advanced Excel proficiency is a plus!
•Ability to read, analyze, and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, or governmental regulations
•Ability to calculate figures and amounts such as discounts, interest, commissions, proportions, percentages, etc. Ability to apply concepts of basic computation, algebra, geometry and statistics.
•Ability to apply common sense understanding to carry out instructions furnished in written, oral, or diagram form
•Ability to deal with problems involving several variables in non-standardized situations

Responsibilities:
•Monitor the results of thousands of searches and determine trends that can be acted on
•Report and document the results of your work in a clear and concise fashion
•Work on several ongoing projects. The projects will vary from day to day and the candidate should be comfortable moving from project to project.
•Collaborate with developers, database engineers, and managers to solve problems
•The job will require the candidate to perform internet research and data analysis
•Over time, the candidate will be responsible for the creative activity of coming up with new ideas and projects to improve our clients’ performance in the search engines
•Other tasks as needed

To see how we work and play, visit http://www.profitfuel.com/ to apply!

Not only does the article share ideas from the author but also from sales consultants and managers from specific companies.

As I read the article, I immediately started to think about how phenomenal it is that our Sales department not only makes quotas but consistently surpasses them just about monthly. I also began to compare suggestions in the article with what we do here at Outrank.

As I outline recommended steps to take if sales reps miss their quotas, I’ll also compare that to what we do at Outrank.

1) “The first thing you should look for when a rep misses a quota is if there’s a sales process in place,” says Chad Levitt, a sales consultant and account executive with HubSpot and author of the New Sales Economy blog.

a) Our Sales department promoted a director of sales, who implemented best practices techniques across the sales team. Since that implementation, ProfitFuel and Outrank have seen customer sales skyrocket. Performance more than doubled and, additionally, new employees who joined the team to become sales agents achieved record-breaking performances as trainees.

2) Markowitz gave an example of a company setting an unrealistic sales quota for the year. His example demonstrated that it is not only important to have a sales funnel but also to set realistic expectations. You want employees to be able to achieve goals for good morale and so that the company can therefore be successful. He also said that setting unrealistic goals actually demotivates people.

a) All I know is that expectations around here are realistic because Sales people are constantly awarded, motivated, and incented with cash prizes, trips, trophies and certificates!

He goes on to say that

3) “As a manager, you should figure out how long it takes to actually sell one deal from start to finish. Is it eight hours, 10 hours, 20 hours? So when thinking about quotas, it’s often best to start thinking of them as a function of capacity—and then start thinking about things like revenue and closing ratios.”

a) Our Sales process is thorough at Outrank. Without getting to detailed in order to be considerate of your time — one of the least complex things we do is track talk times to determine how long it should typically take to make a sale. This also helps us set goals.

4) “If your rep misses quota, instead of reprimanding them, consider offering them training,” says sales consultant Russ Lombardo.

a) He explains that investing in your employees is worthwhile and will cost less in the longrun because firing employees and hiring new ones to train takes time and resources.
b) And before you even may get to that point, if you initially hire employees at lower wages you’ll often find you get what you paid for or your employees are less motivated to produce at the levels of which they are capable.
c) At Outrank, we offer training upfront. The sales training process is rigorous and when the intensive 4+ weeks of training is completed, employees have the tools they need to thrive in our environment.

5) Markowitz stresses “Patience is a Virtue”. “Lombardo says he’s seen many smaller companies where the CEO believes that because they used to sell a certain amount, and they’ve never been trained, they know it can be sold in a short amount of time.”

a) Markowitz went on to explain that employers should give their team time to get to know the company, the industry and the customer — give them time to learn.
b) He suggests that, after that, if a problem still exists then look at whether it is due to ineffective managment or ineffective or possibly lazy employees.
c) He further said that finding the right fit for the sales department parlays into making sure that you recognize specific skill sets and backgrounds to tailor your sales department. There are different types of sales – hunting for customers, cross-selling and upselling, for example. This goes for any department – the takeaway is that management should recognize talents and skills and utilize them.
d) We talk about this in a blog topic about embracing individuality and diversity in the workplace.

6) In another post, we talk about the importance of also finding the right cultural fit for the company. And this leaves us with the last suggestion made in the article — to let your lowest performers go if they just can’t meet expectations.

a) Markowitz and Ryan Tognazzini, an associate principal, both say that management is responsible for making sure they’ve given employees the proper tools and what they personally need, including a fair amount of time to get past the learning curve. But if the majority of employees are making quota and succeeding then you need to look at the individual and determine why it’s not you; it’s them.

Face it: some people aren’t cut out for sales—even if that’s their current title. But Lombardo says that on average, sales people are money-motivated, they want to succeed, and most importantly, they want to be rewarded. But it always comes back to the organization. “Management is a lot like parenting,” he says. “You can’t blame a kid for being bad if the parents don’t teach them how to behave.”