It takes a special kind of person to strike a productive chord in an ambitious yet playful startup environment. A mad sense of humor definitely helps when the pressure to profit is on.
Here at Red Nova Labs – a two-year-old startup with twenty or so employees – we have humor in spades. Not a half-hour goes by when a laugh isn't heard from somewhere in the building. I won’t deny that laughter can make you feel stabby when you’re trying to fix a fatal bug in the code or beat an unrealistic deadline. But for the most part it adds energy to an insatiable business
Virtually everyone in the building pokes fun at one another. At times, our jocularity can border on offensive. Who am I kidding— it is offensive. Take a look at my random dialogue-log on @crapmyteamsays and you’ll see what I mean. Thick skin is requisite. People who take themselves too seriously simply wouldn’t thrive inside our walls. So before we decide to add employees to our team, we want to make sure they can take it.
That’s why we set up our job recruitment processes to filter out the weak of wit. Resumes are nice and all, but a college degree and a bunch of doctored performance-data don’t reveal a person’s disposition. From our ads to our interviews to our assessment tests, we’re set up to gauge candidates’ skills, tenacity, and attitude.
Sales candidates go through an especially rigorous gauntlet. It just makes good sense for a prospective employer to rough them up a bit and see how they take it. In any sales role in any organization, salespeople are going to get knocked down. The key to being successful is getting back up; fast and happy like a hamster on espresso. Sales is a tough yet vital role and there’s no rest for the weary. I hate to utter the following words and I’m sure I’ll regret it, but: The really good ones are worth their diva demeanor and generous pay.
I’m confident to say that my company's sales candidate screening process works. In fact I'll go so far as to brag that we now employ some of the most outgoing, determined and fun sales performers I've met in my 107 years of marketing various technologies. I largely credit it to my partner and CEO, Dan Miller.
Miller is a sales and business development bloodhound with a nose for sniffing past the braggadocio. As such, he's been described as "an asshole" by candidates we didn’t select. One particularly scathing post-interview email was packed with pointless invectives; another described Miller as a computer nerd who should never be allowed to fraternize with normal people. My favorite was from a sales candidate we almost hired: Just as we were putting an offer on paper, he accused Miller of being a "greedy bastard" who wanted nothing more out of sales than revenue.
Em... Duh?
Sometimes this kind of uncouth feedback will get our interviewers down – Miller included – but I’m simply pleased that we manage to filter out the wimps early on.
The latest example is a straightforward submission received through the Indeed job board from a writer named Sparky. In fairness to the Sparkster, let me preface his poetic words here with the text of our salesperson want-ad. (I would simply hyperlink it, but this blog post may have a longer shelf-life than the job posting.)
It has been said that great salespeople are like alligators: They have ears as small as thimbles, a mouth as big as a bass, and skin as thick as plywood. It may not strike you as a flattering analogy, but we like it. We're a high growth [blah blah blah] web marketing think-tank and we're looking for an alligator—an enthusiastic, outgoing, hardworking sales rep.
Qualifications:
College degree.Don't have one? Then you should be able to show you can plan and drive a project from start to finish. As for experience, it can be trumped by common sense and management skills.
Youthful Enthusiasm. That doesn’t mean it's okay to pee on the floor, even if it's for comedic effect. It means if you don't have great energy, you won't be successful.
Social Stamina. Can you carry on an endless conversation about virtually nothing with a total stranger? We don't need that. But if you can do it, you have what it takes.
Persistence. Are you a fan of opposite day, where no means yes? Can you get back up after you've been socked in the proverbial jaw? We hope you won't be subjected to that, but in sales, it happens.
Work ethic. Believe it: slackers need not apply. If you want to get ahead, this is the place for you. We are a small and dynamic team with a lot of potential. If we wanted dead wood we would be running this ad in the forest.
Frankly, I believe this is the best job advertisement we've ever posted. It was drafted in about five minutes by Miller, after we'd had our fill of poised people with calligraphic degrees who could surf Facebook all day and leave lettuce-scattered Subway wrappers out for someone else to pick up, but couldn’t close a $70-per-month contract without offering $20 off. (The brand positioner in me just snotted a little.)
We want top performers who fit like a well-lubed cog the team dynamic, and we don't give a damn how they dress in the office or what pretty parchment they frame on the wall. Why sugarcoat it for candidates who will be expected to kick butt and take names in the battles of will and wit?
We receive a lot of positive responses to the want-ad. Two recent submissions to Indeed began with “Yes! You get it!” and “Let me be frank: I want in.” The "dead wood" sarcasm in the ad is especially popular. Miller comes up with some real gems. But Sparky didn’t seem to think we were worthy of his regard:
“What an arrogant, worthless ad for a sales position. When you see an ad full of crap like this one, you know the job and the company are too. Slackers? What slacker wrote this ad for you? Pee on the floor? You unprofessional, disrespectful, jack-ass.”
How disappointing. I mean, the guy is obviously assertive, he has plenty of empty time on his hands for prospecting, and he can use the word "crap" effectively in a sentence. I bet he'd at least have made it to the first interview. (Although, for the record, "jackass" is not hyphenated, so his standard cover letter may be full of grammatical blips that would make me cringe.) Fortunately, he saved us the trouble by acting like a big baby up front.
Let me show you how we read Sparky’s response:
“I would not be a good fit for your innovative yet slightly unhinged team; thus your ad is a very effective filter.”
I’ll be the first to admit that our recruitment process isn’t for everyone. Are we at risk of offending a few people out there? Sure we are. But that’s the whole point. The sales candidates who storm away calling us arrogant jerks belong in a different world where employees softly caress their Swingline staplers and wear khakis four out of five days per week except for Hawaiian Shirt Day.
So what about the sales candidates that make it through our gauntlet?
They are respected by our whole team for their contributions and their wins—even the guy that shaves in the men’s room before his hot dates. We’re an organization that will always hold successful salespeople in high regard; in a relative sense they'll be spoiled. I have been known to tell non-sales employees, “Sales will always be paid more than you. But don’t feel bad; you wouldn’t envy the pressure that comes with that job.”
Word to the wise: It’s a small world; think before you spew bile after an unsuccessful interview. It’s not smart to burn a bridge with a prospective employer. You never know who or what they know. ...But that's a post for another day.
Want to know what really makes us tick as employers?
Read Ten Ways to Get Ahead of the Pack at Your Startup on Business Insider by Mark Zwilling.
