Sales Chapter 17 Homework We try to have one from consumer package goods, one who sells directly to consumers, an industrial

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Chapter 17 – Managing Your Career

CHAPTER 17

MANAGING YOUR CAREER

Outline of Chapter

I. Opportunities in Selling

II. Making a Good Match

A. Understanding Yourself

1. Understanding Your Needs

2. Understanding What You Have to Offer

III. The Recruiting Process

A. Selecting Salespeople

1. Applicant Information Sources

B. Selling Your Capabilities

2. Gaining the Interview

3. Writing the Cover Letter

4. The Interview

a. Preparing for the Interview

b. During the Interview

5. Special Types of Interviews

6. Follow-up

7. Interviewing Never Ends

Chapter 17 – Managing Your Career

IV. Managing Your Career Goals

A. Making the Transition From College to Career

B. Dual Career Path

C. Continue to Develop Your KSAS

1. Sources of improvement

Chapter 17 – Managing Your Career

Teaching Suggestions

1. Students need to shop for jobs (although the interview isn’t the best time for that), which

means looking at a lot of different opportunities, trying them on, and seeing if they fit.

One method we have found to be useful in introducing students to various types of sales

positions is to invite several salespeople to speak about their typical day. We try to have

one from consumer package goods, one who sells directly to consumers, an industrial or

2. Students in search of a career are a paradox. Either they put too much pressure on

themselves to find the perfect job the first time out or they are so laid back that they don’t

begin looking for a career until it is too late. And some put so much pressure on

themselves that they are unable to look at all. Students should consider the following:

between the individual and the organization.

3. The Sales Professional’s Survival Guide (by Gene Garofalo and Gary Drummond,

Prentice Hall 1987) is grossly out of date but still provides a great list of advantages and

disadvantages of working for large or for small companies. You may want to ask the students to

come up with a list first, then compare it to the one from that book.

Chapter 17 – Managing Your Career

4. Ask students how the interview differs from a sales call. Questions 1 and 4 from the end

of the chapter are good starters for this discussion. What is the probability that using

some sales techniques would hurt, and what techniques are those? What else from this

course can they apply to their job search? Should they ask for a sale? If so, what is the

sale they should ask for?

5. A sales manager once told us to keep an I Love You file, a file for thank you notes for a

job well done, memos of appreciation, etc. These letters and notes can be used as proof

6. Question 1 is a good starter for integrating material concerning personality styles with

interviewing. Assign this question ahead of time so that their responses will be thought

out.

7. Ask students who have gone through job interviews to list some of the unusual questions

8. Learning corporate culture is important to early success in a career. You may want to

read the Thinking it Through from the chapter that asks how students learned the school’s

Chapter 17 – Managing Your Career

9. One speaker at a conference said that stress was an excuse – when someone says he or she

is stressed, they are using it as an excuse to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do.

For example, stress is used as an excuse to lose one’s temper, to take a day off, to ignore

activities that need to be done, and similar tactics. That doesn’t mean that people don’t

really get stressed, the question is: Are they dealing with the symptoms of stress or the

cause of stress? Ask students how they handle the stress of final exams. Then ask which

strategies reduce the feelings of stress and which strategies reduce the cause of stress.

Then ask what causes stress in a sales job. Can all stress be eliminated? Of course, the

answer is no. So the question then becomes of identifying stressors, eliminating when

possible, and to develop healthy strategies for managing the stress that can’t be

eliminated.

This is another good time to bring up role stress. Remember the discussion from the last

chapter about who a salesperson represents (see teaching suggestion #1)? You may want

Chapter 17 – Managing Your Career

Suggested Answers to Ethics Problems

1. You are interviewing for your dream job. Suddenly the interviewer notices your wedding

ring and compliments you on it. But then he says, “You know, this job requires a lot of

travel. What is your spouse going to say to that?” You answer the question, and he

replies, “That’s great, now, when you don’t have kids. You don’t have kids, do you?

Because it is tough to be successful if you don’t get the travel done.” What do you do?

The interviewer has just asked a series of illegal questions. While his intentions are

2. Some people recommend signing up for as many interviews as possible, reasoning that

the experience will be helpful when you find a company with a job you really want. (And

who knows? You might find a job you like.) Is this practice ethical? Why or why not?

Many people will say this is ethical. Others will say the practice is unethical, that students

Chapter 17 – Managing Your Career

Suggested Answers to Questions and Problems

1. What would you do differently if being interviewed by an amiable, a driver, an analytical,

or an expressive?

Students should plan for different personality styles by mentally role playing what they

would do if faced with different personality styles. An analytical will want support

material, an amiable may be more interested in references, and an expressive may be

interested in your I Love You file. The driver, however, will appreciate responses and

questions that are quick and to the point, illustrating a desire to move to the key points

quickly.

What about a panel interview with one driver and one amiable? One analytical and one

expressive?

When faced with panel interviews consisting of interviewers with differing social styles,

2. Spencer Ryan began his career in a small but rapidly growing company (look back at the

opening profile). What were the advantages to his start? What do you think he may have

missed out on, not working for a big, well-known company?

Some of his advantages included being noticed by senior executives early on, something

that was possible because of the small size of the company; the opportunity to a wide

3. Now that you are at the end of the book, what traits do you have that would make you

successful in sales? Are there specific industries or sales positions to which you are

better suited? Why? Compare your list to that in Exhibit 17.2. How do you stack up?

How would you prove that you have those traits?

While anyone could find a place somewhere in sales, each student’s answer should vary

depending on interests and skills. Some students feel that they are not assertive enough

Chapter 17 – Managing Your Career

4. Some interviews are conducted over the phone or by video-conference. What do you think

is important and different about these types of interviews compared to face–to-face

interviews?

As with phone or video-conference sales calls, reading non-verbals becomes a challenge.

Phone calls require that you smile all the time (it comes through in your voice), practice

active listening techniques such as probing, summarizing, and re-stating, and that you

5. What changes do you need to make to your social media presence to prepare for

transitioning to a professional career or to build your personal brand?

This question gets at the topic of reputation and how a personal brand reflects your

reputation. What is appropriate for a college student on Facebook is not appropriate for a

professional on LinkedIn. One student had a photo of him at a business reception in

China as his profile picture on LinkedIn. He was holding a glass of juice. I suggested he

get another photo, because even though he is in business attire and it’s a glass of juice,

not all will see it as a professional photo.

Another point to consider is what is the brand to be about? What do you want your

blogging. You want people to get to know you personally, but also as a professional.

6. Answer the questions in Exhibit 17.6 as you would in a sales job interview.

The answers will depend on the student.

7. Your summer internship in a sales job was a bad experience. Your biggest complaint was

that the sales manager seemed incompetent. In spite of this negative experience, you like

sales, so you are interviewing for a sales position. What would you say if asked why you

do not seek full-time employment with the summer internship firm?

You could be totally honest, saying that you were asked to hardsell and that is not right for

you. This answer would be appreciated by someone looking for a non-manipulative

feel comfortable working for. “

Chapter 17 – Managing Your Career

8. One recruiter called a professor to check on a student that the professor referred. The

recruiter said, “You gave this student my name last Wednesday and it is now Tuesday.

Does this delay signal a lack of interest?” How would you answer that if the recruiter

was asking you the question and you were the student? Why would a recruiter comment

on the time it took to call?

This, like many of the situations we ask about, actually happened. That recruiter chose

9. You are in an interview and you think this is your dream job. How would you secure

commitment? What would say different in the first interview if it is a screening interview

on campus versus the fourth interview at company headquarters?

Good ways to secure commitment are to state one’s sincere interest in the position and

ask “Do you have any reservations about my candidacy?” If the answer is yes, then the

10. What stresses do you have now? How do you deal with stress? What healthy methods to

handle stress do you use? What are some ways you respond to stress that may not be so

healthy?

Obviously, students’ answers will vary greatly. Stressors they are likely to have will be

Chapter 17 – Managing Your Career