Please Don't Sell Me Anything

Often I’ll hear recruiters advocate for selling points:

“What’s the sell?” Or “Which hiring manager is the best at selling?” Or “We need to figure out the selling points!”

I just Googled the word ‘selling’ and got ‘persuade someone of the merits of’.

I guess that makes sense, but in my opinion, the word “sell” or “selling” should be removed from the recruitment process entirely.

In short, I’m not selling you anything and it’s time we put a stop to the act of selling.

Bear with me…

I’m not going to sell you this job. I’m presenting you with an opportunity — a chance to join me at the company that I believe in.

A chance to join an organization that’s creating something larger.

Instead, I challenge all the readers out there to adopt the phrase ‘Buy’ instead of ‘Sell.’

Let’s take a page from Telsa. Their dealerships aren’t huge lots of cars swarming with commission-driven salespeople.

They’re spacious showrooms made for customers to view the cars they’ve researched and heard so much about.

Their dealerships are here to inform and answer questions.

If someone likes a Telsa, they can purchase it and figure out the transactions online.

Tesla does not hire commission-driven salespeople to run their lots.

In my earlier days, I was dealing with a remarkable candidate.

The type of candidate that everyone drools over, a straight culture add that would take our company to the next level. Admittedly, he was one of the most outstanding engineers I’ve ever met.

When it came down to the offer, the majority of our focus was primarily on compensation.

After a month of negotiating the offer, we presented him with a final package that was almost double what we initially were comfortable with. It was more than what the Director was making.

I’ll be the first to admit that this situation was handled incredibly poorly and I was to blame.

I wasn’t getting him to buy into the company… I was selling and so were all our competitors.

When we buy something, the decision is our own. There shouldn’t be any acts of manipulation.

Give your candidates all the information — go through the company, team, role, and compensation in detail. Be transparent about where the company has been and where the company is going.

So let’s get our candidates to ‘buy’ into our companies and the opportunity we have. It really shouldn’t be that hard right? I mean… we’re working there for a reason right..?