Toshiba America Business Solutions’ vice president of human resources offers guidance for trying a different strategy to find your next hire.
To uncover some tips in hiring in this tight employment environment, we reached out to Kim Jones, vice president of human resources for Toshiba America Business Solutions, to hear about the new strategies her department is using to find talent in unexpected places. In recent years, companies in many different industries have reported challenges with hiring and maintaining a fully staffed workplace. Jones embraces creative thinking and recognizes that good talent can come from anywhere.
“We definitely have a mix,” said Jones. “Hiring managers’ preference is always industry candidates, but that’s not always possible. We definitely have to look outside.”
Toshiba America Business Solutions has always done some degree of recruiting outside the copier and printer industry and maintains an informal list of industries they’ve had success hiring from. Sales recruits from the telecom and cable industries tend to adapt well, with their background in selling technical equipment in a workplace environment. “We look at people who have experience with Verizon or Comcast, especially when they’ve been on the B2B side of sales,” revealed Jones.
She has seen similar suitability with hires from companies selling human resources and payroll software, as well as other tech-focused B2B stalwarts that tend to do best when the sales rep cultivates a consultative relationship with the client and takes the time to deeply understand the company’s operations and culture. But one industry that might be surprising is waste management. “That’s been a big one for us,” said Jones. “It’s not a luxurious sounding job, so the people who go into it really have to work hard to make their sales. It’s a good segue for us with MFPs and copiers.”
One limitation recruiters encounter is simply a lack of awareness of the office technology industry. “When you’re in college, you don’t dream of going into copier sales,” said Jones. “A lot of the time it’s people coming to us as referrals. They have a friend who works in our industry and says, hey, we’ve got openings.”
Jones also credits her team, as well as the third-party recruiting consultants Toshiba uses for pounding the virtual pavement, identifying potential candidates with transferrable skills on LinkedIn, and making cold calls. “Then we have to go through the process of explaining to them what it is we do, why they would want to consider this industry, really trying to get them interested in it,” added Jones.
Hiring Sales Candidates
With sales reps, sometimes the conversation can be simple. The personalities who go into sales are often very driven, goal-oriented people who are comfortable with concrete metrics. They want to know how many sales they must achieve. It’s often because they want to find something with more possibilities.
“When you’re talking to salespeople who do a lot of cold calling and when you start talking to them about a commission plan where they have unlimited earning potential, that’s really going to pique their interest,” said Jones. “The people who are drawn to that are the ones we definitely want, people who know if they really give their all to this, they can make a lot of money.”
But don’t overlook the persuasive power of a good company culture, especially if yours is a company that boasts many tenured employees, a good work-life balance, and the flexibility modern workers expect. Some sales reps cut their teeth in high-pressure, boiler-room environments that grow their skills fast but leave them wanting a more mature, balanced, and supportive environment once they have those skills. “We have people who’ve been here 20 or 30 years, and it’s because they find financial success, but also they just enjoy their co-workers,” said Jones. “That’s really where the connection is for a lot of people.”
Throughout the sales recruitment process it’s important to listen to and center one of the key stakeholders, the sales manager. They’re quite reasonably protective of their territories, and the need to fill an open position urgently can sometimes be at odds with the justifiable concern that whoever does fill that position should be experienced enough and familiar enough with the products to jump right in and start performing.
Consider the status of the existing team as well. Is it a team of veterans with enough bandwidth to mentor someone entry-level, or a team of greenhorns who would really flourish if someone experienced joined them and led the way? Listen to what the sales manager says about their team and its needs and keep them in the loop with hiring.
“A lot of times, what we’ll do is test the market first,” said Jones. “Let’s see if we can find industry people who would be a good fit for a role, but if that doesn’t produce candidates, we really start the conversation on how we could broaden our search.”
In addition to traditional talent searches, Toshiba America Business Solutions also uses targeted programs to find recruits from walks of life that might go overlooked. They have a new program, Heroes in Transition, that reaches out to military veterans who are ready for a career change.
“The military community is incredibly diverse, with people of various races, ethnicities, and genders,” said Jones. “There’s a huge population there.” She’s also proud of Toshiba’s involvement in the Military Spouse Employment program, which partners with the Department of Defense to help find employment for spouses who, due to the rigors of military life, frequently have to relocate at short notice and thus have difficulty finding traditional employment.
“People who have moved up the ranks in the military make great leaders,” said Jones. “One of our top salespeople in the country has a military background, and part of what gives him his ability to succeed is his ability to schedule himself. He’s so regimented in everything he does. He learned this in the military, and it’s served him very well.”
Like many large companies, Toshiba America Business Solutions has a standardized sales program that all new hires participate in, led by national trainers. “It’s really designed for people with a spectrum of experience,” said Jones.
The training is designed to support people starting out on their first sales job as well as experienced sales reps who just need to learn Toshiba’s specific ways of doing things, as well as getting up to speed on all of the company’s products and service offerings. “We do a ramp-up period for at least six months to get them through training, do some job shadowing, really getting help from their sales manager to understand how it all works,” Jones said. While the structured training phase is estimated to take about six months, Jones cautions that it’s reasonable for a new hire to need about a year before they’re “really firing on all cylinders.”
For companies apprehensive about making their first outside-the-industry hire, Jones advises starting not with an entry-level worker but rather with someone more senior. “Somebody who has done B2B sales in another industry, they’re a seasoned salesperson, and they know what it takes to be successful,” said Jones. While it’s possible to try anyone at the entry level, absent experience, success on the job really boils down to the individual, which can be more of a roll of the dice. Just be sure to get buy-in from the managers. “As long as they’ve got someone they feel supports them, listens, helps them close a deal, that’s really what your salespeople are looking for,” said Jones.
