Peter D. Widdle is the Wall Street Journal Staffing and Hiring writer. He's a good writer and often has some insights into what makes hiring work best that we can use to improve our sales hiring success rate.

Not to drag up old stuff, but I think there's insight here into why four out of five of most sales hires are mediocre -- In his August 2006 article he applied insights from Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink" to finding top candidates.

For those who haven't read Gladwell's "Blink" his thesis is that most people tend to make gut decisions -- and that this is a good thing.

OK. I would doubt that those of managers mired in 20-25% sales hiring success rate prior to using the AHS would agree that gut hiring was
a good thing....

However, Widdle makes an interesting insight from the Blink model that we CAN use.

If it is true (and I think it is) that most people make snap decisions, let's make sure we use that when we are attracting applicants. Let me explain: candidates are making snap decisions on who to apply to. Therefore make sure that your ads instantly appeal to the applicants
we are looking for. 

Take a look at your ad now and make sure it is as appealing as any other ad in your category. REMEMBER to include the key elements of good ads from the AHS Ad Writing Module in the Member Area.

If you need help on this, let us hear from you. We are here to help.