My wife Sharon and I dated for exactly two years before I proposed to her. Over our two year courtship, I got to know her likes and dislikes. I understood her goals in life and her aspirations. She knew the same about me. On July 24, 1996, in the White House Rose Garden (true story), I asked Sharon to marry me. She excitedly agreed. What might have been her response if she didn’t feel like she knew me well enough to make that kind of commitment? Would she still have accepted?

What if during the entire time we were courting, I kept my hand close to the vest? In essence, what if I shared little about myself and what I wanted from life, but asked lots of questions of Sharon to understand her? Would she have enough information to make an informed, educated decision on whether she should take her relationship with me to the next level? Probably not. Perhaps, she would have declined the offer outright if she saw that my goals were completely different than hers.

That scenario may seem silly to you. You probably think that it would be a rarity that someone would propose without letting their significant other get to know them to a level where they could both make an educated decision on the future of the relationship. If you think that, you are probably right. However, my question is why do companies create a one-dimensional process when they screen sales candidates?

I’ve always been a firm believer that when the time came for me to make an offer to a candidate, taking the ring out of my pocket, both the candidate and I had enough information to make an educated decision. My expectation is that when I make an offer, the candidate will accept/decline on the spot. More often than not, I received an acceptance of the offer.

What is the secret to doing that well? The key is to create your sales talent screening program such that it is two-dimensional. You want to gather data about the candidate so that you can make a solid decision. Most companies get that. However, the goal is to also create an environment where the candidate has the same evaluation opportunity. That is the second dimension.

What does a candidate need to know to make an informed decision on a sales position?

One important consideration for candidates is culture. Some companies, to save money, conduct their interviews entirely by phone and only bring finalists to Corporate. After a day of interviewing with some executives, the team makes an offer/no offer decision. However, the entire process has been a one-dimensional exercise where the company has gathered key information, but the candidate has not.

The decision to join your company is not taken lightly by sales candidates. They need to be able to evaluate the culture to see if there is a good fit. While they come to the table with the skills, they have to determine if they can apply those skills successfully in your world. Thus, the candidates need to be immersed into your environment so they can analyze your culture to a level that allows them to make an informed decision on the relationship.

One of the best ways to share the sales culture with candidates is through reverse interviewing. The way this is done is that you select a seasoned member of the sales team to conduct a reverse interview with the sales candidate. However, the interviewer doesn’t ask any questions, thus the expression reverse interview. This is an opportunity for the candidate to ask questions of a potential peer. The candidate should be encouraged to ask questions that will best help them best understand the sales culture.

There is also a tremendous benefit to employers in immersing the sales candidates in the culture. Every company has a story about someone they hired and six months into the relationship, they recognize that the person doesn’t fit with the culture. The sales person recognizes it too. Then, the relationship is terminated. A six-month investment has gone down the tubes with nothing to show for it. Had the company allowed the candidate to experience the culture during the screening process, perhaps he would have removed himself from consideration so that both the candidate and employer could have been spared the pain of this experience.

Years ago, I was interviewing with a company in Bethesda, Maryland. The entire process had gone well. The recruiter called me and said that the C.E.O. would like to take my wife and me to dinner as a final step of the process. What he shared at dinner was that he felt that it was important for my wife to understand the company and the opportunity. He wanted her to have an opportunity to ask questions and understand the plans for the company. This made an incredible impression on both my wife and me. Needless to say, when the offer came the next morning, I accepted and enjoyed a great experience with the company. A great sales marriage!

Another important element in this decision-making process for sales people is the direction of the company. Sales people look to join organizations that have a solid game plan. They have to be passionate about their company and product to be successful. Yet, I hear from many candidates that the company with whom they interviewed did not share it with them. I recognize that there is sensitivity toward letting out trade secrets, however, that lack of sharing can cause the sales candidate to be unimpressed with your company. The secretive nature of your company could also send up a red flag of paranoia. If you are really concerned about trade secrets, have the candidate sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). If you are still uncomfortable, design a message to share with the candidates that is compelling, but does not create risk for your organization.

The final element for review by the candidates is the compensation package. They need to understand the mechanics of the compensation plan. Many companies tell candidates the potential earnings based on achieving the goal of the plan (quota). Few take the candidate through the plan as part of the sales talent screening program. “The plan is designed to target your earnings at $150,000, but we’ll get into how the program works when you are onboard.”

Yeah, that doesn’t work for sales people. They need to know in-depth how they make money. The same holds true for benefits. Share the benefits program with candidates during the sales talent screening program. Show them the costs of the program. Provide them with a Human Resources contact so that they can ask questions about the benefits.

The offer stage of the process should be a formality, just like a marriage proposal. Ladies don’t expect their significant other to pull a rabbit out of their pocket. They expect a ring. Your sales candidates shouldn’t be surprised either. The offer should be consistent with what they have learned about during your screening process. No surprises!

Lee B. Salz is President of Sales Dodo, author of “Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager,” and an online columnist for Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. He specializes in helping companies and their sales organizations adapt and thrive in the ever-changing world of business. Lee is available for keynote speaking, business consulting, and sales training. He can be reached via his website at Sales Dodo or by phone at 763.416.4321.

While it’s true public records laws vary from state to state, there are certain documents that are open to anyone to peruse. These documents can help people who bother to look into them find out a world of information that can guide good decision-making. Whether it’s a public records check for an employment situation or a man or woman checking another person out to make sure they’re a “safe” date, a check on a person’s background isn’t out of the question in this day and age.

Thanks to the Internet, public records checks are fairly simply to perform, too. Again it will depend on the state in question, but in general a whole host of information is available for public records checks. Depending on where you go and what records you want, the process is generally as simple as requesting the documents and perhaps paying a little fee for the government agency’s trouble.

To properly perform a public records check on a person, it’s very likely you’ll need their full legal name, date of birth and even Social Security number to proceed. Government agencies generally won’t give out the information without making sure the person you’re requesting documents on is the person they are pulling files on. Without this information, it’s very possible an employer might pull records on John B. Doe rather than John A. Doe. The mix up could cost an honest person a job, so government agencies try to avoid the confusion by requiring good identifying information up front. If you don’t have the basic information, don’t count on getting files in return.

Here are some of the most common forms of public records that can be had by anyone on anyone:

* Arrest records. If a legal adult has been arrested, the details of the crime (unless sealed by a court) are open for anyone to look at. This means arrest reports, convictions and so on can all be opened for perusal. A caution on arrest records, however, is the fact that an arrest doesn’t mean guilt. Court records will be needed to determine that.
* Speaking of court records, these are usually open to the public. Some types of records will be sealed or partially sealed to protect victim identity, but in general, divorce proceedings, criminal hearings and so on can be picked up in transcript form.
* Property records. The ownership of buildings, homes and plots of land is public record. If the property is on the tax roll, the information about who owns it can be found through a simple records request.
* Driving records. The availability of these will vary from state to state, but generally these records are open to the public. If a person breaks the law, and they’re an adult, they pretty much forfeit their rights to privacy in this type of case.

Getting public records on people is a fairly simple undertaking thanks to the Internet. Many agencies allow online queries into backgrounds and there are even programs that can help simplify the search even more. Checking into a person’s background isn’t “sneaky” and it’s not underhanded. In this time of identity theft, and increased crime, it is just a smart thing to do.

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When you are hiring a new employee you naturally want the best person for the role. In a candidate poor job market you need to realize that while you are interviewing the candidate, they are also interviewing you to see if they really want to work for you. You need to be on your game – to make sure you leave candidates with a great impression of your company.

So, let’s start with the basics. Interviews are not an exact science. They are not meant to be. The best you can do is to try and remove as much of the emotion of the process as possible and balance it with logic.

Interviews should be about helping candidates show their best side, it is not about tricking them, putting them under added stress and seeing how they “perform”. They are not seals; they are human beings complete with human feelings. Interviews are of themselves inherently stressful – so even in the most relaxed interview you are getting a person operating under stress.

Here are some tips to help you with your job interviews

Before the interview:

1) Make time in your diary for the interview. You need to show candidates the courtesy of being fully “present” at the interview. If you need to, hire additional staff to cover for you or close the shop for an hour.

2) Make sure there will be no interruptions. If you allow yourself to be interrupted during the interview you are giving candidates the message that when they work for you they are unimportant and will always be second best. Is that the message you really want to give?

3) Work out exactly what you are looking for. Of course you have a position description for the role written. If you don’t, you need to write one before the interviews so that candidates know exactly what the role will entail. Once you know precisely what they will be doing, work out what skills and experience are essential in order to be able to perform the role.

4) Work out the sort of person you need for your team. Fitting a person into a team is a real jigsaw. If you are a scattered sort of person, perhaps you need to look for someone organized to balance your gaps. It is easy to get carried away with someone who is a nice person, but if they don’t have the skills or the right personality for the team then they are the wrong person for this role.

5) Make sure you are not directly or indirectly discriminating. Do you really need a “bloke” for the role if it involves heavy work? Gender is not a good predictor of strength. Some of the weediest people I have met have been blokes and the strongest people who can bench-press better than everyone in the gym are women.

6) Contact the candidates. Let them know who will be interviewing them, how long they can expect the interview to last, where to come and where they can park. By showing them courtesy as if they are your top client, you are sending a very strong message about what it will be like to work with you.

7) Somewhere to wait. Make sure there is somewhere nice to wait before the interview. Some candidates can arrive up to half an hour early, so be prepared.

Work out the questions you are going to ask. These questions should be directly linked back to the duties of the position. You need to ask each candidate the same basic set of questions so you can compare answers. Of course you can prompt for more information, but the basic questions should be the same. Also work out the sort of answers you would expect to see from a great candidate.

9) Check your questions actually give you the information you need. If you ask “can you use Microsoft Word” you will get a Yes/No response. If you ask “tell me how you would go about setting up a mail merge letter to my database” and you get a better idea of their skill level.

10) Consider giving candidates the core questions 15 minutes before they come in for interview. Remember you want them to be the best they can be. In most jobs people don’t have to answer off the top of their heads all day every day. People have time to think. By allowing people the chance to see and think about the main questions before the interview, you allow introverted people the chance to shine. Interviews traditionally favour extroverted people, which means that you are missing out on at least half of the population.

11) Consider having more than one person in the interview. Different people see different things in candidates. It can help to balance out viewpoints.

During the interview:

1) Introduce yourself and take some time to build rapport before launching into questions.

2) Allow the candidate space to be nervous. Make sure they have a glass of water to drink to steady their nerves.

3) If conducting a phone interview, periodically make some noise when they are talking such as “aha” or “mmnn”. Phone interviews can be disconcerting as often all the candidate hears is silence. Consciously fill the background and you will get a better interview.

4) Check the referees are still current (you may want to ask the candidate what they think the referees will say about them – always enlightening).

5) Remember the no interruptions rule. Once you are interviewing allow no phone calls or people barging in. If someone does barge in, apologise first to the person you are interviewing. Tell the person who barged in that you are interviewing at present and will get back to them in half an hour.

6) Ask if they have any questions for you and be prepared for any curly question about you, your company, pay and conditions, development opportunities and promotional possibilities.

After the interview:

1) Check references of all candidates you are seriously considering.

2) Personally ring every candidate you interviewed to tell them they have been successful or unsuccessful. Give some basic feedback on how great they were at interview but the field was very competitive.

3) Follow it up with a short note thanking them for their time and interest in your company and wishing them well for future roles. It costs nothing for courtesy but builds a great image of you and your company.

When all is said and done, you need to balance logic with gut feel about the candidate. If your gut says no but they are a great candidate, check it out further with more questions or reference checks. Your gut usually has picked up something that you need to know more about, so trust its wisdom and dig a bit deeper.

Ingrid Cliff is a Business Development and Human Resources Consultant to Small and Medium Businesses. Ingrid has just published Instant HR Policies and Procedures for Small and Medium Businesses www.heartharmony.com.au