PART IV: What Do Employers Really Want?

Employers have limited interests. To hire someone who has what it takes to solve their problem or need. some one will demonstrate skills-clearly evident or capable of being proven.
Here is a typical scenario that informs an employer's decision to advertising for a position in company Y.

Company Y receiver 3000 phone calls in the last three months. 95% of the calls (2850) were inquiries about the company products, only 200 of the call-in customers actually bought the products. This translates to 7% of the total inquiries.

The management company Y wants to know why the conversion rate is so low. On investigating, the following truths emerged:
1. There were only 4 sales staff who could handle call-in clients and the callers stayed on hold for very long (over 1 minute) and dropped the calls;
2. Some calls were received by non sales staff and did not translate to sales.

Company Y then resolved to hire 8 more sales staff to handle call in customers. The Human Resource Manager and the Sales Manager and the sales manager were tasked with completing the hiring assignment. Below is the job profile requirement that they came up with for the new sales staff:

1. Age limit - 30 years old
2. Minimum Education - Business Degree
3. Sales Experience - 2 years
4. Specific skills- Language skills; Eloquent and good spoken English/Kiswahili, Excellent interpersonal and rapport building skills, Ability to ask high values sales questions, ability to listen, clues, cues and respond accordingly, objection handling skills, persistent, organizational skills, focused.

The HR Manager placed an advert in the media for Telephone sales executives using the above profile. 

Therefore, if you take time to understand the underlying reasons for a job opening, then you will have gone a long way in isolating the important things you will need to work on to build a compelling curriculum vitae.