Archive for November, 2010

03
Nov

The Companies Hiring The Most In Sales Right Now

From Forbes.com, 11/1/10:

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All over the country recession-weary businesses remain hesitant to spend cash trying to pump up sales, but signs of recovery are popping up all over. Some of America’s largest corporations are looking to fill hundreds of sales positions. Forbes and the online job aggregator Indeed.com have collaborated to put together two lists of the companies with the most sales job postings right now. One list represents business-to-business sales positions at all salary levels; the other counts executive sales jobs that pay $80,000 a year or more.

We started by looking for job titles most likely to encompass business-to-business sales jobs, and then did a meticulous review of the search results to remove duplicates and any retail-type positions. The picture we offer does not reflect a precise number of available jobs. An opening can be listed in more than one place and can remain online for a time after it’s filled. Nevertheless, the numbers do offer a strong, broad gauge of which companies are expanding and taking on the most new salespeople right now.

The insurance firms Aflac ( AFL -news - people ) and Liberty Mutual are the two companies hiring the most in sales. Neither is included in the top 10 companies hiring for positions paying $80,000 or more, but Aflac has 800 job postings altogether, and Liberty Mutual has 589.

“As the focus on heath care continues, there is an increasing demand and interest in our product,” says Laura Kane, Aflac’s vice president of external communications.

Leading the group of companies with the most openings for executive sales jobs paying $80,000 or more is the tech giant IBM ( IBM - news - people). The Armonk, N.Y., company is looking to hire 43 sales executives right now, and a total of 280 salespeople at all salary levels.

Others that appear on both lists are ADP, Oracle ( ORCL -news - people ), Cintas ( CTAS - news - people ), and Wells Fargo ( WFC - news - people ), which holds the No. 9 spot on both. Wells Fargo has 17 postings for high-paying executive sales jobs, and a total of 163 open business-to-business sales positions. It hired almost 3,000 new employees in mortgage sales this year, and it plans on raising that number as demand soars for home-buying, refinancing and renovation lending, says Greg Gwizdz, the financial services firm’s national sales manager.

“The merger with Wachovia created many new jobs,” Gwizdz says. “Now we are seeing more growth and opportunities for employment on the East Coast.”

Gwizdz also says Wells Fargo is selective when it comes to hiring: “The No. 1 criterion for getting a job here is all-around leadership skills. Experience in financial services is a plus, but we can teach anyone that. We can’t teach people leadership. We are about doing the right thing, and we need salespeople who can help us carry out that vision,” he says.

The telecommunications firm AT&T ( T - news - people ) has 28 listings for executive sales positions, while Google ( GOOG- news - people ) trails close behind with 22.

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03
Nov

Job market booming, but beware ‘variable pay’

Great demonstration of what variable pay really means to both employee and employer … interesting read! Source: Daily News & Analysis, 11/2/10:

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The slowdown is becoming a distant memory with the job market booming again. But what’s happening on the salaries front?

Experts say it’s foolhardy to expect hefty hikes in the fixed portion of your pay as of now. Companies will offer that dream packet, but a large percentage of it will be the variable component. Which means your hike will be meaningful only if your and your company’s performance matches or beats expectations.

“The variable component will keep increasing as firms want to induce accountability in their workforces,” said Ronesh Puri, managing director, Executive Access, an employee search firm. He said the trend is getting increasingly visible in the IT, BPO, retail and insurance sectors, particularly in the sales domain.

Yogesh Saigal, a Delhi-based human resources consultant, said if at all there are hikes in the fixed component, they would be minuscule, “7-8%”.
Till recently, the variable component typically constituted about 10% of one’s pay. But the proportion is going up significantly. “At the junior level variable would constitute 15-20% of total pay, while for seniors, it could comprise 30-40%,” Saigal said.

What is going to happen is this: Say your cost to company (CTC) is Rs6,00,000 per annum.

If your fixed-to-variable pay ratio is 90:10, then 10% of Rs6,00,000, or Rs60,000, is what you have been getting if your performance has been meeting expectations.

Now, say your CTC is hiked to Rs6,50,000 per annum, but simultaneously your fixed-to-variable ratio changes from 90:10 to 80:20. Then, 20% of this CTC, or Rs1,30,000, is what you will get depending on your performance.

In other words, where you have been so far getting Rs5,40,000 (Rs 6,00,000 minus Rs60,000), irrespective of performance, your assured remuneration will decline to Rs5,20,000 (Rs6,50,000 minus 1,30,000) after the hike.

From the employee’s point of view, therefore, hiking variable pay does not mean much. “If you perform, you get the rewards, or else not. It’s as simple as this. The fixed-to-variable ratio has been getting skewed in favour of variable and this trend will only increase,” Saigal said.

From the employer’s point of view, this is a good way of ensuring employee commitment. While steep pay hikes hurt, it is important to reward deserving candidates.

“No one wants to make the mistake of giving generous hikes and then repent,” says a senior human resources official from an IT firm in Bangalore.

“There are two reasons for this. First, employees often use hefty hikes to secure better deals from rival firms. Secondly, though the environment suggests a recovery, firms would like to be cautious in opening their purse strings.”

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