Athletic Resumes Tell Valuable Secrets
The current low unemployment rate is making recruiting and turnover extremely expensive for small companies. This small company is using some resourcefulness and hard work to make interviewing easier and keep turnover down. AEROCOM consists of 100% ex-collegiate athletes and has created specific recruiting strategies that have propelled them to incredible success in a short period of time. The five year old, 4 employee company hit $3 Million in Sales last year, a whopping 140% increase.
Costa Mesa, CA, February 28, 2008 --(PR.com)-- With low unemployment and higher-than-ever salaries, recruiting and churn is especially expensive for small companies these days.
One small company has a specific formula they use to keep both salaries and churn at a minimum, while trying to quickly grow their sales force in a city with one of the highest median salary level’s in the world. Orange County based AEROCOM, Inc. currently has only 4 employees yet they’ve used this formula to boost sales to over $3 Million in 2007, a whopping 142% growth and have secured hundreds of clients, nationwide including big names like LG, WTAS and Fatburger.
Three years ago, when it came time to hiring the first outside sales reps for his young company, owner Mike Smith was having a difficult time finding young college graduates with a proven track record of success. “I didn’t have a huge budget, so rather than hiring pricy experienced employees, I decided to invest in high quality college grads, train them thoroughly and then have great quality employees, long-term.”
“I looked through hundreds of college graduate’s resumes and did several interviews. I was having a difficult time seeing a bridge between what the candidates did in college vs. what they could do in a career.”
Then Smith, an ex-collegiate quarterback, decided to go back to his roots and specifically look for grads that also played collegiate athletics.
“It was so much easier for me to evaluate character because an athletic career entails many of the same requirements as a career. It requires competitiveness, long hours, teamwork, adversity, goal setting and dealing with authority.”
Smith brought up some insightful examples. “For instance, if I see that an athlete chose a difficult major and kept a G.P.A. over 3.0, they obviously know how to prioritize, work hard and have great discipline. If I see that same person was elected “team captain” or “best teammate,” add outgoing and great social skills to their list of character traits. If I see that they walked onto the team without a scholarship, and later earned a scholarship, that’s the golden goose. That means they have several traits, in particular, the ability to take risks, swallow their pride, work hard through adversity and believe in themselves when nobody else does.”
On the flip side, Smith says a red flag is if the person was the star of their team. “You have to ask them how they achieved that success. They’re not a good candidate if you get the feeling athletic success came naturally.”
Another bad mark in Smith’s mind is when a candidate did outstanding in sports but had a poor G.P.A. (i.e. below 2.5), in a not-so-challenging major. “This person is probably solely focused on their sport and may not be mature enough to make work a top priority immediately after college.”
Jumping forward two and a half years, Smith has three sales reps, all ex-collegiate athletes and plans on hiring two more this year.
Overall, recruiting ex-athletes is great but Smith cautions that it too has its share of long hours and hard work. To find enough candidates, he has personally contacted and built relationships with over 200 local college coaches.
The ironic part of this whole thing is that AEROCOM is actually selling technical telecommunications services to business, such as Internet access, T1 Lines, phone service, etc. Not exactly the stereotype of athletes.
AEROCOM, Inc.
2850 Mesa Verde Dr. East
Suite 119
Costa Mesa, CA. 92626
(714) 593-0011
www.aerocominc.com
Contact: Mike Smith (714) 465-3533 press@aerocominc.com
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One small company has a specific formula they use to keep both salaries and churn at a minimum, while trying to quickly grow their sales force in a city with one of the highest median salary level’s in the world. Orange County based AEROCOM, Inc. currently has only 4 employees yet they’ve used this formula to boost sales to over $3 Million in 2007, a whopping 142% growth and have secured hundreds of clients, nationwide including big names like LG, WTAS and Fatburger.
Three years ago, when it came time to hiring the first outside sales reps for his young company, owner Mike Smith was having a difficult time finding young college graduates with a proven track record of success. “I didn’t have a huge budget, so rather than hiring pricy experienced employees, I decided to invest in high quality college grads, train them thoroughly and then have great quality employees, long-term.”
“I looked through hundreds of college graduate’s resumes and did several interviews. I was having a difficult time seeing a bridge between what the candidates did in college vs. what they could do in a career.”
Then Smith, an ex-collegiate quarterback, decided to go back to his roots and specifically look for grads that also played collegiate athletics.
“It was so much easier for me to evaluate character because an athletic career entails many of the same requirements as a career. It requires competitiveness, long hours, teamwork, adversity, goal setting and dealing with authority.”
Smith brought up some insightful examples. “For instance, if I see that an athlete chose a difficult major and kept a G.P.A. over 3.0, they obviously know how to prioritize, work hard and have great discipline. If I see that same person was elected “team captain” or “best teammate,” add outgoing and great social skills to their list of character traits. If I see that they walked onto the team without a scholarship, and later earned a scholarship, that’s the golden goose. That means they have several traits, in particular, the ability to take risks, swallow their pride, work hard through adversity and believe in themselves when nobody else does.”
On the flip side, Smith says a red flag is if the person was the star of their team. “You have to ask them how they achieved that success. They’re not a good candidate if you get the feeling athletic success came naturally.”
Another bad mark in Smith’s mind is when a candidate did outstanding in sports but had a poor G.P.A. (i.e. below 2.5), in a not-so-challenging major. “This person is probably solely focused on their sport and may not be mature enough to make work a top priority immediately after college.”
Jumping forward two and a half years, Smith has three sales reps, all ex-collegiate athletes and plans on hiring two more this year.
Overall, recruiting ex-athletes is great but Smith cautions that it too has its share of long hours and hard work. To find enough candidates, he has personally contacted and built relationships with over 200 local college coaches.
The ironic part of this whole thing is that AEROCOM is actually selling technical telecommunications services to business, such as Internet access, T1 Lines, phone service, etc. Not exactly the stereotype of athletes.
AEROCOM, Inc.
2850 Mesa Verde Dr. East
Suite 119
Costa Mesa, CA. 92626
(714) 593-0011
www.aerocominc.com
Contact: Mike Smith (714) 465-3533 press@aerocominc.com
###
Contact
AEROCOM
Mike Smith
714-593-0011 x3533
www.aerocominc.com
Mike Smith
714-593-0011 x3533
www.aerocominc.com
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