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近年来，销售工作发生了很大变化，但年轻人可能还是把这一职位与“高压”联系在一起，导致应聘者有限。
历经新冠疫情后，企业转向了增长模式，对销售职位的需求激增，然而招聘人员说，他们很难说服人们来做销售。 6park.com招聘网站ZipRecruiter的数据显示，今年招聘广告中销售职位数量稳步增加，全美这一职位的空缺数量涨幅达65%，超过70万个。一年前，疫情爆发之初的裁员潮重重打击了销售这一行。 6park.com销售人员招聘之难，其实在疫情前就已显现，与其说这是人才短缺所致，不如说是因为人们如今乐于从事的职业类型发生了变化。招聘人员指出，无论是热情过头的汽车销售，还是美剧《广告狂人》(Mad Men)中的客户代表，都给人们留下了根深蒂固的刻板印象，但对于初入职场的求职者来说，那些以新业务的开拓数量评判成功与否的职位，并不一定是他们的心仪之选。
销售职位收入不菲，还能帮客户解决问题。可现在为什么没有人想干这一行呢？ 6park.com
“人们上学时不会想着，‘我以后要做销售。’”服务于销售人员的软件供应商ringDNA的创始人兼首席执行官霍华德·布朗(Howard Brown)说，“它是每一家企业的命脉，但这方面的人才却有限。” 6park.com总部位于休斯顿的招聘公司Murray Resources董事总经理基斯·沃尔夫(Keith Wolf)说，今年1月至5月，他的客户登出的招聘广告中销售职位的数量较之前五个月增长了一倍。 6park.com沃尔夫说，许多年轻的求职者以为，销售就是要用“高压策略”说服客户掏钱买东西，于是避而远之。沃尔夫指出，近年来销售这一行发生了巨大变化，不再是像以往那样冷不防地给潜在客户打电话，而是为有购买意向的企业提供咨询。 6park.com疫情期间，销售工作更是在加速转变，企业希望让求职者意识到，销售人员不必像从前那样置身于高压环境（或是成天围着电话转），它们试图通过展示改变吸引更多人加入销售队伍。 6park.com“这些年它的确发生了很大变化，不再是成天抱着电话——你会想起二手车销售员的样子。”沃尔夫说，“现在它更多地是在解决问题，以及与客户合作。对大多数接受过大学教育的销售人员来说，他们的角色更多是在做咨询。” 6park.com许多人甚至改变了最初的职业规划，进入了销售这一行。 6park.com26岁的弗雷德里克·布拉舍(Fredric Brasher)曾是休斯顿的一名工程师，如今就职于供暖、通风及空调设备制造商Daikin Applied Americas。他曾参与该公司的产品设计。为了寻求新的挑战来改变习以为常的工作，他开始更多地关注销售团队与工程师之间的沟通。在得知他们可以拿到如此不菲的佣金后，他决定去销售这行试试。 6park.com“当工程师也可以赚很多钱，但基于我的经验，要达到那种水平，需要的时间更长。”布拉舍说，去年8月转做销售业务以来，他的工资涨幅已经超过60%。美国劳工部的数据显示，向企业销售科技产品及服务的这类销售代表2020年的年薪中位数为108,830美元。 6park.com几年前，当布拉舍还在贝勒大学(Baylor University)读机械工程时，他不曾想到有朝一日自己会从事销售，而如今，许多大学时代同专业的好友也纷纷效仿他转做销售，视其为提高收入的一条捷径。 6park.com克里斯·考菲尔德(Chris Kaufield)是软件公司Alitheon Inc.的首席营收官，他计划今年将销售人员的数量增加两倍。他说，客户喜欢自己研究他们购买的产品，这意味着销售代表必须灵活运用他们的软技能，而不是照本宣科。Alitheon总部位于华盛顿州贝尔维尤(Bellevue)。 6park.com“销售人员的新模式不是像过去那样贸然打电话推销。不是那么死板的活儿。”他说，“你必须有同理心，还要对客户的业务极度好奇才行。” 6park.com亚当·弗洛曼鲍姆(Adam Flomenbaum)是西雅图的一名高级客户合作伙伴，供职于社交平台Twitter，平日负责向企业销售广告服务。他说，如果销售这一职位意味着每天要给六七十个人打推销电话，同时还要努力完成不切实际的业绩目标，他是不会做销售的。他谈到，他的工作更多地是帮助客户了解Twitter的广告产品能够帮他们达到哪种效果，以及哪些效果是无法实现的。 6park.com“你要试着成为他们的合作伙伴。”他说。
他们还说，对应届毕业生而言，销售职位可能也不是他们的首选，因为很少有大学开设了专门针对销售的学位项目。 6park.com
安珀·哈斯谈到自己的销售工作时说，“它更偏重于解决问题、做一名好的倾听者并提问。” 2017年，当安珀·哈斯(Amber Hus)来到加州大学洛杉矶分校(University of California, Los Angeles)就读传媒专业时，她憧憬着未来可以在娱乐业工作。后来，她在洛杉矶一家公关公司实习后，这个梦想破灭了。而她在食品公司Spark & Bloom Superfoods业务拓展部的另一段实习经历，让她有机会面向当地的食品杂货店和健身房推荐适合过敏体质的零食。24岁的哈斯说，她很喜欢同客户打交道，于是决定毕业后在销售岗位上一试身手。 6park.com经过几十场面试，最终她得到了ringDNA的一份全职销售工作，这个职位既没有规定必须得打多少通销售电话，也不涉及其他类型的强行推销策略。 6park.com“它更偏重于解决问题、做一名好的倾听者并提问，而不是‘面带微笑’地去打一通通推销电话。”她谈到那些不请自来的销售电话时说。 6park.com麦肯锡公司(McKinsey & Co.)最近出炉的一份报告显示，新冠疫情在有些方面永久地改变了销售工作。曾经以握手敲定买卖的方式，如今一下子转移到线上，而在麦肯锡的调查中，仅20%的客户表示，他们希望回到过去那种当面交易的模式。 6park.comCentralReach是一家销售电子病历及其他管理软件的公司，在新泽西州和佛罗里达州都设有办公室，该公司负责销售和客户体验的高级副总裁马克·科普(Mark Cope)说，今年公司将把销售团队扩大30%以上。最近，该公司开放了远程办公的岗位。科普指出，招聘主要面向具有潜力的初级销售人员，而不是经验丰富的老手。 6park.com“我们看重的是好奇心和某些特质，经验倒是其次。”科普谈到。 6park.com面试过程中，他会让求职者介绍他们最近自学的一件事，以此判断应聘者是否会对某一新事物持之以恒，直到最终掌握它。 6park.com“企业必须要这么做，才能满足需求。”他说，“暂且不去看经验，好好培养他们。”
弗洛曼鲍姆说，文科专业的人往往会成为出色的销售人员，尤其是在科技行业，因为他们在写作、理解和沟通上更具优势，特别是在工作更多在线上开展的情况下。 6park.comDemand for sales roles has shot up as companies emerging from the pandemic switch to growth mode, but recruiters say they struggle to convince people to make sales a career. 6park.comZipRecruiter, an online job platform, shows the number of sales roles advertised has risen steadily this year, up 65% to more than 700,000 open positions around the U.S., after big layoffs decimated the field at the outset of the pandemic a year ago. 6park.comThe struggle to find sales hires predates the pandemic and may have more to do with the types of roles people are comfortable taking these days than it does with a shortage of workers. Images of glad-handing car salesmen or “Mad Men”-style account representatives are hard to shake, recruiters say, adding that early-career hires aren’t always attracted to positions where success is measured in new business brought in. 6park.comSales roles also may not be top of mind for new grads because few colleges offer sales-specific degree programs, they add. 6park.com“People don’t go to school and think, ‘I’m going to be in sales,’” said Howard Brown, CEO and founder of ringDNA, a software provider for sales workers. “It’s the lifeblood of every organization, but talent is limited.” 6park.comKeith Wolf, managing director of Houston-based recruiting firm Murray Resources, said the number of sales jobs advertised by his clients between January and May is double what it was for the prior five months. 6park.comMr. Wolf said many young workers assume that sales work means convincing customers to buy with high-pressure tactics, and are turned off. Sales has dramatically changed in recent years, he says, shifting from cold calls to potential customers to consulting with companies that often seek out products. 6park.comChanges in sales accelerated during the pandemic, and businesses are trying to entice more people into the job by demonstrating that they don’t have to operate in a pressure-cooker environment (or work the phones) the way sales workers once did. 6park.com“It’s really transformed over the years from someone pounding the phones—used car salesman comes to mind,” Mr. Wolf says. “It’s much more problem-solving and working with clients now. Most college-educated sales roles have become much more consultative.” 6park.comMany take a detour into sales after their original career plans changed. 6park.comFredric Brasher, a 26-year-old former engineer in Houston, works at Daikin Applied Americas, which manufactures heating, ventilation and air-conditioning products that he helped design. Seeking a new challenge to shake up his work life, he started paying more attention to the sales team’s interactions with the engineers. After hearing about their sizable commissions, he decided to give sales a try. 6park.com“You can make quite a bit of money as an engineer but, in my experience, it takes longer to get to that level,” Mr. Brasher says, adding that his pay has jumped more than 60% since switching to Daikin’s sales side last August. Sales representatives who sell technical and scientific products and services to businesses earned a median annual wage of $108,830 in 2020, according to the U.S. Labor Department. 6park.comWorking in sales wasn’t something Mr. Brasher envisioned for himself while studying mechanical engineering at Baylor University a few years ago, but now many of his engineering-major friends from college are following his path to sales as a faster way to a bigger paycheck. 6park.comChris Kaufield, chief revenue officer at Bellevue, Wash.-based software company Alitheon, Inc., plans to triple his sales staff this year. Clients like to do their own research about the products they buy, which means sales representatives have to flex their soft skills rather than read a script, Mr. Kaufield says. 6park.com“The new template for a salesperson is not about cold-calling. It’s not mechanical,” he says. “You have to be empathetic and deeply curious” about clients’ businesses. 6park.comAdam Flomenbaum, a Seattle-based senior client partner at Twitter who sells the social-media company’s advertising services to businesses, says he wouldn’t have pursued a career in sales if it meant cold-calling 60 to 70 people a day while trying to hit unrealistic deal targets. His role is more about walking customers through what Twitter’s advertising products can and can’t do for them, he says. 6park.com“You are trying to be a partner,” he says. 6park.comLiberal-arts majors tend to make good salespeople, especially in tech, Mr. Flomenbaum says, because of their writing, reading and communication skills, especially as roles are more focused online. 6park.comAmber Hus dreamed of working in entertainment when she enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2017 as a communications major. An internship at a Los Angeles public-relations firm left her disillusioned. Another internship, in business development at Spark & Bloom Superfoods, had her reaching out to local grocery stores and gyms about carrying the allergy-friendly snacks. The 24-year-old says she loved the customer interaction so much she decided to try sales upon graduation. 6park.comAfter dozens of interviews, she settled on a full-time sales job at ringDNA, a position that doesn’t involve making phone-call quotas or other hard-sell tactics. 6park.com“It was more problem-solving, being a good listener and asking questions, rather than the ‘smile and dial’,” she said, referring to unsolicited cold-calling. 6park.comThe pandemic changed sales in several permanent ways, according to a new report from McKinsey & Co. Sales that used to be sealed with a handshake quickly moved online and now 20% of clients surveyed by McKinsey say they hope to return to in-person sales. 6park.comMark Cope, the senior vice president of sales and customer experience at CentralReach, a company with offices in New Jersey and Florida that sells electronic health-record and other management software, says his firm will expand its sales team by more than 30% this year. It recently opened up positions to remote employees. Recruitment is focused on junior sales people with potential instead of trying to court more experienced sellers, he adds. 6park.com“We look for curiosity and certain traits rather than experience,” Mr. Cope says. 6park.comWhen interviewing, he asks job candidates to describe the last thing they taught themselves as a way to discern whether the person is likely to stick with a new concept until they master it. 6park.com“That’s something companies are going to have to do to meet the demand,” he says. “Look beyond experience and coach them up.”
Salespeople make good money and get to help customers solve problems. So why doesn’t anybody want to do the job? 6park.com
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