Struggling to Find Sales Staff with Strong English Skills: How Are You Tackling This?

Hi All,

In our current organization, we frequently require resources with very good communication skills (English) for our sales department. However, our experience is that it's becoming very tough to find such individuals. Nowadays, even engineering graduates are lacking in their ability to communicate in English.

Let us share our experiences about this issue and discuss the steps we can take to overcome it.

Thanks & Regards,
K. Sanket

Hi Sanket,

Your concern is very true, faced by many HRs in the market. In fact, it is even tougher to find a person with tech skills and good communication skills. A week back, we had a position to close for a Structural Design Engineer. It was urgent as he would be sent to the US for OJT. Among almost 120 people interviewed, only 18 were better (above average) in their communication skills. The rest of them are very inexpensive in the market, around 3LPA. Just because of their communication skills, we made an offer for 7.2LPA.

It seems like people with good communication skills are already being poached by call centers. Freshers are enticed by high salaries, good infrastructures, medical facilities, pick and drop services, gym facilities, pools, pubs, salsa, and many more. In fact, nowadays call centers are also hiring pharmacists, engineers, MCA and BCA graduates, and any other grads. Recently, even a dentist got an opportunity. If professionals are ready for instant easy salaries, it's going to be very hard for companies around.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Truly said, it has become very difficult to find people with good communication skills. Additionally, with the BPO industry booming these days, it is very challenging to attract resources for other industries and profiles such as Business Development, as the packages offered by BPOs are very competitive. One possible solution is to organize soft skills training programs.

Try good Hotel Management Colleges like Government IHMs (search for NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR HOTEL MANAGEMENT PUSA), preferably through web portals because the placement cells in these colleges are not good. With the recent changes, these students are being trained in finance and HR too.

I have also gone through these kinds of situations where communication was essential for a particular post, but I hardly got any candidates for that position. I completely agree with Sari.

As far as freshers are concerned, we get candidates easily, but senior experienced people with good communication are really becoming difficult to hunt.

Sapana

Hi people,

Let's talk about what we can do with the guys who have average communication skills. Let's not talk about BPOs and others. There is a problem; let's sort that out. When you say they have average communication skills, you hire them... well, why don't you provide them with a 10-day training program on communication skills and align a trainer to judge their communication skills? You could get trainers on a contract basis and set targets accordingly. If you make your organization an English-speaking zone, I am sure that we can do a little better on communication skills as this would enhance your thought process and you would think in English and speak in English. There would be nothing called mother tongue influence.

As someone said, think English and speak English... this is what will help people enhance their communication skills. You tell me how many of you talk in English in your organization and how good you are in communication skills... did you check your communication skills... anytime, guys...

Try this out. It will help to an extent, guys. People just do not get excellent in communication skills until they practice it... so you could start off.

Regards,

Shailu

Hi Shailu,

I completely agree with you. We ourselves don't practice English regularly in our organization. Well, I have informed in my organization that we all will be talking in English from today onwards and that we all should be open to corrections. I am going to start a fine system also on this, i.e., I am going to charge rupee 1 as a fine if anyone talks in any other language besides English. I think this will definitely help us to improve our language and will give all of us the confidence to talk to others fluently.

Sapana

Dear Sanket,

Let's accept this situation. It is the reality we have to live with for some time now until the finishing schools come up in good numbers.

Now, we can't sit quietly saying we are not getting people with the necessary skills. So, what's the solution?

Divide the desired skills into:

a) Threshold Skills - MUST haves

b) Differentiating Skills - Desirables (separates Good/Above average from the pool with respect to other skills, communication skills in this case)

c) Rare Skills - like... Excellent Communication skills along with the technical knowledge just right for the job. (separates the best from the rest)

Now,

We will accept that getting people with rare skills is really rare... so, we can try to get people with the Threshold skills (TOP performers in this category) and people with Good/Above Average performance from the pool of people and then train them on the missing links (communication skills, email etiquette, general selling skills specific to the job, etc.) before you actually induct them into your organization.

If I have missed anything... Please update.

Regards,

Rajeev

Hi all,

Thank you all for your suggestions. It's really heartwarming to see that there are so many helping hands around. The good thing is that we have already started providing training to our sales team and are expecting some good results soon.

Thank you all for your cooperation in this!

Thanks and regards,
K. Sanket

Hi,

I agree with Rajeev on the different skills he has mentioned. According to me, training and development should be a must in every organization as it is a solution to most of our problems. This helps a lot in motivating the employees as well.

With warm regards,
Karuuna