Two decades of selling & implementing enterprise content.  What has changed, and what remains the same?

From an enterprise technology recruiter’s perspective,  Xtra Effort has seen LOTS of change.

We originally helped enterprise technology companies in the content market segment hire Sales Engineers, Account Executives, and Professional Services personnel with capabilities related to document management, workflow, and … Continue Reading

Candidates with Business Intelligence backgrounds may benefit from being aware of related technology trends where their skills may be better appreciated.

How can the term Business Intelligence be viewed? Many different technologies and projects can be tightly or loosely related to the “BI” ecosystem. 

Data needs to be extracted, housed, manipulated, interpreted, and shared.   Depending on the size of the company and project, each of these phases can represent different technologies and discussions. Traditional technologies associated with these different phases include data warehousing, data modeling, dash board, performance management, financial reporting, OLAP, and ETL.    Some aspects of this continuum include highly technical discussions and … Continue Reading

You may recall reading a previous blog post related to why and how enterprise technology companies are hiring more inside sale people.

This trend only seems to deepen, particularly with infrastructure technologies.  Current day examples include:

1) Database technology

2) Security technology

3) Privilege management technology

Field Sales exceptions include consulting services sales positions, such as solutions for the utility smart grid initiative,  and for Cloud Application Development. 

Companies that value the NY market, have deals that exceed $100k, and are selling new technologies, always seem to value “feet on the street” and want field sales people.  Application Performance/User Experience Management … Continue Reading

 This representative list of recent Xtra Effort client hires includes: 

1) Candidate’s motivation for changing jobs

 2) Hiring location

3) The role

4) Compensation, including On Target Earnings

5) Miscellaneous (most often $ quota)

6) The Technology or Service offering

We hope the information helps support your 2012 planning process.

Xtra Effort’s observations:

• Change in compensation structure, culture, or executive team (most often related to acquisition, but not always) were the top reasons for change
• More technology … Continue Reading
  

THE MODERN DAY ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE SALES CAREER

 Years ago, enterprise sales jobs often started in one of three ways (with plenty of exceptions)

 1) A college graduate with a business degree would join a large information technology company such as Computer Associates, IBM, Burroughs, or NCR. Many of these companies and Software sales jobs started in Massachusetts, with such companies as Prime Computer, Data General, Digital Equipment Corp, and ComputerVision.   This fresh college grad’s first software  sales job would include … Continue Reading

Sales Engineers are in great demand because have developed both technical acumen and communication skills. The more current a Sales Engineer’s technology skill sets, the greater the demand for his candidacy. Earnings potential is driven by the candidate’s sales and business acumen and business acumen, but you first must ante up with the technology and communication skills.

Sales Engineers careers had stereotypically been associated with a utility role, often only performing demonstrations and answering technical questions. Now Sales Engineer careers often include more ownership of the prospect relationship and sales cycle.

Today’s PreSales Engineers more often are considered partners to the sales … Continue Reading

This short Selling Power magazine editorial may put “Social CRM” into perspective and clarify its potential relevance to you as a leader, sales person, candidate, or employee.

I suspect some of you will say “duh”, while others – like myself – may say “Aha”, now I (further) get it.

Click here for a summary of Xtra Effort client Sales, Sales Engineering, and Professional Service
hiring requirements, including location, compensation, and the specific solution offering.

We have seen a surge in hiring among:

• IT Consulting companies
• SaaS or Outsourced solutions for the insurance industry
• Service and product solutions for data management
• Compliance and security technology
• Content Management
• Cloud solution offerings

Each career opportunity has a URL link with information related to candidate hiring criteria. Please… Continue Reading

You should NOT read industry publications if you want:

1) To be generic, unimaginitive, and non-recognizable when calling new clients

2) To not establish credibility when tying in your potential value to your prospect’s needs

3) To be clueless about how your solutions fall into the broader landscape of technology initiatives with your enterprise accounts

On the otherhand, you MUST read industry periodicals if you want to be credible or would like to discover leads before they become formalized leads (before an RFP is issued).

If a CIO Magazine article quoted a VP of Technology as saying their “acquisition of ABC company will require a focus on … Continue Reading

“Virtually all employees, customers and partners view videos via their mobile devices or desktops on a daily basis.

Enterprises are rushing to create and distribute content via streaming and rich media do not have the capacity to do so. Companies are aggressively ushering along transformational change, but don’t have the network capacity to execute, never mind considerations for security and control. “

Do you think the timing is right?

 Company: Enterprise Communications via Video integration platform (strategic value), including purpose built applications (immediate/tactical value). “Youtube for the enterprise”

Enable enterprises to create and/or manage and/or publish and/or distribute live and on-demand video content while … Continue Reading