The Driving Force

Seven Personality Traits of Top Salespeople in HBR

dfrecruitingft — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 19:01:48 +0000

Great article from the Harvard Business Review blog:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/06/the_seven_personality_traits_o.html

Seven Personality Traits of Top Salespeople
9:10 AM Monday June 27, 2011
by Steve W. Martin

If you ask an extremely successful salesperson, “What makes you different from the average sales rep?” you will most likely get a less-than-accurate answer, if any answer at all. Frankly, the person may not even know the real answer because most successful salespeople are simply doing what comes naturally.

Over the past decade, I have had the privilege of interviewing thousands of top business-to-business salespeople who sell for some of the world’s leading companies. I’ve also administered personality tests to 1,000 of them. My goal was to measure their five main personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and negative emotionality) to better understand the characteristics that separate them their peers.

The personality tests were given to high technology and business services salespeople as part of sales strategy workshops I was conducting. In addition, tests were administered at Presidents Club meetings (the incentive trip that top salespeople are awarded by their company for their outstanding performance). The responses were then categorized by percentage of annual quota attainment and classified into top performers, average performers, and below average performers categories.

The test results from top performers were then compared against average and below average performers. The findings indicate that key personality traits directly influence top performers’ selling style and ultimately their success. Below, you will find the main key personality attributes of top salespeople and the impact of the trait on their selling style.

1. Modesty. Contrary to conventional stereotypes that successful salespeople are pushy and egotistical, 91 percent of top salespeople had medium to high scores of modesty and humility. Furthermore, the results suggest that ostentatious salespeople who are full of bravado alienate far more customers than they win over.

Selling Style Impact: Team Orientation. As opposed to establishing themselves as the focal point of the purchase decision, top salespeople position the team (presales technical engineers, consulting, and management) that will help them win the account as the centerpiece.

2. Conscientiousness. Eighty-five percent of top salespeople had high levels of conscientiousness, whereby they could be described as having a strong sense of duty and being responsible and reliable. These salespeople take their jobs very seriously and feel deeply responsible for the results.

Selling Style Impact: Account Control. The worst position for salespeople to be in is to have relinquished account control and to be operating at the direction of the customer, or worse yet, a competitor. Conversely, top salespeople take command of the sales cycle process in order to control their own destiny.

3. Achievement Orientation. Eighty-four percent of the top performers tested scored very high in achievement orientation. They are fixated on achieving goals and continuously measure their performance in comparison to their goals.

Selling Style Impact: Political Orientation. During sales cycles, top sales, performers seek to understand the politics of customer decision-making. Their goal orientation instinctively drives them to meet with key decision-makers. Therefore, they strategize about the people they are selling to and how the products they’re selling fit into the organization instead of focusing on the functionality of the products themselves.

4. Curiosity. Curiosity can be described as a person’s hunger for knowledge and information. Eighty-two percent of top salespeople scored extremely high curiosity levels. Top salespeople are naturally more curious than their lesser performing counterparts.

Selling Style Impact: Inquisitiveness. A high level of inquisitiveness correlates to an active presence during sales calls. An active presence drives the salesperson to ask customers difficult and uncomfortable questions in order to close gaps in information. Top salespeople want to know if they can win the business, and they want to know the truth as soon as possible.

5. Lack of Gregariousness. One of the most surprising differences between top salespeople and those ranking in the bottom one-third of performance is their level of gregariousness (preference for being with people and friendliness). Overall, top performers averaged 30 percent lower gregariousness than below average performers.

Selling Style Impact: Dominance. Dominance is the ability to gain the willing obedience of customers such that the salesperson’s recommendations and advice are followed. The results indicate that overly friendly salespeople are too close to their customers and have difficulty establishing dominance.

6. Lack of Discouragement. Less than 10 percent of top salespeople were classified as having high levels of discouragement and being frequently overwhelmed with sadness. Conversely, 90 percent were categorized as experiencing infrequent or only occasional sadness.

Selling Style Impact: Competitiveness. In casual surveys I have conducted throughout the years, I have found that a very high percentage of top performers played organized sports in high school. There seems to be a correlation between sports and sales success as top performers are able to handle emotional disappointments, bounce back from losses, and mentally prepare themselves for the next opportunity to compete.

7. Lack of Self-Consciousness. Self-consciousness is the measurement of how easily someone is embarrassed. The byproduct of a high level of self-consciousness is bashfulness and inhibition. Less than five percent of top performers had high levels of self-consciousness.

Selling Style Impact: Aggressiveness. Top salespeople are comfortable fighting for their cause and are not afraid of rankling customers in the process. They are action-oriented and unafraid to call high in their accounts or courageously cold call new prospects.

Not all salespeople are successful. Given the same sales tools, level of education, and propensity to work, why do some salespeople succeed where others fail? Is one better suited to sell the product because of his or her background? Is one more charming or just luckier? The evidence suggests that the personalities of these truly great salespeople play a critical role in determining their success.

Career Resolutions for the New Year

dfrecruitingft — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 21:19:25 +0000

1.)Goals

There are three main goal categories that you should understand or establish: the company’s goals, your boss’s goals, and your own personal goals. Not only should you know these goals, also be aware of the beneficial logic that was used to establish these benchmarks. Understand why these goals were set, and how you can contribute to their accomplishment.

2.)Always be Learning

Learning something new every day keeps the pink slip away. Try your best to learn at least 1 new thing every day, even if it isn’t relevant to your job; this will keep your mind sharp. It can something as simple as meeting a co-worker in a different department, finding a new route to work, or memorizing the mail person’s birthday.

3.)Eyes on the Prize

Keep focused on your target. Avoid distractions at all costs when completing a task. It’s easy to get sidetracked living in the internet era. Routinely ask yourself, “Am I being productive right now?” to avoid the common time wasting.

4.)Be Healthy

Health is very important personally and professionally. One too many sick days can prohibit you from that next promotion as well as put you on the chopping block if downsizing were to happen. Eating healthy and exercising will also help you maintain focus and improve your efficiency. You should try to engage in aerobic exercise for at least 30 minutes three times a week.

5.)Upgrade your tech knowledge

In the 80′s, the first people with cell phones were the first ones to be promoted. Staying on the cutting edge of communication technology can do wonders for your career. My advice is to have at least a smart phone that is linked to your email account. Knowing the latest business software will also put your career on the fast track especially if your at an entry level position. If possible, try to take a relevant tech class. Most Alma Matters will let you do this for free; if not community college is an affordable option.

6.)Empathize with your co-workers

Empathy is the best diplomacy tactic to rise above petty office politics. Spend more time listening then talking with your co-workers. Ask more questions rather than making statements. Understand other people’s goals, challenges, issues, and make suggestive comments without sounding smug. Having the respect of your peers and superiors will make you a leader and help you earn a management position.

7.)Exceed expectations

Aim to empress your superiors and co-workers. Finish projects before their deadlines while exceeding the desired quality. However, becoming the “work horse” of a group can be very demoralizing. If you are contributing more than your peers, make sure they recognize this as well as your superiors. By exceeding the status quo, you will be regarded as an irreplaceable asset to your company.

8.)Work to live

The old clichés are priceless: “People work to live, not live to work,” “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” Despite their excessive use, these phrases are relevant. It’s good to be to an ambitious hard worker, but make sure you take some time to “smell the roses.” By having an active and enjoyable personally life, it will be easier to manage the stress and challenges that appear in your social life.

Those are my career resolutions for 2011 and beyond. Feel free to share your opinions and your own goals for the upcoming year.

Obvious to some perhaps, New Job = Less Wages

dfrecruitingft — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:23:05 +0000

More interesting press about the future of the “new job market” as this article from today’s New York Times explains well the challenges and sacrifices facing job seekers in today’s economy. Below is the full article. A good read for those becoming increasingly frustrated. Perhaps more interesting to those in the recruiting, HR, and labor professions.

For Many, a New Job Means Lower Wages, Studies Find

By MICHAEL LUO

Published: August 31, 2010

After being out of work for more than a year, Donna Ings, 47, finally landed a job in February as a home health aide, earning about $10 an hour, with a company in Lexington, Mass.

Chelsea Nelson, 21, started two weeks ago as a waitress at a truck stop in Mountainburg, Ark., making around $7 or $8 an hour, depending on tips, ending a lengthy job search that took her young family to California and back.

Both are ostensibly economic success stories, people who were able to find work in a difficult labor market. Ms. Ing’s employer, Home Instead Senior Care, a company with franchises across the country, has been aggressively expanding. Ms. Nelson’s restaurant, Silver Bridge Truck Stop, recently reopened and hired about 20 people last month in an area thirsty for jobs.

Both women, however, took large pay cuts from their old jobs — Ms. Ing worked in the office of a wholesale tuxedo distributor; Ms. Nelson used to be a secretary. And both remain worried about how they will make ends meet in the long run.

With the country focused on job growth and unemployment continuing to hover above 9 percent, there has been comparatively little attention paid to the quality of the jobs being created in this still-struggling economy and what that might say about the opportunities that will be available to workers when the tumult of the Great Recession finally settles. There are reasons, however, for concern, even in the early stages of a tentative recovery that now appears to be barely wheezing along.

For years, long before the recession began, job growth had become increasingly polarized in this country, with high-paid occupations that demand significant amounts of education and training growing rapidly, alongside low-wage, entry-level, service-type jobs that do not require much schooling or special skills, according to David Autor, a labor economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The growth of these low-wage jobs began in the 1980s, accelerated in the 1990s and began to really take off in the 2000s. Losing out in the shuffle, according to Dr. Autor, are jobs that he describes as “middle-skill, middle-wage” — entry-level white-collar positions, like office and administrative support work, as well as certain blue-collar jobs, like assembly line workers and machine operators.

The recession appears to have magnified that trend, according to Dr. Autor in a recent paper, released jointly by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning policy group, and the Hamilton Project, which has a more centrist reputation. From 2007 to 2009, the paper found, there was relatively little net change in total employment for both high-skill and low-skill occupations, while employment plummeted in so-called middle-skill occupations.

A new analysis by the National Employment Law Project, a liberal advocacy group, takes a different approach, identifying industries that have actually experienced job growth in 2010 and examining their median wages. It is a blunter measurement because it focuses on industries, within which there is often great diversity in income. Economists also cautioned that it was still too early to know exactly which sectors would eventually lead the way in a sustained recovery.

Nevertheless, the law project analysis offers a snapshot of where the employment growth has been so far. It found job expansion to this point has been skewed toward industries with median wages that are low to middling, with a disproportionate share of job growth happening in industries whose median wages fall below $15 an hour.

“There’s a striking contrast so far between which industries have lost jobs and which ones are growing,” said Annette Bernhardt, policy director for the law project. “If this kind of bottom-heavy job creation continues, it could pose a real challenge to restoring consumer demand and making sure working families have a way to support themselves.”

Both studies are disquieting because of the potential import for many who had once scratched out middle-class livings and are now looking for work. A unifying theme is the stubborn march of labor-intensive, low-paying service jobs, like the ones Ms. Ings and Ms. Nelson found.

There is typically a downward slide during recessions, said Till von Wachter, a Columbia University economist, in which higher-skilled and higher-educated workers are re-employed first, often landing jobs for which they are overqualified, squeezing out the lesser skilled and lesser educated. Indeed, in the current downturn, the unemployment rate has climbed the most for the least-educated workers, suggesting they have been hit the hardest.

However, while researching workers who lost their jobs in California in the 1990s, Dr. Wachter found that people who fall in the middle when it comes to their educational background — possessing high school degrees or some college — and the skills required for their occupation tended to experience larger and longer lasting income losses after job loss than people on both the lower and higher end of the scale.

Ms. Ings had worked in a variety of office and administrative roles in the wholesale tuxedo industry. Her wages of just over $16 an hour were enough to build a relatively comfortable life for her and her daughter, Jillian, now 21 and in college.

“During her whole growing up, I never got child support,” Ms. Ings said. “I always had to try to find a job that paid well to help support her. That’s my job, being a mother.”

When Ms. Ings was laid off in March 2009, she dove into finding another “corporate job.” But she found that nearly everyone seemed to be looking for people with at least a college degree, if not more. She had only a high school diploma.

As a teenager, she had worked in a nursing home and enjoyed it. So, after getting her certified nursing assistant license, she applied at the Home Instead office in Lexington, which has been steadily hiring this year, said Jack Cross, the franchise owner. Nationally, the company has created more than 2,400 jobs this year, and home health aides are one of the country’s fastest growing occupations.

Ms. Ings adores her job, but her finances remain taut, even though she is working 50 hours a week. She had been without health insurance for her first few months, but soon the company will begin deducting for it — a further pinch on her already meager paycheck.

“I’m going to be coming home with nothing,” she said.

In Arkansas, Ms. Nelson has been hampered by her decision to quit college after a semester several years ago. She has worked a variety of jobs, including a three year stint as a secretary, earning about $12 an hour.

Last year, she and her husband, Kenneth, and their son, Riley, now almost 2, moved to Colton, Calif., where they had relatives and believed the job market would be better. They moved back to Arkansas this year, however, after struggling to find steady work.

He quickly accepted a factory job at $8 an hour, but she got rejection after rejection trying to find office work.

She eventually gave up and took up waitressing. The couple is living with her mother, trying to save enough for their own place.

“I don’t know, with the jobs we have, if we’re ever going to be able to make it on our own,” Ms. Nelson said.

USA jobs are not bouncing back so far. Why?

dfrecruitingft — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:23:46 +0000

In an interesting read in the Washington Post by Harold Meyerson, he explains that while large corporations are making increased profits, new hires and domestic sales remain stagnant. Meyerson points to markets abroad and domestic economic confidence as important factors. While I am not sure if this article makes me feel better or worse about the current situation, one thing is for sure: the USA can do better.

Here is the full article from the Washington Post:

The job machine grinds to a halt

by Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Ain’t no hiring. And ain’t likely to be any for a good long time.

The problem isn’t merely the greatest downturn since the Great Depression. It’s also that big business has found a way to make big money without restoring the jobs it cut the past two years, or increasing its investments or even its sales, at least domestically.

In the mildly halcyon days before the 2008 crash, the one economic outlier was wages. Profit, revenue and GDP all increased; only ordinary Americans’ incomes lagged behind. Today, wages are still down, employment remains low and sales revenue isn’t up much, either. But profits are the outlier. They’re positively soaring.

Among the 175 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index that have released their second-quarter reports, the New York Times reported Sunday, revenue rose by a tidy 6.9 percent, but profits soared by a stunning 42.3 percent. Profits, that is, are increasing seven times faster than revenue. The mind, as it should, boggles.

How can America’s corporations so defy gravity? Ever adaptive, they have evolved a business model that enables them to make money even while the strapped American consumer has cut back on purchasing. For one thing, they are increasingly selling and producing overseas. General Motors is going like gangbusters in China, where it now sells more cars than it does in the United States. In China, GM employs 32,000 assembly-line workers; that’s just 20,000 fewer than the number of such workers it has in the States. And those American workers aren’t making what they used to; new hires get $14 an hour, roughly half of what veterans pull down.

The GM model typifies that of post-crash American business: massive layoffs, productivity increases, wage reductions (due in part to the weakness of unions), and reduced sales at home; increased hiring and booming sales abroad. Another part of that model is cash retention. A Federal Reserve report last month estimated that American corporations are sitting on a record $1.8 trillion in cash reserves. As a share of corporate assets, that’s the highest level since 1964.

Why invest in new plants, offices and workers, particularly here at home? Spooked by the 2008 crash, corporations want to keep more money under the mattress. More important, they’re sitting pretty as profits rise.

Is this model sustainable? It’s hard to say — a double-dip recession could plunge their profits yet again. But from the American worker’s perspective, the model, no less than a new downturn, is an unqualified disaster. It portends the kind of long-term, structural unemployment that we haven’t seen since the 1930s. It locks into place a generation of reduced incomes.

This dystopian America already stares us in the face. Fully 46 percent of the unemployed have been without work for six months or more — the highest level since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began measuring such things in 1947. Two years ago, just 18 percent of the unemployed were jobless for more than six months. America’s private-sector job machine — the marvel of the world since 1940 — has clanged to a halt, and there’s no place for it in corporations’ new business model.

The restoration of American prosperity, then, isn’t likely to be driven by our corporate sector. Across-the-board business tax cuts make no sense when business is already sitting on oceans of cash. Targeted tax cuts and credits for strategic investment and hiring within the United States, on the other hand, make excellent sense. The Obama administration has proposed expanding the tax credit for the manufacture of green technology here at home, and congressional Democrats will soon unveil legislation creating further incentives for domestic manufacturing.

Another source of jobs would be public, and public-private, investment in infrastructure. As Michael Lind and Sherle Schwenninger of the New America Foundation have argued, building a new American infrastructure of roads, rail and broadband is not only an economic necessity but also the investment with the highest multiplier effect in creating new jobs. A U.S. infrastructure investment bank, such as that proposed by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), could leverage significant private capital to begin America’s rebuilding, though the idea has encountered rough sledding in (surprise) the Senate.

What won’t work as an economic solution — indeed, it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment — is blaming the unemployed for their failure to find jobs. There are now roughly five unemployed Americans for every open job, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s most recent calculations, and that ratio isn’t likely to decline much if we leave it to the corporate sector to resume hiring. Corporations have figured out a way to make money without resuming hiring. Their model is premised on not resuming hiring. If the public sector doesn’t fill the gap, the era of American prosperity is history.

Applying for a Job and Following Directions

dfrecruitingft — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:23:12 +0000

It may seem obvious to some job seekers, but often times the application process is the first indication that a candidate can follow simple directions.

As you apply for jobs, carefully read the instructions for how to apply. Take note of simple requests for specific items such as cover letters or references. Too often job seekers believe they can just begin a dialog with a hiring company before presenting the information requested, then they are frustrated by a lack of response. By not following the directions on how to apply, job seekers are easily eliminated from potential hires.

Show that you follow directions and pay attention to detail by applying for a job correctly. You will have a chance to ask questions and introduce your personality after you get that first foot in the door.

It may seem simple, but the hurdles are out there to trip you up. Keep applying.

Best US Cities for Recent Grads and Jobs

dfrecruitingft — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:50:09 +0000

This came from a recent article on CNN.com and we thought it was great information for our recently graduated candidates. Driving Force works in many of the mentioned cities, so be sure to take a look at our website and the latest available job opportunities.

Below is an excerpt from the CNN/CareerBuilder piece online:

“

For new grads who plan to expand their job searches beyond their college towns or hometowns, Apartments.com and CareerRookie.com just released the third annual “Top 10 Best Cities for Recent College Graduates” based on the ranking of top U.S. cities with the highest concentration of young adults (age 20 to 24) from the U.S. Census Bureau (2006), inventory of jobs requiring less than one year of experience from CareerRookie.com (March, 2010) and the average cost of rent for a one bedroom apartment from Apartments.com (2010).

According to Apartments.com and CBcampus.com, the top 10 cities for new grads are:

1. Atlanta, Georgia
Average rent:* $723
Popular entry-level categories: sales, marketing, customer service

2. Phoenix, Arizona
Average rent: $669
Popular entry-level categories: sales, customer service, training

3. Denver, Colorado
Average rent: $779
Popular entry-level categories: sales, customer service, health care

4. Dallas, Texas
Average rent: $740
Popular entry-level categories: sales, customer service, health care

5. Boston, Massachusetts
Average rent: $1275
Popular entry-level categories: sales, marketing, training

6. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Average rent: $938
Popular entry-level categories: sales, marketing, health care

7. New York
Average rent: $1,366
Popular entry-level categories: sales, customer service, marketing

8. Cincinnati, Ohio
Average rent: $613
Popular entry-level categories: sales, customer service, management

9. Baltimore, Maryland
Average rent: $1,041
Popular entry-level categories: sales, customer service, management

10. Los Angeles, California
Average rent: $1319
Popular entry-level categories: sales, training, health care

Looking beyond your hometown

If you are considering expanding your job search to other cities, Lippe offers these tips:

• Be flexible and open-minded about locations and jobs you might not have considered previously. Even if you don’t end up in your dream job, you can earn valuable transferable skills that you can take with you to your next job.

• Contact an alumnus from your college who lives in that city and join your alumni chapter if there is one.

• Get an insider’s perspective by familiarizing yourself with the local media and other resources. Read up on the city’s business and community news.

• Develop a list of companies within the area and learn about their businesses and company cultures.

• Register with a national recruitment agency; interview with a recruiter in your local office and have that person put the word out to other offices in your target cities.

• Consider spending a few days in your desired city to learn more, network and set up informational interviews. In your applications and cover letters, tell hiring managers the dates you’ll be in the city and available to interview.

Despite a troubled job market, Ripple says she wouldn’t have majored in studies that might have brought her more job prospects.

“I genuinely enjoy and have a passion for International Business and Marketing and I would have majored in it no matter what. Had I known the economy would have been like this perhaps I would have made plans to immediately get my MBA afterward or had plans in place to move right away.”

*Average rent of one bedroom apartment”

Job Search Jargon – A joke

dfrecruitingft — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:48:20 +0000

As the country continues to look for jobs, we came across a humorous list of definitions for all of the jargon put out by employers. Take a look at the list and find out what some employers really mean to say…

COMPETITIVE SALARY:
We remain competitive by paying less than our competitors.

FLEXIBLE HOURS:
Work 55 hours; get paid for 37.5.

GOOD COMMUNICATION SKILLS:
Management communicates, you listen, figure out what they want you to do.

ABILITY TO HANDLE A HEAVY WORKLOAD:
You whine, you’re fired.

CAREER-MINDED:
We expect that you will want to flip hamburgers until you are 70.

SELF-MOTIVATED:
Management won’t answer questions

SOME OVERTIME REQUIRED:
Some time each night and some time each weekend

DUTIES WILL VARY:
Anyone in the office can boss you around.

COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT:
We have a lot of turnover.

SALES POSITION REQUIRING MOTIVATED SELF-STARTER:
We’re not going to supply you with leads; there’s no base salary; you’ll wait 30 days for your first commission check.

CASUAL WORK ATMOSPHERE:
We don’t pay enough to expect that you’ll dress up; well, a couple of the real daring guys wear earrings.

SOME PUBLIC RELATIONS REQUIRED:
If we’re in trouble, you’ll go on TV and get us out of it.

SEEKING CANDIDATES WITH A WIDE VARIETY OF EXPERIENCE:
You’ll need it to replace three people who just left.

PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS A MUST:
You’re walking into a company in perpetual chaos.

Resume Tip: No Generic Objectives

dfrecruitingft — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:33:31 +0000

We see a ton of resumes here at Driving Force and one of the most common mistakes on resumes is having a generic or bland objective statement.

The objective is your chance to introduce yourself. Make it count! Think of it as your “elevator statement” or how you would introduce yourself and your skills to an employer during a short elevator ride.

Short and concise is good. Generic and bland is not good.

A generic objective does nothing to sell your skill or you goals. And writing a customized objective for employers is well worth the short amount of time and energy to complete the chore.

Distractions in a Down Job Market

dfrecruitingft — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:28:28 +0000

It is Friday here, hard to focus on work with a weekend bearing down on us. So in the spirit of Fridays we have this bit of news from CareerBuilder.com:

A new CareerBuilder survey finds that, despite the hardships laid off workers are facing, they are focusing on positive aspects of being in between jobs to get them through a challenging time.

· 22% are spending more time with family and friends

· 15% are fixing up their homes

· 14% are exercising more

· 11% are finally taking time to relax

· 8% are volunteering

· 7% are going back to school

· 6% are becoming more involved in their church community

· 4% are starting their own business

· 4% are taking up new hobbies

· 3% are traveling

Good luck finding a distraction to carry you through this weekend! Back to the grind next week…

Resume Blunders, Yes, they’re real.

dfrecruitingft — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:11:45 +0000

Here are some actual true mistakes from some past resumes. Some light humor to get back into the swing of things…

“Personal: I’m married with 9 children. I don’t require prescription drugs.”

“I am extremely loyal to my present firm, so please don’t let them know of my immediate availability.”

“Qualifications: I am a man filled with passion and integrity, and I can act on short notice. I’m a class act and do not come cheap.”

“I intentionally omitted my salary history. I’ve made money and lost money. I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. I prefer being rich.”

“Note: Please don’t misconstrue my 14 jobs as ‘job-hopping’. I have never quit a job.”

“Number of dependents: 40.”

“Marital Status: Often. Children: Various.”

Found on the website: http://www.ahajokes.com/off01.html