I daren't tell my mother I'm in sales, she thinks I play the piano in a whorehouse. Okay, that's not exactly trueI didn't tell her the bit about the piano. But it's true enough that I did once keep from her and my dad that I had applied to become a "representative".
At the time, the principal attractions of the role were that it came with a Cortina Estate (ideal weekend transport to replace the then rusting VW combi van) and regular money (which would have been a first). I reasoned with myself that I could live with lunching in lay-bys and as this was in the pre-mobile phone era, I'd enjoy the freedom that came with being on the road.
Of course, the fact that it was a "sales" job, I'd just have to keep quiet from friends and family, they'd only worry about why I'd had to "stoop that low" and whether it really was the sort of job a nice boy like me should be doing.
Anyway, after a series of furtive interviews at Selby Fork Services (where it seemed every other huddled meeting was in fact a sales interview), the regional sales manager saw through my (lack of) intentions and advised me to go and get some "nancy boy job in London".
So here I am and, 25 years down the track, I'm not so sure that the image of sales has improved that much.
In this year's High Fliers graduate survey of final year students, sales ranked 16th in their first choice of career, with only 5.6 % expressing interest. But at least it did better than retail at 17th, with only 3.4%.
As you can see from the table, the luvvies get top ranking with marketing and media walking away with 26% between them (those nancy boy jobs, as that RSM would have put it). The consulting and investment banking industries are pretty much partners in crime anyway, so it's not surprising to see them coming in at third and fourth and taking another 23% combined.
At least with these top four destinations we can shrug our shoulders and admit that media and marketing have got a certain amount of sex appeal going for them, or that if it's quick bucks that turns graduates on, then consulting and investment banking are reputed to pay moderately (obscenely) well.
But and here it gets really depressing look at what graduates would rather do than sales or retailing. They'd rather be in human resources or work for a charity. Even being a civil servant is significantly more appealing.
And if you were even thinking about saying "oh, well that's graduates for you, they've never been right for us", just remember that more than 35% of all young people go to university now, so unless you only want to recruit from the "bottom 65%", what graduates think really does matter. And for what it's worth, I would wager a salary cheque, that were a similar survey conducted among all young people, sales and retailing wouldn't fare that well either.
So clearly there's an image problem, and it's an image problem that matters, because if this industry can't attract quality talent, it's not going to make much progress. Retailers and suppliers spend millions nurturing their reputations with investors and even more on their image with customers.
But perhaps now it is time they started investing serious money in improving their reputation as employers and working on the image of the industry they're part of.
A very select few take it seriously, but even for them the sums they invest in their employer brand pale to anything they spend elsewhere.
All pretty strong stuff, which should be higher up every corporate agenda. But on the other hand, what would a nancy boy know about it anyway?
n Simon Howard is a founder of Work Communications, writes the Jobfile column for the Sunday Times and still plays the piano. Badly.
{{JOBS & CAREERS }}
At the time, the principal attractions of the role were that it came with a Cortina Estate (ideal weekend transport to replace the then rusting VW combi van) and regular money (which would have been a first). I reasoned with myself that I could live with lunching in lay-bys and as this was in the pre-mobile phone era, I'd enjoy the freedom that came with being on the road.
Of course, the fact that it was a "sales" job, I'd just have to keep quiet from friends and family, they'd only worry about why I'd had to "stoop that low" and whether it really was the sort of job a nice boy like me should be doing.
Anyway, after a series of furtive interviews at Selby Fork Services (where it seemed every other huddled meeting was in fact a sales interview), the regional sales manager saw through my (lack of) intentions and advised me to go and get some "nancy boy job in London".
So here I am and, 25 years down the track, I'm not so sure that the image of sales has improved that much.
In this year's High Fliers graduate survey of final year students, sales ranked 16th in their first choice of career, with only 5.6 % expressing interest. But at least it did better than retail at 17th, with only 3.4%.
As you can see from the table, the luvvies get top ranking with marketing and media walking away with 26% between them (those nancy boy jobs, as that RSM would have put it). The consulting and investment banking industries are pretty much partners in crime anyway, so it's not surprising to see them coming in at third and fourth and taking another 23% combined.
At least with these top four destinations we can shrug our shoulders and admit that media and marketing have got a certain amount of sex appeal going for them, or that if it's quick bucks that turns graduates on, then consulting and investment banking are reputed to pay moderately (obscenely) well.
But and here it gets really depressing look at what graduates would rather do than sales or retailing. They'd rather be in human resources or work for a charity. Even being a civil servant is significantly more appealing.
And if you were even thinking about saying "oh, well that's graduates for you, they've never been right for us", just remember that more than 35% of all young people go to university now, so unless you only want to recruit from the "bottom 65%", what graduates think really does matter. And for what it's worth, I would wager a salary cheque, that were a similar survey conducted among all young people, sales and retailing wouldn't fare that well either.
So clearly there's an image problem, and it's an image problem that matters, because if this industry can't attract quality talent, it's not going to make much progress. Retailers and suppliers spend millions nurturing their reputations with investors and even more on their image with customers.
But perhaps now it is time they started investing serious money in improving their reputation as employers and working on the image of the industry they're part of.
A very select few take it seriously, but even for them the sums they invest in their employer brand pale to anything they spend elsewhere.
All pretty strong stuff, which should be higher up every corporate agenda. But on the other hand, what would a nancy boy know about it anyway?
n Simon Howard is a founder of Work Communications, writes the Jobfile column for the Sunday Times and still plays the piano. Badly.
{{JOBS & CAREERS }}
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