Conclusions
Employment and employability are not the same thing. Being employed means having a job; for a youth or adult who is not adequately prepared, having a job is likely to be a temporary condition. Being employable means possessing qualities needed to maintain employment and progress in the workplace (Byrne, Constan, and Moore, 1992). Buck and Barrick (1987) observed that employability skills are the attributes of employees, other than technical competence, that make them an asset to the employer. Besides, according to the QUARTERLY NATIONAL ECONOMIC TRENDS proposed by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan (2009), the unemployment rate all over the world has increased, including in Taiwan, the unemployment rate is up to 5.6% in the first quarter of 2009.
But the research report from 104 Job Bank’s Corporation, the largest website for human resources service in Taiwan, shows that in 2009 the companies still need to recruit many employees. The result estimates the needs for sales job is 29.6%. The researcher suggested that it is very important to develop employability skills to maintain individual’s competitive advantage. With adequate employability skills means one has sufficient work skills, abilities, traits to implement his/her work.
Forming Salesperson Employability Skills
In this research, salesperson employability skills were developed based on three employability frameworks. The result shows that there are 32 items of salesperson employability skills. Each of them is important to salespeople. Although each type of
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sales work needs different specific employability skills, a common set of employability are required.
The Importance Ranking of Salesperson Employability Skills
Among the 32 salesperson employability skills items used in the questionnaire, interpersonal skill, emotional quotient, the attitude of working, learning attitude, and the sense of responsibility are the top five important items as suggested by the subjects. This result may meet the statement of Busse’s studies (1992); he noted that employers value generic employability skills above than specific occupational skills, such as sales knowledge or sales skills. In addition, Beach (1982) cited that research indicating that fully 87 percent of persons losing their jobs or failing to be promoted were found to have “improper work habits and attitudes rather than insufficient job skills or knowledge.” Spencer and Spencer (1993) proposed that skills and knowledge are easier to develop by training, whereas self-concept, trait, and motive will be difficult to develop. These items of top ranking salesperson employability skills are put into the category of under iceberg, which are hard to developed and trained. In this research, the subjects value self-concept and train more than general skills and knowledge. Generally, the finding meets previous studies.
However, Internet marketing ability, financial management related skills, “MS office application skills, basic computer skills, and English proficiency are the last five items as suggest by the subjects in this research. These are obviously skills-related. According to Spencer and Spencer’s iceberg model, these skills are easier to develop. But the researcher also mentioned that different salesperson required different set of salesperson employability skills. One should evaluate his/her current position, working experience, career development, and many other factors,
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and subsequently develop specific salesperson employability skills in order to maintain the competitive advantage, be employed, or search for next new job.
Views on Employability Skills from Different Attributes of Salespersons
From this research, the salespersons with different gender, age, and positions view the importance of some salesperson employability skills differently. Female salespersons do not view the items of collaboration with others, ability of data analysis, ability to plan, leadership as important as male salespersons do. On the other hand, the salespeople above 30 years old and below 30 years old view the importance of some salesperson employability skills differently. In total, there are ten items showing significant differences. Moreover, there are eight items showing significant differences among the three sales positions. This all explains that salespersons with different attributes may need different employability skills.
Nevertheless, high uncertainty and frustration exists in a sales job, which is not right for every kind of person to be a salesperson. Salespersons should adjust themselves, and adapt to a proper selling way for the job. It is not only crucial to develop employability skills as a priority, but salespersons should examine their employability skills over time and strengthen their employability skills, to meet the demand of every new challenge.
Recommendations
Recommendations for individuals, salespersons, employers, and schools
Based on the research findings and conclusions, some recommendations are made for individuals, salespersons, employers, and schools. Employability skills are not job specific, but are skills which cut horizontally across all industries and
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vertically across all jobs from entry level to chief executive officer (Sherer & Eadie, 1987). One may be employed temporarily, but without a set of employability skills, it is very difficult to seek for a job if necessary. The researcher suggests that not only for a salesperson, but every one should examine his or her employability skills, in order to keep the current job, or seek for next job. Looking for ways to improve individual’s employability skills is a way to maintain competitive advantage over others.
Individuals may refer to the Employability Skills Tookit, developed from the Conference Board of Canada (2002), which help know oneself and get feedback;
identify and reflect on one’s skills; plan skills development activities; implement one’s development plans and practice one’s skills; and document and market one’s skills for best success.
Second, a salesperson should develop and strengthen his/her employability skills based on different factors. A regular salesperson and a sales manager usually implement different tasks for his/her daily works. In addition, different types of salesperson require a set of different skills. As a result, as a salesperson, the high ranking items of salesperson employability skills are required to be developed as a priority, at the same time the additional employability skills are demanded based on his/her position, age, or any other factors.
Third, salespersons can create an individual development plan, and the company can introduce a performance management system that is based on the employability skills. A company can consider designing an employability-based training-needs-assessment questionnaire to help assess the current skills level of the existing salespersons. Accordingly, a salesperson can learn more about their job through an employability-based training curriculum.
Fourth, employers should train new employees in company-specific procedures
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and acquaint them with the behavioral norms, standards, and expectations of their workplace. They also provide training in job-specific technical skills for their employees. But they may hope that the schools should take most of the responsibility for equipping young people with general employability skills. Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (1991) noted that more than half of young people leave school without the knowledge or foundation required to find and hold a good job. Although, Brook (2006) proposed that many employability skills are not developed in school, employability skill can be taught both directly and indirectly in school. Developing employability skills is not only school’s job, but individual’s, parents’, educational/training institutes and the authorities.
Recommendations for future studies
In future studies, there are several recommendations for researchers. First, data could be collected from a choice of sources to avoid the problem of common method variance. The researcher only delivered the questionnaire to subjects who work in Taipei City, and Taipei County. In the future studies, if time and money are sufficient, the questionnaire can be delivered to different cities in this country.
Second, the subjects are different types of salespersons. The result reveals that self-concepts and traits are very important employability skills. If the future studies should focus on some specific salespersons, the result may be interesting.
Third, although the ranking of salesperson employability skills is revealed in this research as suggested by the subjects, there is no further studies how to develop these employability skills. The researcher suggests that further researches should explore how to develop employability skills from the different views of individuals, schools, educational/training institutes, and the authorities.
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APPENDIX A. QUESTIONNAIRE FOR SALESPERSON EMPLOYABILITY SURVEY (CHINESE VERSION)
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APPENDIX B. QUESTIONNAIRE FOR SALESPERSON EMPLOYABILITY SURVEY (ENGLISH VERSION)
Letter Requesting Participation for Questionnaire To whom it may concern,
The purpose of this questionnaire is to understand the importance of each item of salesperson employability. As a salesperson or sales manager, you may have an observation of which items of salesperson employability are essential for your current job. Please answer the following questions according to your actual experience. Your response will be completely anonymous and confidential and only for academic use. After filing out all the questions, please hand over the filled
questionnaire to sales department. Thank you very much for your kind help and cooperation.
Advisor: Steven Lai, Ph. D.
Student: Sung-Mao Chang
Graduate Institute of International Workforce Education and Development, National Taiwan Normal University
7Sales manager 7Senior salesperson 7Salesperson
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7. Years of Current Position:
7Less than 5 years 7Between 6 ~ 10 years 7More than 11 years 8. Years of Working Experience:
7Less than 5 years 7Between 6 ~ 10 years 7More than 11 years
Part II: Example
Please indicate the importance of each item of employability skills based on your working experience. You may also help to perfect the questionnaire by writing down in the blank column any description of employability we overlooked. We thank you for your participation in and contribution to the research!
Item 1 2 3 4 5
Creativity X
The respondent considers creativity an important salesperson employability skill.
Part III: Main Content
Number Item 1 2 3 4 5
1 Basic computer skills 2 MS Office application skills 3 Internet marketing ability 4 Collaboration with others 5 Team conflict resolution 6 Data collection ability 7 Ability of data analysis
8 The ability to acquire new knowledge 9 Willingness to learn
10 The ability to change oneself
Not important at
all
Less
important NA/neutral Important Very important
important NA/neutral Important Very important
1 2 3 4 5
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Number Item 1 2 3 4 5
11 Learning attitude 12 Emotional Quotient 13 Career planning 14 Interpersonal skill
15 The ability of conflict resolution 16 Ability to plan
17 Leadership
18 Creativity
19 Ethics
20 Loyalty
21 The sense of responsibility 22 The attitude of working 23 Oral presentation skill 24 Listening attentively 25 The ability to coordinate 26 Independent thinking 27 Problem solving ability 28 English proficiency 29 Chinese proficiency 30 Marketing knowledge 31 Marketing skills
32 Financial management related skills 33 Your suggestions:
Thank you very much for your time and patience to fill out this questionnaire!