If you’ve landed at this page, you probably have seen job postings on Craigslist or the Service Canada Job Bank for a career opportunity selling advertising for the Canadian Design and Construction Report.  Here, you’ll learn a bit more about the opportunity, the qualifications, and how you can have an opportunity to succeed at this career.

About you . . .

First, the basics.  You don’t need sales experience, and you certainly don’t need advertising sales experience to qualify.  Our publications serve the architectural, engineering and construction industry.  Knowledge of this community will be helpful, but again isn’t a necessary qualification.

Second, if you qualify through a rather intensive (but hopefully entirely fair) evaluation process, we’ll start you off with a salary of $40,000.00 per year.  A company benefits program starts at three months. You should be able to earn $90,000 to $100,000 a year within two years if you reach your full potential.  You won’t make $500,000 a year, though (nice thought, though.)

You can work from your own home, anywhere in Canada, though proximity to a reasonable sized community will help you because it will allow you to meet face-to-face with clients in your own area.  You can guess that you need to be good on the phone and Internet — but as you establish yourself, we’ll work with you on a travel budget to allow you to meet other clients face-to-face.

The evaluation process

If you are interested in the opportunity, send your resume to us.  We’ll return a questionnaire and a brief sales personality survey test.  You need to complete the questionnaire and survey to qualify. (If you want to speed things up, you can download both the questionnaire and survey here.  See below.)

The questions aren’t that difficult.  In our organization, resumes and “interviews” are far less important in the evaluation process than real references and an actual working test.  “Real references” are from recent employers (and would be your direct supervisors).  If you have gaps or issues, don’t fret.  Just be truthful in the questionnaire so you aren’t haunted later with the inconsistencies.

The survey isn’t 100 per cent perfect and the resulting graph it generates for us to review would not mean anything to you, but we’ve discovered that most successful sales people have results within certain parameters.

We’ll evaluate the questionnaires and survey results before moving on to the most important evaluation stage.

The working test — where you prove your abilities (and are paid even if you don’t!)

The working test is part of our hiring system which sets us apart from most businesses.  In place of conventional interviews, we pay you to work with us for about a week.  The assignment won’t be particularly easy but will give you a taste of the actual work you will be doing, and an opportunity to prove you have the ability to ask the right questions and figure out the most effective strategies to succeed.  We expect you to sell something during the test.  If you are really successful, you will sell a lot.  It isn’t easy to do, but if things don’t work out, we’ll still pay you so you aren’t out of pocket.  (If you are currently employed, we’ll structure the test so you can either complete it during a vacation break or during an abbreviated testing process.)

With good results, we’ll then offer you interim employment while verifying your references and allowing you some time to review and sign our standard employment agreement.  (The agreement covers things like your salary and stuff like reasonable non-compete clauses.  It also clarifies that severance practices are in line with employment standards legislation, not common law, so we want you to have the opportunity to show the agreement to your own lawyer before you sign it.)

Then you’ll be working with us.  Within three months, you should qualify for our benefits program, and twice a year, you’ll receive fare, food and lodging for a visit to our twice-yearly staff meetings in Ottawa.

Questions?

Well, the first step is to send your resume to publisher@cnrgp.com.  If you would like to move things more rapidly, you can also download the questionnaire and sales survey here and send your resume directly to us WITH the completed questionnaire and survey.

Return these to chase@cnrgp.com (if you wish, copy to me at buckshon@cnrgp.com).  You can ask questions if you wish.  Initial communication is best by email, but we will be happy to speak with you on the phone if you wish.

Questionnaire 2012 

Sales Survey-right for you

(Note, follow the instructions carefully in completing the survey.)