Digital Age Games is a video game publisher that took gaming to a new level in the early 1990s with its well-known “Sack Attack—Extreme Football” game. Unfortunately, it has not had a popular game title since that time and is attempting to make a comeback with its new game “Drop-Kick—Extreme Wrestling.” However, Digital Age has found that there is “extreme” competition for space on retailer shelves, as the top three game publishers (Digital Age is not one of them) have a 90 percent share of the market and a corresponding share of shelf space. Therefore, Digital Age’s sales group is an area of key concern.

To address this concern, Digital Age’s management has hired Shirley Hill, job analysis consultant, to conduct a job analysis of the company’s sales positions and give overall advice on how to improve the recruitment process for those positions.

Shirley began her analysis by doing research on the gaming industry as a whole, reviewing the sales structure and job descriptions of Digital Age’s major competitors and determining goals and objectives of Digital Age’s management. Management told her that it wants to focus on customer prospecting and product demonstration by increasing in-person salesperson attention (and therefore, salesperson travel). It also wants employees with gaming knowledge who will better understand product detail and be able to communicate it to customers.

She spoke at length with the sales managers to determine what the salespeople actually do, as well as which are high performers and which are low performers. On her office visits with management, she perceived the tension her presence brought to the sales representatives, who were concerned that their jobs may be at stake, so she spared them and herself by not talking with them directly.

Because the job descriptions had not been updated since 1997, her next order of business was to create a new description for the sales representative position. Her draft job description is as follows:

Sales Representative

The Digital Age Games North American sales organization drives the placement, retail marketing, and retail advertising support for consumer goods in its established retail and distribution channels.

The sales representative must:

• Manage U.S. video game distributors and other regional accounts for both video game and PC game products.
• Achieve quarterly sell-in objectives and revenue targets.
• Maintain established accounts through regular customer contact in pursuit of follow-on sales.
• Provide crisp and consistent feedback/communication to managers and others as required.

Selection criteria:

• 2–3 years of experience in sales of entertainment products.
• Bachelor’s degree.
• Team player who can deal with ambiguity.
• Customer service–oriented.
• Strong presentation and communication skills.
• Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail.

Finally, Shirley made recommendations as to sources for new sales recruits. Because knowledge of gaming and the product is central to the position, she recommended that the company primarily look to applicants who are existing employees in the company. Similarly, Shirley reasoned, by advertising positions on the Internet, both on Digital Age’s website and other third-party job sites, Digital Age would attract tech-savvy applicants. Shirley insisted that these two sources would provide more than enough quality applicants.

Shirley was quite satisfied with her analysis and recommendations, but management has some concerns and has scheduled a feedback meeting with her.

Questions

(1) From the facts given, did Shirley do a proper job analysis? What else could she have done to evaluate the current positions? Explain.

(2) Evaluate the job description. Is there anything you would have added, deleted, or changed?

(3) Besides those recommended by Shirley, what other source(s) of applicants might Digital Age use for recruiting new salespeople? Why?