Identifying job skills in commercial advisors in a health insurance company

The aim of this research was to identify the criticalcompetence of success of the commercial adviserin a company providing insurance and health services.For this research a sample of 34 commercialadvisers. The sample was divided into four groups(two per product and two per criterion of success).Systematic fi eld observations, interviews of criticalincidents, application of response tests and salesworkshops were used to evaluate the differentialcompetences that the successful advisers wereshowing in relation to the advisers de fi ned as average.The success criteria were based on the generatedcommission performance over the 10 months. Allin all, signi fi cant differences were found betweenthe “successful” and “average” groups. Furthermore,competences that correlate positively with atop sales performance were observed and competencesthat have major level of discrimination betweenthe “successful” and “average” groups wereestablished. Orientation to achievement, planningand management, information search, commercialaggressiveness and strategic vision are the competencesthat were considered to be key in the topperformance of a sales agent or commercial adviser.Additionally, the results in the response testswere analyzed in the four study groups, withoutobserving signi fi cant differences between them,which supports the theoretical framework of thepresent study.

Social skills of children with different disabilities: Assessment and implications for interventions

This study characterizes the differences and similarities in the repertoire of social skills of children from 12 different categories of special educational needs: autism, hearing impairment, mild intellectual disabilities, moderate intellectual disabilities, visual impairment, phonological disorder, learning disabilities, giftedness and talent, externalizing behavior problems, internalizing behavior problems, internalizing and externalizing behavior problems and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Teachers of 120 students in regular and special schools, aged between 6 and 14 years old, from four Brazilian states, responded to the Social Skills Rating System. Children with ADHD, autism, internalizing and externalizing behavior problems and externalizing behavior problems presented comparatively lower frequency of social skills. The intervention needs of each evaluated category are discussed.

Assessing the labor supply and demand missmatch by skills in the Uruguay labor market

This article examines the mismatch between labor supply and demand for educational qualificationsin the Uruguayan labor market during 2000-2009. It attempts to measure the phenomenonof under-qualification and overqualification by occupation type based on educational requirementfor each occupation. Following the previous literature, the empirical work concentrates onthe determinants of over-education and its impact on wages.