BY Kathy Crosett
How can you improve your sales hiring outcomes? Hiring sales reps, especially the right ones, has never been easy. After all, the cost of a bad sales hire for B2B companies is now at $177,171 according to our research. Staying aware of the latest trends and following best practices in sales hiring can make a difference.
Why hiring sales reps is more challenging than ever
Sales hiring is more challenging than ever before. The typical sale manager is facing a 30% turnover rate. As they recruit new sales professionals, AI-generated resumes make it difficult to distinguish between reality and hype. When sales managers and organizations cling to outdated hiring tactics, they’ll continue to experience high turnover and rising replacement costs.
How big is the sales industry?
Nationally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 1.3 million sales jobs must be filled every year in the U.S. Some of these jobs represent new positions. But in many cases, businesses are hiring sales reps to replace departing team members who report an average turnover rate of around 30%. Here are a few trends to know about to ensure that your next sales hire is your best sales hire.
Are you hiring for the right position?
HubSpot anticipates that specialized sales roles will continue to be important. Large organizations will be seeking solutions engineers and customer onboarding specialists.
Smaller organizations may require their reps to serve in more than one sales role. They may employ only one or two individuals to be full-cycle sales professionals.
How to hire a sales rep successfully
If you are asking “How to find sales reps,” you should start at the beginning of the hiring process. The best way to find top sales candidates is to first write an accurate job description. If you need a new business hunter, you don’t want to draw resumes from solutions engineers. Creating an accurate job description will result in attracting attention from the right candidates.
A good job description improves the results generated by sales skills assessment platforms. When using TeamTrait, a best-in-class behavioral assessment platform, clients have the option to request the creation of a customized job description. When candidates take assessments, their results are scored against the defined job skills. When candidates take TeamTrait assessments, their results are scored against the defined job skills.
With that information, the hiring team receives a more accurate assessment of how well the candidates will perform in the position. And they have a better chance of hiring sales reps who will succeed.
How do assessments help to verify AI-readiness in sales candidates?
AI technology is changing the role of sales hiring and how customers buy. If your sales hiring strategy does not reflect the new reality, it’s time to change.egy reflect the new reality?
Hiring for AI-readiness
These days, it’s not enough that your reps are using AI. They must use AI competitively. That means the sales manager should train their teams on generative AI and agentic AI use that their organizations have approved.
Most companies are turning to AI for research, our surveys show. The AI-generated results save time.
McKinsey analysts cautioned recently about AI use. Their research reveals that employees, including sales professionals, see AI “as a business enabler rather than a compliance exercise.” That attitude should be a red flag for any sales manager. Around 62% of surveyed organizations are not yet at “fully scaled agentic AI” because of their concerns regarding security and risk.
A big part of that risk is related to releasing data to a prospect that has not been fully vetted as accurate. These decisions are challenging and require sales professionals to use critical thinking.
TeamTraitTM, the industry leading sales assessment platform, scores sales candidates on AI-readiness and on critical thinking.
What are buyers doing with AI?
On the other side of the sales transaction, your new hires must understand how buyers use AI. Over 20% of senior business decision-makers turn to AI to make better purchasing decisions. Their practices mean your sales content and your sales reps must show up in online searches.
In particular, your reps must use more critical thinking. Instead of following a prescribed sales pitch, their discovery process should include finding out how far the prospect is down the sales funnel with their research. They need to think through the next logical steps to engage the prospect.
Longer B2B sales cycles
The economic outlook is not easy to read. And many buyers report that general economic conditions will be a top challenge for the next couple of years. One casualty of this new attitude is the B2B sales cycle. It’s taking longer than ever to close deals – around 272 days according to Dreamdata.
Once your sales team members have engaged with a buyer, they must educate themselves on the complexity of the team making the decision. By tracking the multiple stakeholders and maintaining contact at the right time, they can guide the deal to the finish line.
As you review candidates for open sales positions, look for individuals who score well for collaborating with the members of the buying team.
The need for digital communications expertise
One way to maintain contact through the extended B2B sales cycle is to optimize social selling. HubSpot research “shows that social media now delivers 42% response rates.” Where does email stand? 26%.
With a sales assessment platform like TeamTrait, hiring sales reps is easier. You'll be able to find which candidates excel at digital communications, have AI-readiness and will work well with your team.
How to recruit sales reps that fit your team
When talent management professionals need to recruit sales reps that fit their team, they must first define the job. Combining a customized job description with a behavioral assessment such as team trait helps hiring managers identify top candidates. In addition to looking at job fit, managers should also hire for AI-readiness. Assessment scores also indicate which candidates will fit best with your buyers, possess digital communication excellence and work well with your team.
Image on Pexels by Andrea Piacquadio
How do you find top sales candidates?
Tops sales candidates must possess the right mix of soft and hard skills, along with sales acumen. To objectively measure for this expertise and applicable traits, recruiters should use behavioral assessments to identify the best candidates.
How do you recruit sales reps for B2B sales?
To find the top candidates, recruiters will need to target passive candidates with queries on social sites such as LinkedIn. But they can’t skip the most important step, requiring these candidates to take behavioral assessments. The assessment data will indicate which candidate is most closely matched to the job, manager, company culture and typical customers.
How can assessments improve sales hiring results?
Behavioral assessments improve sales hiring results by identifying the best candidates for the position. The objective assessment data highlights motivations, traits and likely workplace behavior. This kind of information is invaluable to recruiters who often only have a resume and answers to interview questions as the basis for making a hiring recommendation.
