Recruiting Sales Professionals: What You Need To Know

How do you go about recruiting sales professionals? Are you asking current employees for recommendations? Maybe you have a referral bonus system in place to encourage your employees to recommend friends. There’s nothing wrong with these approaches. The only problem is they fall short of ensuring that you’re on track to hire a top sales professional.

What are the Top Sales Achiever Qualities?

As you begin recruiting sales professionals, you have an ideal candidate in mind. Our latest research shows that around 11% of sales professionals exceed quota. What accounts for their greatness? Which traits drive these pros?

A Harvard Business Review study indicated that top reps feel accountable for their results. That accountability is what motivates them to do their best work. They also want to succeed and can empathize with a prospect.

Which Behavioral Traits Indicate Job Success?

Sales managers might not always realize which behavioral traits translate to the best job performance. Their responses to our Voice of the Sales Manager survey show that they believe successful reps should have the following characteristics:

• Positive/​optimistic 64%
• Problem solving 68%
• Confidence 66%

How to Find Candidates with Top Selling Traits

How can a manager be sure that a candidate possesses these attributes? The typical sales manager has access to a range of hiring tools when recruiting sales professionals. Some of these tools are more effective than others. Let’s take a look.

The Limitations of Interviews

At some point, almost all hiring managers conduct in-​person interviews. These face-​to-​face encounters can tell you much about a candidate.

They can also result in a bad hiring decision because the decision-​maker may have a bias. If the sales department is filled with men, the hiring manager may decide to bring another man onto the team instead of giving the position to a deserving woman. 

In addition, research shows that “only one in five interviews increases the baseline odds that a hired candidate will be successful.” Often, that’s because the candidate puts on a performance designed to dazzle the interviewers. Once that person has been onboarded, C. Lee Smith, CEO of SalesFuel, points out that you may never see that performance again.

The Benefits of Sales Assessments

When you’re recruiting sales professionals, you want to find the person who will do a great job, stay with your organization and fit into your culture. That’s a tall order, given that sales managers, in the SalesFuel Voice of the Sales Manager survey, report an average of 37% turnover in their organizations. This number appears to be creeping higher every year. A few years ago, Frank V. Cespedes and Daniel Weinfurter noted a 25%-30% turnover rate for sales professionals in their Harvard Business Review article.

One way to reduce your turnover rate is to use a sales assessment test. You can select the candidate with the qualities you need. In many cases, it’s less expensive to ask serious candidates to take an assessment before you invite them for an interview.

Identifying Candidate Potential

The results of a good sales assessment test will inform managers of a candidate’s potential fit with the organization. Applicants with a poor fit should not be invited to interview.

Managers who use TeamTrait™ also quickly learn whether a candidate has the right strengths. A natural tendency to excel at discovery, for example, may be exactly what your business needs. These are the reps who will take the necessary time to assess the prospect and the opportunity.

What about candidates who possess strengths but lack experience? Don’t be too quick to dismiss them. Review the results of their assessments. If they score high on coachability, you’ll be able to train them. And you may end up with a stellar sales pro who will always remember that you were willing to hire and invest in training them.

Emphasis on the Wrong Qualifications

Another weak link in the sales professional hiring process is the over-​reliance on a rigid job description. The typical job description for a sales professional these days likely requires a four-​year college degree and a couple of years of experience.

Most sales managers want candidates with some work experience. That’s understandable. It can be time-​consuming to train a new hire who’s just graduated from college and must learn the rhythm and responsibility of professional life.

Some companies are even more selective and only want to talk to candidates with industry-​specific experience. This attitude can become costly in the long-​term. Candidates in competitive industries know they are valuable, and they’ll want a generous compensation package. Even worse, they may jump ship for the better offer they’re likely to receive a year from now.

A different hiring strategy, and one being used by more companies, is to hire an individual who possesses the right qualities and train them. While some organizations hesitate to invest in training a person who may leave after a year or two, other companies believe that they can retain an employee by offering ongoing advancement opportunities.

Summary

When recruiting sales professionals, too many managers rely on old hiring practices. Using objective sales skills assessments will improve the chances of finding the right person for the job.

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