Hiring effectively is the seeding of a high-performance sales organization and a huge challenge. It seems natural to focus on hiring only when the need arises. However, recruiting is a commitment that should consume 20 percent of the sales leader's time. And the process should be methodical and yield consistent, positive results. Too many companies use inconsistent interviewing techniques, tend to believe what they hear, and wind up hiring an "empty suit." A Michigan State study found that more than 90 percent of all hiring decisions were made as the result of an interview, but that interviewing is only 14 percent accurate. Clearly, you need to improve your odds in order to hire quality people.
Start by following these five steps:
1. Maintain an active interview schedule. Set a goal to interview so many candidates every month, even if you have no openings. A pool of approved candidates will serve you well. In every sales organization, about 20 percent of the people can be upgraded at any given time. At the very least, if any of your top performers leaves, you're prepared.
2. Run an advertisement in the business section of your local paper six times per year. The person you need to hire may not be looking or available if you interview only sporadically. Your goal is to keep your recruiting pipeline full.
3. Interview a minimum of five candidates for each hire. Each candidate should be interviewed by three additional people in your organization who have different roles. Diversify the interviews-phone, face to face, maybe even an email-all the ways salespeople communicate with prospects and customers.
4. Make sure at least one interview is off-site and in a social atmosphere, such as over lunch or dinner. This is especially important when the job calls for working in such social environments. But even if it doesn't, candidates often open up more in a relaxed atmosphere.
5. Manage the recruiting pipeline as seriously as the sales pipeline. To assess the candidates in your pipeline, define five specific, objective, measurable experiences or characteristics of your ideal salesperson. Why so few? Because you need to focus on the areas that drive success. The criteria will differ depending on the exact position, but should be as simple as this example:
A minimum of 5 years sales experience âEUR¢ Experience in opening new territories or new accounts
Regional sales experience
Specific market/industry expertise
Professional sales training
All interviewers, including recruiting firms, should be familiar with this profile. Use it to write your advertisements, too.
Strive for Consistency
Now that you have a plan to fill the pipeline with quality candidates, the next step is to systemize the process for choosing and winning the right candidate. Communicating an established process to all involved parties not only saves time, but sends a clear, unified message to candidates that your company has its act together, increasing their desire to join the sales team.
The following model consistently works well; consider it as a foundation for your sales recruitment process:
1. Identify and document each stage in the interview process, and who in your company will participate.
2. Use a proven sales assessment tool with your top sales reps and a few of your lower-level sales team members. The results will provide a benchmark for evaluating candidates' ability to sell, mental strength and attitude toward selling. Sales assessments provide insights into the candidate that cannot be seen from a physical interview. They also provide valuable insight for coaching and motivating for hirees.
3. During the interviewing process, distribute the following to all of your company participants:
Outline of the interview process
Profile of the ideal sales candidate
Interviewing scorecard
List of base questions to ask
The candidate's resume
A sales scenario to test candidates' sales acumen
It takes effort to build a recruiting process, and even more to ensure that everyone follows the plan. But the result is a winning sales team guaranteed to make the sales leader's life easier.
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