A sales manager may find themselves asking the question, “How do I find good sales candidates to add to my sales team?”
It can sometimes feel like a losing battle to locate sales professionals that are an excellent fit for your sales team and have the right combination of sales experience, soft skills, and technical knowledge.
However, sales recruiters know that with a proven process, they can often find great salespeople to run through the interview process.
Look at a few tips to help to hire managers to succeed at hiring top sales talent.
Review Your Business Strategy
Drafting a job description isn’t the first step for sales managers. First, they must look hard at their sales team, company, and other companies in the same industry.
Sales leaders want to start by defining what their needs are when it comes to sales recruiting.
A self-assessment will inform hiring managers about what kind of sales reps will best fill out their team.
For example, their company’s products may benefit from in-person sales presentations. Hiring sales reps may make more sense than focusing on new account executive positions.
Or, if your company is starting up, it may make sense to hire commission-only salespeople to lessen the financial risk to the business if their performance doesn’t produce closed deals.
The sales department may have skill gaps that a fresh sales professional could fill. Note this and make that skill one of the requirements for the job description.
Through this process, a sales hiring manager should be able to answer the questions, “Why do we need to hire sales reps? Who will be the best fit?”
Craft the Sales Representative Job Description
The goal of hiring managers is obvious – to find sales reps. But how is this done? A good job description is a crucial step.
Hiring salespeople is easier when the job is attractive, which should be the purpose of any job description posted to job boards or advertised in other ways.
More isn’t always better. Page after page of details about of job is more likely to send candidates running away. If it fits on one page, it needs to be more concise.
Clarity will help the main points stand out. You should concisely communicate what you are looking for in potential candidates – previous experience, soft skills, and company culture fit.
Use specific keywords in the job title and description that you believe the ideal candidate will search for as they look for a new sales role.
Be honest about expectations and required skills or experience. This helps filter out unsuitable applicants and draws qualified candidates from the applicant pool.
Hiring Salespeople Involves Attracting the Right Candidates
The hunt for the best salespeople can take time and effort. So, be smart about your methods. Consider yourself a little to only one channel when posting to job boards.
Use social media platforms like Facebook or a professional network like LinkedIn to reach passive candidates. These salespeople may not be actively looking for a new sales career but may be a perfect fit.
Ensure your company profile is well-maintained by your marketing team on whatever online platforms you use.
Good salespeople will be doing their homework and want to know more about your company. This can involve responding professionally to reviews left and presenting a top-notch company website.
Other methods to put you in front of potential candidates are trade shows and webinars that other sales professionals use.
There’s nothing wrong with scouting out the top talent from other companies!
Determine Your Interviewing Methods in Advance
Before inviting sales representatives to interview, pay attention to the structure of your interview process.
Informal Meeting
To kick off the hiring process, sales organizations may conduct a more informal meet-and-greet with a sales rep.
This provides a more relaxed atmosphere to test culture fit, emotional intelligence, and listening abilities.
A good salesperson will check off all the requirements and have a great personality, making them a pleasure to interact with.
Formal Meeting
A more formal meeting can follow with the best salespeople. This is a chance to review hard sales skills, product knowledge, and industry experience.
The hiring process could bring in additional sets of eyes and ears, and additional members of sales forces can provide an alternate perspective.
Encourage interviewers to focus on different qualities and compare notes after each interview to ensure everything was noticed.
Presentation
The best candidates can be invited to present a sales presentation to the interview group, which may give a first-hand view of their sales process.
Great candidates will perform well under pressure and can be run through mock sales calls to test their abilities.
The ideal candidate will be a perfect balance of experience, sales productivity, and attention to detail.
Interview Sales Reps with Purpose
An important part of any interview process is developing questions ahead of time, and the interview is an opportunity to get to know a new salesperson.
Both you and they can use this opportunity to see if they are the best sales rep for the job.
Sales managers are especially looking for traits and skills in sales reps that will make them useful sales team members.
Check out some of the top things that a sales manager may choose to search for with their interview questions and how they can highlight these traits.
Sales Industry Experience
What is an important lesson you’ve learned from sales positions you’ve held? What do you wish you could go back in time and tell yourself when you were starting as a sales rep?
Goal-Oriented Viewpoint
What will you accomplish in the first 2 months in this sales role? How will you ensure that you can reach your sales goals?
Company Values Fit
What makes you think you’ll fit this sales organization well?
Adaptability
Tell me when you were told “No” and how you handled it. How do you keep your motivation high in the face of a negative response to a sales pitch?
Time Management
How do you determine when a lead isn’t worth your time and effort? Where do you see yourself spending the most time in the sales cycle?
Coachability
Tell me something you’ve learned in the last year. What do you still need to learn to become better at sales?
Conclusion
There are many good sales representatives out there waiting to be found. Find the right candidate by knowing what you want in a new hire.
Spend time polishing the job description and advertising it smartly to attract the right sales reps.
Seek out sales candidates who feature the most important traits. Make the interview portion of sales hiring more effective by having a defined structure and effective questions.
With time, effort, and luck, you will soon have the best sales reps joining your team.