I recently read an excellent Career Journal article – Speed Date a Potential Employer And Get an Offer That Same Day.  A point made in the article is to include a response deadline when extending an offer to a candidate.

The author puts in the following quote:

“Time kills all deals,” he says. “I’ve had clients that lost out on candidates because they went the traditional way and dragged their feet for three or four weeks.”

No one is making you, as an employer, change how you hire.  If you want to take 3, 4 or even more weeks to run your hiring process, that is your choice.  Remember, you are looking at a salesperson and they make their living by having multiple deals in the pipeline at various stages in the process.  They are rewarded when they close.  So don’t assume that just because you want to wait a week or two to move a candidate to the next step in the process that the candidate will be idly waiting for you.  More than likely, they are moving forward with other deals.

So my advice is to keep your process moving, make the necessary decisions and move candidates to a conclusion!

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Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are widely employed on corporate websites and by recruiting agencies.  I understand the automated efficiency of a computer program in handling a large number of applicants.  Yet, I don’t find them helpful for hiring salespeople.

When we place an ad for a sales opportunity, we provide the option to email or call for response.  We do not ask respondents to fill out an online form.

First off, if they send a resume (the most common response these days), I get the opportunity to see how they present their experience and abilities.  Formatting, presentation, flow…these are all pieces of information that can be gleaned from their resume.  Are there any errors?  This is their document that they prepared so I expect perfection, or close to it.  If they are entering data into a field, there is a higher probability for error.

Second, we give extra credit to respondents who call.  I simply like the fact that a salesperson would pick up the phone and call me to qualify the opportunity.  I should say qualify it before sending in a resume.  This approach hints at a salesperson who is not afraid of the phone, wants to qualify before completing a task and has confidence in their rapport-building abilities.  Believe me, the strong ones typically stand out from the first minute that you talk to them.

Those two considerations are neutralized by a highly-automated, ATS approach to sourcing.  Perhaps you are thinking that you would be swamped with applicants without the ATS.  My take – if you are being swamped you need to write tighter ads.  Hiring strong salespeople is difficult work, maybe the most difficult position to determine if you have the right person.  Don’t trade two of the most insightful aspects of sourcing for sterilized expediency.

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From a cover email I just received in response to an ad for a regional sales manager:

Hi, Lee. I am _____. I live in __, however, I am international, or regional, or national, or whatever the job calls for.

It gets worse.  The candidate worked in a collection-type role and included 2 pages of collections (amounts, dates, commission, payment type).  He included the first and last names of the people from which he collected the late payments.

Unbelievable.

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