Even bad salespeople can appear to be strong in a face-to-face interview situation.\u00a0 This reason is why sales recruiting is truly different than any other form of recruiting.\u00a0 Reviewing resumes and assuming abilities is is a fool’s errand.\u00a0 Yet, there are certain aspects of general recruiting that can that hinder effective sales recruiting.<\/p>\n
The Resumes. Here is the issue – sales skills are not easily quantifiable.\u00a0 They certainly cannot be determined from a resume.\u00a0 They must be experienced, interviewed and questioned.<\/p>\n A salesperson’s most valuable tool is his or her qualifying ability.\u00a0 Can they ask the tough questions?\u00a0 Can they handle the rejection?\u00a0 Can they drill down on fuzzy-worded responses?\u00a0 This ability is the foundation of strong salespeople and it is most prominently displayed in the candidate’s questions.\u00a0 This fact requires hiring managers or recruiters to have a discussion with the candidate.<\/p>\n The Questions. No, I’m not talking about standard interview questions.\u00a0 I’m talking about questions that display their qualifying approach.\u00a0 In your next sales interview, pay specific attention to the candidate’s questions and the order in which they ask them.\u00a0 Trust me on this – you will learn more about their sales ability from that information than you will from their answers to standard interview questions.<\/p>\n The Recruiters. I have talked to quite a few recruiters who believe that good talking equates to good selling.\u00a0 It doesn’t.\u00a0 This stereotype permeates sales hiring to this day.<\/p>\n Sales is filled with nuances that have to be identified by the recruiter and examined in the candidate.\u00a0 Sales cycle, average order size, market position, selling system, competitive pressure, territory pressure…I could go on, but you get the picture.\u00a0 Each position requires an understanding of these subtle points of information and what salesperson will best fit this criteria.\u00a0 For this reason a sales recruiter is needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Even bad salespeople can appear to be strong in a face-to-face interview situation.\u00a0 This reason is why sales recruiting is truly different than any other form of recruiting.\u00a0 Reviewing resumes and assuming abilities is is a fool’s errand.\u00a0 Yet, there are certain aspects of general recruiting that can that hinder effective sales recruiting. The Resumes. Yes, resumes.\u00a0 I have sat through far too many discussions where hiring managers or recruiters attempted to divine incredible insight from a sheet of paper.\u00a0 Granted, you can probably eliminate the retail salespeople from your B2B Sales manager process.\u00a0 Sales is still a people-oriented profession so overanalyzing a document is not the most effective technique… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,47,38,555],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-oV","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>Yes, resumes.\u00a0 I have sat through far too many discussions where hiring managers or recruiters attempted to divine incredible insight from a sheet of paper.\u00a0 Granted, you can probably eliminate the retail salespeople from your B2B Sales manager process.\u00a0 Sales is still a people-oriented profession so overanalyzing a document is not the most effective technique for filtering applicants.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>This is a strange phenomenon – the strong candidate provides good answers in the interview but asks even better questions.\u00a0 The hiring manager afterwards focuses solely on the candidate’s answers.\u00a0 Obviously answers are important, but the questions are what point you towards a strong salesperson.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Recruiting is a difficult undertaking.\u00a0 Sales recruiting is brutal.\u00a0 I know this will get flamed but I am a strong proponent of recruiters who specialize in sales only.\u00a0 General recruiters who dabble in sales have a tendency to get schmoozed by slick salespeople who talk more than they sell.<\/p>\n