{"id":184,"date":"2006-07-24T15:10:27","date_gmt":"2006-07-24T20:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/?p=184"},"modified":"2006-07-24T15:10:36","modified_gmt":"2006-07-24T20:10:36","slug":"when-to-assess-salespeople","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/07\/when-to-assess-salespeople\/","title":{"rendered":"When to Assess Salespeople"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The first key <em>is<\/em> to assess candidates before hiring. We encounter many companies that hire based on their gut feeling about a candidate. I met with a customer last week who has a VP who makes up his mind in a matter of the first 10 minutes of an inperson interview. Some people have strong empathetic abilities and can get a good read on an unknown candidate.<\/p>\n<p>But they make mistakes.<\/p>\n<p>The President of the company explained to me that although this VP was quite intuitive, he still missed on candidates which ended up costing the company.<\/p>\n<p>This meeting brought to my attention the need to explain when to assess a candidate. We use a different approach based on the position. Our bread and butter is sales hiring and assessing. Salespeople need to be assessed early in the process &#8211; certainly before the first face-to-face interview.<\/p>\n<p>The reason &#8211; salespeople tend to have well developed interpersonal skills. Even bad salespeople can have good rapport-building ability. This ability is dangerous because it is so disarming to an interviewer. Once the interviewer&#8217;s guard is down, logic is shelved and emotional decisions ensue. The very rapport-building ability you are searching for can be used against you.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, we have seen ads where companies have taken the assessment piece to the extreme and asked all applicants to complete an expensive assessment <em>before<\/em> even responding to the ad with a phone call or email. That approach is good for the assessment company, but ludicrous for the hiring company.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the monetary investment, this approach will have a detrimental effect on the number of responses. The best salespeople are motivated by a return on investment. This <a href=\"http:\/\/www.selectmetrix.com\/Process_Motivations.html\" target=\"_blank\">Utilitarian motivation<\/a> applies to their time also. A vaguely written sales ad asking for 45 minutes of their time to complete an online assessment is 180 degrees out of phase. Far better to receive a phone call from a respondent who wants to qualify the position for fit before pursing the opportunity. Generally, that is the sign of a strong salesperson.<\/p>\n<p>The best approach is to run a phone screen on the respondents that meet the stated criteria in the ad. If you have read our blog for any amount of time, you have seen our anecdotes from sourcing. It is amazing to see how much you can learn from a simple 10-15 minute phone screen. As we like to say, some times you don&#8217;t need an assessment to tell you all you need to know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first key is to assess candidates before hiring. We encounter many companies that hire based on their gut feeling about a candidate. I met with a customer last week who has a VP who makes up his mind in a matter of the first 10 minutes of an inperson interview. Some people have strong empathetic abilities and can get a good read on an unknown candidate. But they make mistakes. The President of the company explained to me that although this VP was quite intuitive, he still missed on candidates which ended up costing the company. This meeting brought to my attention the need to explain when to assess&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/07\/when-to-assess-salespeople\/\">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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,2,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assessing","category-hiring","category-sourcing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-2Y","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":362,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/10\/a-different-pricing-model\/","url_meta":{"origin":184,"position":0},"title":"A Different Pricing Model","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"October 12, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We have kicked around a pricing model in jest but it conveys a point. One part of our business is assessing candidates for many different positions but sales is our specialty. We have clients that do their own sourcing and interviewing and then use our online assessments to measure the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Assessing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Assessing","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/assessing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1840,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/01\/salespeople-with-emotional-needs\/","url_meta":{"origin":184,"position":1},"title":"Salespeople With Emotional Needs","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the reasons we are so adamant about assessing sales candidates is to know what motivates and rewards the person.\u00a0 Once identified, these factors can be explored during a face-to-face interview.\u00a0 There is one reward that requires an in-depth discussion with any sales candidate who possesses it - Status\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Assessing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Assessing","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/assessing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":800,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/04\/hiring-tips\/","url_meta":{"origin":184,"position":2},"title":"Hiring Tips","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"April 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Ok, earlier today I posted on mistakes made by candidates in the interview.\u00a0 Now it is time to look at mistakes made by hiring managers in the interview.\u00a0 From CareerBuilder.com's article Five Common Hiring Blunders and How to Avoid Them: Experience is important, but life experience is sometimes better Yes,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/windowslivewriterhiringtips-b7d7number-1-thumb3.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1487,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/03\/assessments-shorten-interviews\/","url_meta":{"origin":184,"position":3},"title":"Assessments Shorten Interviews","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've read many sales technique articles recently that discuss how to approach a prospect.\u00a0 Salespeople are expected to have a cursory knowledge of the company itself, it's market and, to some extent, whether or not they have a solution that may be a fit for this prospective customer.\u00a0 Gone are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Assessing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Assessing","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/assessing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":670,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/02\/assessing-the-behavioral-based-interview\/","url_meta":{"origin":184,"position":4},"title":"Assessing The Behavioral-Based Interview","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"February 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Selling Power discusses behavioral-based interviewing in On Your Best Behavior. The article covers the main points of this interview approach and it is certainly an approach we incorporate - to some extent. First, if you are relying on the face-to-face interview to make a strong sales hire, you are taking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Assessing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Assessing","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/assessing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1430,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/02\/hiring-for-style\/","url_meta":{"origin":184,"position":5},"title":"Hiring For Style","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"February 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Selling Style is one area we assess in our process.\u00a0 Some people refer to it as personality which I don't believe is particularly accurate.\u00a0 Nonetheless, style is an important assessment for managing the salesperson but too many hiring managers assume certain skills based on a candidate's style. When we refer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Assessing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Assessing","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/assessing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"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=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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