{"id":19159,"date":"2018-10-12T10:20:35","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T15:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/?p=19159"},"modified":"2019-05-16T14:21:23","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T19:21:23","slug":"creeping-mediocrity-in-your-hiring-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2018\/10\/creeping-mediocrity-in-your-hiring-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Creeping Mediocrity In Your Hiring Process"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"boldgrid-section\">\n<div class=\"container-fluid\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-md-12 col-xs-12 col-sm-12\">\n<h4>Past behaviors are the best indicator of future success. This point is crucial when hiring salespeople for your team.&nbsp; The difficulty lies in deducing if the candidate has the right set of skills to be successful in your specific sale.<\/h4>\n<p class=\"\">Here&#8217;s the ugly truth &#8211; &#8220;bad&#8221; salespeople can still have good interpersonal skills&#8230;skills good enough to get past your hiring process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Every sales leader, and I mean <em>every<\/em>, has a sales hiring horror story.&nbsp; The sales leader thought they were hiring a superstar and they ended up with a dud.&nbsp; These fantastic flame-outs are memorable and disappointing for sure.&nbsp; But there is a more odious error that eats away at a sale team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Creeping mediocrity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">This weakness slowly infects a sales team as mediocre salespeople are systematically added to the team.&nbsp; The team&#8217;s skills and effectiveness briskly deteriorate as the mediocre performance&nbsp; begins to lower the bar, for the entire team.&nbsp; The lower performance, albeit not desired, is a subtle erosion of revenue performance.&nbsp; The drop in revenue is not precipitous so panic rarely follows.&nbsp; The sales leader may even manage to these declining revenues with some form of unconscious acceptance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">How do you avoid creeping mediocrity?&nbsp; The solution starts with knowing who you are hiring for each sales role.&nbsp; The conventional wisdom is to hire based on resumes.&nbsp; Salespeople with industry experience, or better yet from a competitor, is the target.&nbsp; The flaw here is assumptive &#8211; since the candidate is from the industry, he or she will be successful in the role.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The issue is simple, talent always outperforms experience.&nbsp; If you have to choose between the two, always take talent.&nbsp; Experience is easier to ascertain based on their resume.&nbsp; Yet, talent can be measured, too, by using our sales assessments.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a class=\"btn btn-pill btn-color-5 btn-glow\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/contact-us\/\"><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">&nbsp;Contact Us Today<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Past behaviors are the best indicator of future success. This point is crucial when hiring salespeople for your team.&nbsp; The difficulty lies in deducing if the candidate has the right set of skills to be successful in your specific sale. Here&#8217;s the ugly truth &#8211; &#8220;bad&#8221; salespeople can still have good interpersonal skills&#8230;skills good enough to get past your hiring process. Every sales leader, and I mean every, has a sales hiring horror story.&nbsp; The sales leader thought they were hiring a superstar and they ended up with a dud.&nbsp; These fantastic flame-outs are memorable and disappointing for sure.&nbsp; But there is a more odious error that eats away at&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2018\/10\/creeping-mediocrity-in-your-hiring-process\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[1748,257,213],"class_list":["post-19159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hiring","category-sales-management","tag-hiring","tag-hiring-sales","tag-sales-manager"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-4Z1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1187,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/09\/2-performance-problems-mismanaged-and-misemployed\/","url_meta":{"origin":19159,"position":0},"title":"2 Performance Problems &#8211; Mismanaged and Misemployed","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"September 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Since we work in the sale hiring and management arena, we get the chance to see a sales position from both sides - the sales management side and the sales person side.\u00a0 It is a unique perspective that we discuss often internally. Like most people, we tend to look at\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":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1334,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/12\/mediocrity-in-the-hiring-process\/","url_meta":{"origin":19159,"position":1},"title":"Mediocrity In The Hiring Process","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Hiring salespeople is the difficult combination of science and art weighted perfectly to select the right person for the position's requirements.\u00a0 Obviously, knowing the position's requirements is the preeminent step.\u00a0 Many sales managers believe they know what it takes to be successful in the position and they do to a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":977,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/06\/the-path-to-sales-improvement\/","url_meta":{"origin":19159,"position":2},"title":"The Path To Sales Improvement","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"When you boil it down to the basics, sales departments are measured by profit increases. Simple, yes, but that is the crux of the goal. Operational efficiencies are part of the equation, but the focus here is on increasing profits via increased revenue. So how do companies go about achieving\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\/06\/windowslivewriterthepathtosalesimprovement-73cdpath-bridge6.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5859,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2017\/06\/4-pillars-of-successful-sales-selection\/","url_meta":{"origin":19159,"position":3},"title":"4 Pillars Of Successful Sales Selection","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 13, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Successful sales hiring, in any company, is one of the most difficult tasks in which to achieve repeatable success.\u00a0 From unexpected outbursts to terminal tardiness to woeful incompetence, every company has a sales hiring horror story regarding employees who interviewed strong but performed poorly. Perhaps a subtle, but more dangerous\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Pillars.jpg?fit=304%2C204&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":386,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/10\/open-mind-hiring\/","url_meta":{"origin":19159,"position":4},"title":"Open-Minded Hiring","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"October 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Another good article from the new Selling Power newsletter - Open Minds Open Doors. The topic here is Hiring Salespeople From Outside Your Industry. If you follow that link, you will see that this topic is of great importance in our world. From the article: \"I believe the way the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2304,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2010\/04\/end-my-hiring-misery\/","url_meta":{"origin":19159,"position":5},"title":"End My Hiring Misery","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"April 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is a good read from Inc.com on improving your hiring process.\u00a0 The pull quote for me: In my opinion, one of the reasons people do such a poor job in hiring, is that they just want to get it over with,\" Matuson says. \"Really take your time, do it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Yawn.png?fit=560%2C315","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19159","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=19159"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44621,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19159\/revisions\/44621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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