{"id":19691,"date":"2018-07-20T09:28:47","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T14:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/?p=19691"},"modified":"2019-05-16T14:31:36","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T19:31:36","slug":"finding-sales-talent-in-tight-markets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2018\/07\/finding-sales-talent-in-tight-markets\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Sales Talent In Tight Markets"},"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<h3 class=\"\">The labor market is tight today as you assuredly know if you have been attempting to fill open sales positions.&nbsp; The issue in sales runs deeper than that as you are typically attempting to find <em>strong<\/em> sales candidates.&nbsp; &#8220;Attempting&#8221; is the key &#8211; many hiring managers are unsure of selecting the strongest salesperson.&nbsp; How do you know they will be successful?&nbsp; Are they the right candidate?&nbsp; Can they sell?&nbsp; Will they sell?<\/h3>\n<p class=\"\">The issue gets compounded by the fact that most sales leaders do not spend their days hiring salespeople.&nbsp; In fact, most of them complete those activities on an infrequent schedule in the margins of their day as needed (hopefully not often otherwise that is a different problem).&nbsp; Hiring is the least practiced skill of most sales leaders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">So what to do? The first step is a paradigm shift for most hiring managers.&nbsp; If you are not consistently hiring salespeople, you probably default to the age-old approach of hiring salespeople from your industry.&nbsp; This approach is perceived to be safe.&nbsp; The thought is that someone from our industry understands it and will ramp far quicker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Fair enough except for one important point.&nbsp; Will they sell?&nbsp; That&#8217;s not a flippant question, the real issue is whether you are hiring an external candidate who will successfully sell for your company.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Sales hiring is the one area I see where companies worry more about the experience than the skill.&nbsp; A talented salesperson has sales skills.&nbsp; Those sales skills hopefully are combined with experience from you industry.&nbsp; If you have to choose, <em>always<\/em> choose skill\/talent over experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The reason is simple &#8211; it is far easier, and faster, to teach someone about your &#8220;stuff&#8221; than it is to teach them how to sell.<\/p>\n<p>In this tight market, strong sales candidates are at a premium.&nbsp; Adjusting your approach will open up other less traditional candidates to your candidate pool.&nbsp; This adjustment is critical in this present market.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The key is to find transferable skills.&nbsp; I once ran a search for a large company in which we found a candidate from a tire store&#8230;not kidding.&nbsp; Upon phone screening him and learning about his role, he was using the same skill set required by my customer&#8217;s sale.&nbsp; The skills were transferable.&nbsp; Of course, we assessed the candidate, too.&nbsp; He had the right skills and a strong assessment.&nbsp; My customer pushed back a bit, but eventually they decided to hire him.&nbsp; That gentleman has skyrocketed up the corporate ladder and is next in line to take over an entire division.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">There are techniques for finding strong sales candidates with transferable skills.&nbsp; We have a process designed to find them and confirm their abilities and determine their fit to your sales role&#8217;s requirements.&nbsp; This approach opens up your candidate pool which is most valuable in this tight market.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><strong><a class=\"btn btn-pill btn-color-5 btn-glow\" style=\"color: #ffffff;\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/contact-us\/\">Contact Us To Learn More<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The labor market is tight today as you assuredly know if you have been attempting to fill open sales positions.&nbsp; The issue in sales runs deeper than that as you are typically attempting to find strong sales candidates.&nbsp; &#8220;Attempting&#8221; is the key &#8211; many hiring managers are unsure of selecting the strongest salesperson.&nbsp; How do you know they will be successful?&nbsp; Are they the right candidate?&nbsp; Can they sell?&nbsp; Will they sell? The issue gets compounded by the fact that most sales leaders do not spend their days hiring salespeople.&nbsp; In fact, most of them complete those activities on an infrequent schedule in the margins of their day as needed&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2018\/07\/finding-sales-talent-in-tight-markets\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20146,"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":[2,15,1],"tags":[125,1749,38,1761],"class_list":["post-19691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hiring","category-sourcing","category-uncategorized","tag-hiring-process","tag-sales","tag-sales-hiring","tag-sourcing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-57B","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5859,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2017\/06\/4-pillars-of-successful-sales-selection\/","url_meta":{"origin":19691,"position":0},"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":29799,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2019\/06\/hiring-hacks\/","url_meta":{"origin":19691,"position":1},"title":"5 Hiring Hacks For Full Employment","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 11, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The job creation numbers are slowing down yet I don't think that is due to a catastrophic economic slowdown.\u00a0 The most recent jobs report shows that we have 50-year record low unemployment that is holding month-to-month.\u00a0 The average hourly wage rate is rising at over 3%.\u00a0 These factors are signs\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/For-Hire.png?fit=560%2C315&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/For-Hire.png?fit=560%2C315&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/For-Hire.png?fit=560%2C315&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1538,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/04\/the-urgency-of-hiring\/","url_meta":{"origin":19691,"position":2},"title":"The Urgency Of Hiring","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"April 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"BusinessWeek.com has a terrific article about executive recruiting that applies to more than just executive positions.\u00a0 Sales hiring mirrors the same issues from the article. The pull quote: Not surprisingly, corporate bosses usually want to play a role in interviewing and assessing top candidates' experience, qualifications, and fit with senior\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":385,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/10\/why-we-do-what-we-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":19691,"position":3},"title":"Why We Do What We Do","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"October 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Selling Power has a fantastic article about hiring salespeople - Avoid Hiring Mistakes. There are many truths in the article so I recommend you read the entire article. First, some compelling stats: A recent survey shows that 53 percent of all sales recruiting efforts lead to miss-hires. And according to\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":970,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/06\/sales-is-more-than-5-things\/","url_meta":{"origin":19691,"position":4},"title":"Sales Is More Than 5 Things","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 1, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Top five traits you gotta have to sell! The top five traits of a successful salesperson! Discover the 5 key behaviors of sales superstars! You have probably seen these amazing statements across the web.\u00a0 Isn't it interesting how \"5\" seems to be the magic number for sales traits, behaviors or\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":2309,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2010\/04\/big-personalities-in-selling\/","url_meta":{"origin":19691,"position":5},"title":"Big Personalities In Selling","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"April 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We\u2019re an assessment company so you can imagine how adamant I am about assessing candidates (not just for sales positions either).\u00a0 However, in sales it is crucial to use assessments to cut through the sales candidates\u2019 well-developed social skills.\u00a0 Unfortunately, many assessment tools focus on personality only which is not\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":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Compass-on-rocks.png?fit=560%2C315","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19691","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=19691"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44888,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19691\/revisions\/44888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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