{"id":2096,"date":"2009-09-02T17:55:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-02T22:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/09\/the-trial-hire\/"},"modified":"2009-09-02T17:48:42","modified_gmt":"2009-09-02T22:48:42","slug":"the-trial-hire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/09\/the-trial-hire\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trial Hire"},"content":{"rendered":"

That economic context allows some freedom for hiring companies to incorporate what I call contextual hiring techniques.\u00a0 These are typically techniques that take longer to measure and allow the hiring company to see the salesperson in action.<\/p>\n

Some examples:<\/p>\n

Job Shadowing<\/strong> \u2013 just as it sounds, the candidate spends time with an existing sales rep to get an understanding of the position.\u00a0 Peggy McKee at Medical Sales Recruiter has a post<\/a> on this topic.\u00a0 A friend of mine recently did this for a sales position that provided him the opportunity to ask many<\/em> questions that would be difficult to ask in a formal interview.<\/p>\n

I am a fan of this approach especially if the job market is slow.\u00a0 It can be difficult if the market is hot and candidates have many opportunities.\u00a0 However, this approach is a strong qualifier for the candidate\u2019s interest.<\/p>\n

The one caveat here is to pick the right salesperson for the candidate to shadow.\u00a0 My friend learned many topics about the hiring company from the sales rep.\u00a0 The topics that the rep offered up were too much of \u201cinside baseball\u201d to be sharing with a good candidate.<\/p>\n

Trial Periods<\/strong> \u2013 yes, every position is technically a trial for the first 90 days.\u00a0 What I\u2019m talking about involves is a 30 \u2013 60 day trial for observing a new salesperson.\u00a0 Again, I\u2019m a fan of this approach in this type of economy.<\/p>\n

The main topics that can be ascertained in this time period is the candidate\u2019s fit to your culture, his or her approach to the job and his or her interaction with you the boss.\u00a0 Unless you have a short sales cycle, you won\u2019t be able to observe them through the entire sales cycle.\u00a0 You will have to monitor\/observe their activity and extrapolate from that data.<\/p>\n

It is a short window, but combining pre-hire assessments with a day of job shadowing and a trial period and you will have an in-depth understanding of your newly hired salesperson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"