When you are looking to fill an open sales position, you are not just looking for an individual with sales experience. You are looking for an individual with a proven track record in sales who can work with the team you have in place selling the products and services that are the base for your firm’s success. This makes recruiting not only about finding top producers, but about finding the right sales person for your organization. The best sales recruitment agencies know this, and work with you as a strategic partner to fulfill this need from the initial requisition through to on-boarding your new hire.

What the Best Sales Recruitment Agencies Do Differently

Industry knowledge is the key to success in recruiting, but it isn’t everything. There is an enormous difference between recruiting based on interviews and recruiting based on an individual’s capability, and this is where the best sales recruitment agencies set themselves apart. Truly experienced and knowledgeable recruiters know that a person can interview well but fail to thrive in a given position, based on a misalignment between that person’s personality and goals and the firm with which they are placed.

This is why the best sales recruitment agencies start with what the hiring manager wants and needs in a new hire, and not with the candidate pool. With this base, recruiters can:

• Do a thorough candidate search based on the client’s needs
• Conduct initial interviews and acquire references
• Run candidates through role play of real world scenarios in your company to gage their potential performance within the job requirements
• Check references and ask candidates to complete skills testing

Most sales people interview well because of the conversational skills they have acquired during their careers, but an experienced and dedicated recruiter can tell the difference between candidates who are simply skilled at interviewing and candidates who are truly skilled at selling. By performing thorough interviews and reference and skills testing, the best recruiters can recommend to their clients only the candidates with the highest true potential.

The Best Sales Recruitment Agencies Follow the Process

Certain sales recruiters only work through part of the candidate selection process, picking candidates for a brief pre-screening before sending the candidates to the client to be interviewed. At that point, these sales recruiters drop out of the hiring process. The best sales recruitment agencies stay with the client throughout the entire hiring cycle:

• Thorough marketing to capture the best candidates for a position
• Screening including skills testing and in-person interviews, if requested
• Background and reference checking
• Employment offer and acceptance
• On-boarding through probationary period

The best sales recruitment agencies take a vested interest in the success of all of the hires that they place, which is why they stay with a client and a recommended hire throughout the process. This ensures that the expectations of all parties are aligned, and increases the likelihood of a successful long term hire.

All recruiters should maintain experience, a talent pool, and industry networks, but the best sales recruitment agencies start the candidate selection process by considering the needs of your firm, not the needs of candidates waiting for placement. This sets the best sales recruitment agencies apart from the rest, because pursuing recruitment as a strategic partner concerned with the needs of the hiring manager increases the chances of placing a new employee who will thrive, exceeding sales quotas and contributing towards your organization’s vision of success.