When hiring for an open sales position, sales managers look for the qualities that great sales people share: The willingness to assume personal accountability, an outgoing attitude, and a devotion to problem solving, just to name a few. You can further your hiring results and attract better sales people with these qualities by looking closely at what makes a better sales job description. 

Be As Transparent As Possible 

The better sales people that you want to hire have vast amounts of information at their disposal and when they are making a decision on whether to apply to your sales team they want as much information as possible to remove doubt. Sell candidates with a better sales job description that includes the fundamentals that sales people want to know. Whenever feasible, this should include your company name; blind postings only tend to work well for attracting better sales people when you have an advocate for the position, such as a sales recruiter. 

Write an Overview, Not a Manifesto 

While more information generally makes a better sales job description this is only true insofar as the information communicated is important, either to the candidate or to your organization. These general guidelines will help you focus on attracting better sales people through information control, rather than overload. 

• Company overviews should include industry, staff size, location, and an item or two about recent history. Deeper information should be shared via link.
• Position overviews should include the specific job title and seven to ten of the most important deliverables and expectations.
• Requirements for skills and qualifications should focus on the five most important of each.
• Desirable skills and qualifications should be limited to what is realistic and most important.
• Benefits listed should be the three to five most high-value and/or unique offered.

Highlight Your Sales Team

Top sales performers attract other top performers. If you are not highlighting your sales team’s successes, you are missing out on a leading opportunity to make a better sales job description. Give candidates an idea of your sales environment and the attitude of the people with whom they will be working, and better sales people will be encouraged to pursue your opening. 

Optimize with Keywords

Your marketing and web development team has likely been talking about keyword optimization for some time now; is it surprising to learn that keyword optimization is important for writing a better sales job description, too? Better sales people are searching for postings that match their career interests. On the web they are searching by keywords and in print these keywords catch their attention. Make sure that the keywords your preferred applicants will be using are incorporated naturally into your sales job description. 

Make Sure the Description Is High Visibility

If sales people are not seeing your job description, the description is not doing its job. Making sure that a better sales job description can deliver involves not only placing it in the right places, but making sure that it stays top of view for better sales people.

• Repost once weekly on high traffic boards
• Check carefully for lapsed dates that can make postings appear lower in search results
• Update the sales job description regularly as your needs change 

You might also be able to attract better sales people with social media. When job postings are shared on social media they reach a larger audience, increasing your chances of reaching top sales people who may or may not be actively seeking a new position.

The quality of applicants for your open sales position depends more on the quality of the description than on any other factor. Releasing a better sales job description gives you the foundation you need to build a successful sales team. Treat making a better sales job description as a work in progress so that you can hire better sales people for each position that opens.