Sales recruitment is both costly and time consuming. To get the best value for your time and money, you need to ensure that you have thought about everything you need to in order to find the best person for the job. Because the majority of sales people fail and it’s quite common to make bad hiring decisions when it comes to sales recruitment, you should be putting more thought into the process ahead of time.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself about the sales recruitment process before you begin recruiting.

1. Will you hire internally or externally?

Internal hiring can save you a lot of money and resources and allow for growth within the company. Before you start posting job advertisements, consider whether you have a suitable candidate for your open position inside of your four walls. Perhaps a sales assistant has what it takes to become a sales representative within your company and is interested in moving up in the company. Maybe a staff member in another department might be well suited for the job, such as your marketer and publicist.

If you don’t think you have any good candidates inside your company, then you can move to external sales recruitment. After all, hiring from the outside does ensure diversity and fresh thinking.

2. Does your job posting convey what you want it to?

Many hiring managers don’t put enough thought into their job postings. They just write out a job description, maybe a salary, and a bit of information about the company and upload it to the internet. But your job posting is a big factor in the type of talent that you will attract. It needs to be engaging and answer candidates’ burning questions so great candidates will want to apply. It also needs to convey your brand’s personality through its writing tone and word choices. Finally, it needs to be accurate in terms of required skills and abilities and the ones that would be considered assets, so you don’t get great candidates eliminating themselves from the running because they don’t have one quality that you posted as a necessity but in fact was really just nice to have.

3. Do you know who your ideal candidate is?

Speaking of skills and abilities, do you know what type of candidate you’re really looking for? If you don’t have an ideal candidate profile, you’ll pretty much be guessing and going on gut instinct when you’re evaluating resumes and interviewing sales candidates.

Evaluating the top performers you have on your staff right now is a great way to start creating your profile. Consider which skills they have, which personality traits they have, and what type of experience they can bring to your company. What really makes them great at what they do? Is it their drive, their creativity, or their background in communications? Try to find these common characteristics within your group of candidates. This way, you can compare all of your applicants to your ideal candidate profile to see who would be a good match to your company and the job.

4. What type of compensation will you offer?

Sales compensation can vary widely. You can offer straight commission, which often comes with travelling sales jobs, straight salary, which often is associated with office-type jobs, or a mix of both salary and commission, which could give new hires stability of pay but still motivate them to work hard to get commission cheques. It’s important to decide on your compensation package and consider which types of candidates your package will attract before you start the sales recruitment process.

5. Where will you recruit from?

Will you be exclusively using online job boards? Will you look for passive candidates on social media? Will you go to networking events to try to find your ideal candidate? Have you considered engaging a recruiting firm? Find the best channels to find top talent and focus your efforts there.