7 years ago
February 21, 2017

5 Sales Recruiting Tips Your Business Needs

To help you find the best sales people, here are five sales recruiting tips your business needs.

Rhys Metler

5-Sales-Recruiting-Tips-Your-Business-Needs

All successful companies understand the importance of having a strong sales force. Having the right sales people representing your business and selling your products and services can do wonders for your bottom line. However, the feat of recruiting top sales talent is easier said than done, but recruiting tips can help. You probably remember all of those reps you thought were super stars when you first hired them but who just ended up being mediocre. Stellar resumes and solid interview skills often trick recruiters into thinking they’ve found the next new sales person of the year for their business, but these usually aren’t enough to gauge true sales success. To help you find the best sales people, here are five sales recruiting tips your business needs.

1. Always Be Recruiting

One of the most important sales recruiting tips we can give you is to always be recruiting. When you’re only recruiting new reps once someone has left your business, you’re going to be under time constraints that will make you settle for a mediocre candidate. Instead, always accept resumes and always be on the lookout for top talent—whether it’s at a networking event or a sales conference. You never know when you’ll find the perfect fit for your business.

2. Know What You Want

If you don’t know what you want and need out of a sales candidate, you won’t be able to spot and hire the right person for the job. This might seem like one of the most obvious recruiting tips we can give you, but many people simply don’t know what they want. Before you interview anyone, learn the sales position you’re hiring for inside and out. Decide which traits, experience, and education are absolutely necessary for the job, and which ones are just good assets.

3. Don’t Ignore Personality

It’s important for your new hire to fit well within your work culture. If the person is clashing with your other reps, defying authority, and doesn’t agree with your business’s mission and goals, he or she isn’t going to work out. Education and experience are important, but so are your candidates’ personalities. If you’re going to take us up on any of our recruiting tips it should be this one. Resumes aren’t everything. Not everyone will mesh well within your business even if they’re great sales people, and on the other hand, not every great person is going to be successful at sales.

4. Screen Candidates Carefully

Screening candidates before you contact them will save you both a lot of time. Go through their resumes with a fine-toothed comb, and don’t ignore any red flags. Make some quick phone calls to previous employers and review credentials. Though sometimes it works to your advantage to take a chance on a candidate that has potential, you don’t want to waste all of your time on unqualified applicants.

5. Combine Your Gut Feeling with Science

Sometimes you just have a gut feeling—you think the candidate is the right one for your business but you’re not too sure why. When you hire based on your gut, you’re really letting your emotions make a decision that should be based on logic. If someone is good enough at interviewing to charm you, it’s a good sign that he or she will be able to do the same with buyers, but it’s not a guarantee. Instead, look at real qualitative data—have candidates take personality tests and sales assessments to see if your gut feeling can be backed up by science.

Recruiting Tips for Better Hiring

When you use these five recruiting tips, you can help your business build a strong sales team and increase productivity and profits. These recruiting tips can guide you through the hiring process so you can weed out the bad apples and hire only the top talent for your business.

Rhys Metler

Rhys is a tenacious, top performing Senior Sales Recruiter with 15+ years of focused experience in the Digital Media, Mobile, Software, Technology and B2B verticals. He has a successful track record of headhunting top performing sales candidates for some of the most exciting brands in North America. He is a Certified Recruitment Specialist (CRS) and has expert experience in prospecting new business, client retention/renewals and managing top performing sales and recruitment teams. Rhys enjoys spending quality time with his wife, son, and daughters, BBQing on a hot summer day and tropical vacations.

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