Finding sales people is one of the biggest challenges facing organizations today. Besides just attracting qualified candidates, the process for screening, hiring and on-boarding sales people can be long and often not produce the desired result.

For most of our clients, once they meet qualified candidates, the process flows smoothly. The big challenge is, where do you find great sales people to interview in the first place?

With any sales recruitment process, in order to hire the best sales people, there are 5 important things every company must do to make sure they are finding great sales people to interview

1. Make sure you have a bench 
Great companies may not be hiring, but they should always be recruiting. Constantly be on the lookout for top sales people and make sure you have a process in place to keep them warm to the touch. Even if your company or the sales rep isn’t ready to make a move, at least you know them and they know you.

2. Have a database 
Once you have met with top sales people, make sure you can keep track of their movement through and applicant tracking system (ATS). ATS’s are very inexpensive and can allow you to quickly bring up information on sales people you have previously met, rank them and stay in touch for future opportunities.

3. Make it a company wide effort 
Too often we see the recruiting effort of sales people left to overworked sales managers that are too busy putting out fires to adequately recruit top sales people. Involve your HR, sales management and especially your top sales reps. They will likely know more top reps.

4. Use recruiters 
Whether you use recruiters who specialize in sales or not, recruiters can provide you with a short list of qualified candidates on a consistent basis. Quite often any fee you pay to a sales recruiter will pay for itself many times over. Establish a partnership with them and they can be a great source of top performers.

5. Don’t waste time 
Once you have found a great sales person, don’t waste time. Move them through your internal screening and hiring process as fast as possible. In today’s market, top sales people have multiple offers and you need to act quick to get them. Plus it will send the message that you are interested in having them work for you.

As we said before, finding great sales people can be a challenge for most organizations. By following the five points above, you will have a steady stream of qualified sales people from which to choose when a position becomes vacant. If you do not put these 5 things in place, it will be back to the drawing board every time you need to hire a sales person. That can be a very expensive proposition.