The competition for top sales talent is heating up as more organizations look to add to their sales force. If your organization wants to achieve real results with its recruiting efforts, updating and improving your sales job description should be the starting point. The more creative and compelling a sales job description is, the more likely it is to attract the top performers you want to hire. Use these tips to improve the description you are using to recruit the best sales people to your open position.

Incentivize Candidates Before They Apply

As new organizations enter the marketplace and find success with brand-new ideas for employee motivation, established organizations with more traditional incentive approaches are taking note. In-house entertainment and flexible schedules such as those increasingly offered by newly established businesses are out of reach for most organizations, but there are other incentives that your organization likely has and can put in front of candidates to encourage well-qualified candidates to apply.

• Company provided equipment, such as up-to-date laptops and cell phones
• Liberal paid time off, and/or the ability to earn more based on performance
• Private office space, garage parking, and other office-related benefits

Adopt the Model Candidate’s Perspective

The best sales people look for reasons not to apply to an open position as much as they look for reasons pursue it. Phrases that only vaguely indicate a benefit to the candidate can sometimes convey a different message, so it’s to your benefit to be as specific as possible in the sales job description. Examples of unclear phrases that can miscarry include, but certainly aren’t limited to:

• Offering territories close to home. What’s close to home in one applicant’s view might be a day’s travel to someone else, and many candidates will not ask for clarification at this early stage.
• Candidate must have flexible hours. Working an alternative shift is one opportunity, but candidates may interpret this as meaning they will be on call 24 hours a day.
• Work in an entrepreneurial environment. Candidates are starting to view phrases such as this as a red flag that stands for fewer benefits while working longer hours. 

Always Use Formal Business Language

The ideal sales candidate is driven, serious about his or her career, and willing to be held accountable for results. The language that you use in your sales job description should reflect the same mentality to attract these candidates, as the majority of high performers will not be drawn to a sales job description with too much levity. To make sure that your sales job description is as serious about success as the applicants you want to attract:

• Be interesting without being frivolous by carefully reviewing your word choices.
• Avoid buzzwords and jargon as much as possible. Sales people are comfortable with these terms in casual use, but don’t want their careers to be defined by them.
• Always have the sales job description proofread by multiple people. Casual misspellings and grammar mistakes may turn away career-minded candidates.

Remember that the sales job description is the baseline for future performance reviews, and is the guiding document for your sales hires’ careers. Make your sales job description as truthful and accurate as possible to attract top performers now and retain them in the future while guarding against potential human resources issues.

The first impressions a candidate forms about your organization and open position are based on the information conveyed in the sales job description. Review your organization’s sales job description to ensure that it is up to date with what your sales people are doing, and make improvements aimed at attracting the top talent you want to recruit.