8 years ago
August 22, 2016

Top 10 Recruiting Strategies for Sales

Are you struggling to recruit the perfect candidate? Boost your success rate with these top recruiting strategies for sales. Read on to learn more.

Rhys Metler

Does this sound familiar? You are searching for candidates to fill a great position at your company, but try as you might, your ideal candidate is nowhere to be found. Perhaps you have been following some bad recruiting advice, or maybe you simply need to revamp your recruiting strategies for sales to build the perfect selling team for your company.

Here are 10 ways that you can improve your recruiting strategies for sales and attract your dream candidates.

1. Don’t Wait until You Need Somebody

Rule number one is to always be recruiting! Rather than waiting until you are in a bind, keep a continual search going for your ideal candidate. Your recruiting strategies for sales have the best chance of success when you are constantly on the lookout for fresh, effective sales talent that are the best fit for your company.

2. Know Who You’re Looking For

Make sure you begin your search with an idea of what your “perfect” candidate looks like and what qualities they possess. This will allow you to conduct a more focused and efficient search for your sales team.

3. Keep Your Culture in Mind

Determining how a prospective employee will fit in with your corporate culture is an important step in the recruiting process. Before investing in a candidate, ensure that they’re in accord with your company’s values and work environment in order to create lasting, productive relationships.

4. Tell It Like It Is

When writing a job description or posting, don’t hold back. Provide clear expectations and guidelines that capture what the job entails and what type of candidate you are looking for so that you don’t waste time wading through a sea of unqualified or unsuitable applicants.

5. Know Where to Look

Rather than playing a waiting game, go out and look for the candidate you truly want by attending professional events and searching on professional profile websites. These kinds of “extracurricular” professional activities attract motivated and dedicated individuals who can devote that same attention to your company.

6. Seek out Passive Candidates

While passive candidates may be more difficult to recruit given their success—they are currently employed—searching for them can be well worth the time commitment. Putting resources into searching for and recruiting passive candidates allows you to reap the rewards of bringing candidates with skills and expertise to your company.

7. Balance Skill and Passion

Hiring solely based on a candidate’s selling-potential can be a risk; you must take into account your unique corporate culture and consider how a prospective candidate’s skills and interests align with your company’s values, products, and culture.

8. Test Your Candidates

Don’t be afraid to put a candidate’s skills to the test in the interview. A motivated and effective salesperson should be able to demonstrate their sales acumen in a trial setting. After all, you should feel confident that the sales person that you are hiring can do just that: sell!

9. Advertise the Right Way

When you advertise a job posting, consider the places that your ideal candidate frequents or where they will most likely search for a job. Smart advertising can help you avoid wasting time and resources, and gives your ideal candidate the opportunity to make the first move.

10. Diversify

The old adage that variety is the spice of life applies to your sales team. Just as not all clients are the same, nor should all of your salespeople have the same personalities or selling techniques. Diversifying your sales team creates the opportunity for individualized service and allows you to create productive relationships with all of your clients.

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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