Your sales team will never stop being a priority at your organization. But as much as we hope that it would be, recruiting, engaging, and hiring top sales people isn’t an easy task. And in order to get the right people on your team, you must make ongoing recruiting a priority, too. It can’t just be something you think about when a new role opens up, because by then, it’s probably too late. You should treat the recruitment and hiring processes like building a sales pipeline.

To ensure that your sales team is always as strong as it could and should be, you should always be recruiting for new sales talent. Here’s why.

You Might Strike Out When You Do Need Someone

Sure, when you post an online job advertisement, you might get dozens or even hundreds of resumes in reply. But that doesn’t mean that any of your applicants will actually be A-players—the ones you really want and need on your sales team. You could go through your hiring process several times and still not come out with a good enough candidate to hire. And in the meantime, your current sales team will struggle with the extra work or the work will be left undone, which can be damaging to your productivity and your bottom line. Don’t risk striking out—always be recruiting.

You Never Know When Top Talent Will Be Looking for Work

What are the chances that the greatest sales person is going to see and reply to your online advertisement in the one-week window that you’ve given yourself for resume intake and interviewing? The chance are slim, that’s for sure. You never know when a stellar sales rep is going to be looking for work, so when you constantly recruit, you can make sure that you’re accepting resumes when that superstar does start looking.

The truth is, there’s rarely a bad time to hire a sales superstar. It shouldn’t really matter whether or not you have an open position at that time. If someone would be a great asset to your sales team, your goal should be how to hire that candidate, not when. Don’t miss your chance.

You Never Know When You’re Going to Need to Fill a Position

No matter how effective your hiring strategy, you can’t anticipate every move that your company and your sales people make. Someone could quit without notice. Your company could suddenly grow quickly and need more sales reps. Instead of being rushed to make a quick decision, you should be prepared with a database of qualified sales people to call on when a position does open up. It will enable you to make more thoughtful decisions instead of making bad hiring decisions due to the time constraints. You shouldn’t start your hiring process from a stand still—rather, you should be able to tap into an existing pool of candidates so you can get a running start. Continuous intake can not only save you time, but a lot of money, too.

How to Put Continuous Intake into Practice

So you know why you should always be recruiting, and now you want to know how to do it. The first step is to put job descriptions for your key sales roles on your website for candidates to see if they’re searching your company for employment opportunities. Next, you can feature job postings with no expiration date or renew your postings so candidates can always send you resumes when they find your posts. You should also be performing ongoing outreach to passive candidates on sites like LinkedIn to try to reel in the big fish. Then make it a goal to interview at least a couple of candidates every week.

Though continuous recruiting can be time consuming, it’s certainly worth the effort you put in. The result will be a stronger, more efficient sales team.