Learn the key steps for hiring a sales team, from assessing candidates to onboarding and long-term development, to build a winning team.
Common Difficulties When Recruiting Sales Candidates
Hiring is competitive, especially in a market with low unemployment, and this includes companies looking to hire new salespeople. When working with clients, we typically see three things that impact their recruiting efforts. Learn what they are in this video.
1. No good way of assessing salespeople's skillsets
Hiring managers often struggle to determine if a person has the necessary skill sets, behaviors, and knowledge to be effective at selling in their environment from just an interview. They also have a hard time determining if a salesperson is motivated to sell.
2. No objective system to evaluate candidates
Candidates interviewing for jobs may be very good at telling you what you want to hear, especially for sales jobs. Hiring managers may not have a good way of sorting through if what the candidate says is true, and if they actually have the necessary experience that will make them a good fit for the position.
3. Poor onboarding process for new hires
Sometimes hiring managers find a great candidate that is a good fit for the organization but they fail to set them up for success. People want to be led, have their talent developed, and see professional growth. Establishing an onboarding process to transition a new salesperson into selling in your specific environment sets them up to be a sales leader in your organization.
Learn more about recruiting and hiring from Lushin
Related Resources
Articles
- Five Tips for Writing a Sales Hire Job Description for Your Agency
- Make Better Hires by Cutting through Interview Smokescreens
- You Can't Use A Magic 8 Ball To Hire Top Talent
Video
Case Study
Video Transcript
The first challenge we usually hear is that they don't have a really good way of assessing whether a person has the skill sets, strengths, behaviors, and knowledge needed to be effective in selling within their environment and in general. Are they truly motivated and committed to doing their best when it comes to selling?
Second, we hear, "We just don't have a real objective system for how to evaluate them during the interview process, to say, OK, is what they're telling us, is it true? Do they have that experience? Will they really fit here?"
The last one we generally see is that they don't do a good job of onboarding. They assume that, hey, I've got a really great salesperson here. They're going to basically just fit in and be able to take off, and that's not the case. Your people want to be led.
They want to be developed. If they're really good people, they came to you because they go to this place to grow. So you need to have a great plan for, once again, how you get them up to speed quickly and effectively in your environment. And also a plan for how you develop them in the long term so they'll turn out to be the best people on your team.
