You’ve been there before: You have an open sales position to fill and several candidates from which to choose. How do you identify the best candidate?
How do you determine which of the candidates is most likely to perform the best, which will mesh with the existing sales team, and which is able to step into the position and hit the ground running?
Smart hiring is about finding a candidate whose skills, abilities and experiences match the job requirement.
If you’re like most managers – under pressure to fill the position – you hire the first candidate who “looks good” for one reason or another. Then, more than likely, you try to force-fit the individual to the position.
Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you don’t. Follow these four steps to increase your chances of hiring the right fit for your needs:
1. Develop a profile: You can’t determine who is the best fit for a position until you develop a profile of the job they will be expected to perform — a profile that describes the activities required to perform the job well.
The job profile should take into account:
- Who the salesperson will be calling on.
- How much technical knowledge is needed.
- How much supervision is required.
- Selling tangible products or intangible services.
- Short or long selling cycle.
- Need to build/cultivate long-term relationships or focus on closing.
- Servicing existing accounts, generating new accounts, or both.
- Operating as a member of a team or alone.
- Leads provided or expected to make cold prospecting calls.
2. Identify job functions: Once you’ve identified job activities, you’ll need to identify job functions. Functions are the work, behavior and actions necessary to complete the activity. If, for instance, a new hire will be responsible for developing a new territory, making cold calls and asking for referrals would be necessary functions.
Some examples of functions a salesperson would be required to perform include:
- Meet with business owners
- Make “cold” prospecting calls
- Make decisions
- Work in a team environment
3. Define specific success attributes: The job profile, however, is only the starting point. For a particular sales position, you would need to add the attributes necessary to carry out the job functions specific to the position. Those might include specific product knowledge, knowledge of the marketplace, the ability to create and organize proposals, the ability to work as part of a team, and so on.
4. Develop interview questions: Once you’ve identified all of the attributes you’re looking for in a candidate, you can develop appropriate interview questions to explore the presence of those qualities. “Help Wanted” ad copy can also be pulled from that information.
Not all attributes will be uncovered in a personal interview. Specialized assessment instruments, designed to identify specific characteristics, may need to be used.
Don’t shortcut the process and skip the homework! The more prepared you are to recognize a best-fit candidate, the more likely it is that you will find one.
Dave Harman is an associate with Sandler Training. He has over 30 years’ experience in sales and sales management with Fortune 500 companies as well as small, family-owned organizations. He has held positions from sales to senior management with companies such as Conoco/Vista, Amresco and Ohio Awning, and owns his own business. He earned his MBA with a concentration in Marketing from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. You can reach him at [email protected] or (888) 448-2030.
