April 29, 2011 in Tips & Guides by Dawn Williams

Sales Recruiting – The Good Ones and the Ones that Sound Good

How not to be sold when recruiting for sales positions

Many internal recruiters feel more than equipped to deal with a variety of roles except when it comes to sales. Their biggest complaint is that so many sales people sound so good in the interview and they have trouble separating the good ones from the ones that just sound good.

The first thing that you as an internal recruiter should do is sit with the hiring manager to understand their world. You need to understand the particular challenges that the hiring manager has. What worked well or did not work well with the incumbent? How well do you know your hiring manager?

When it comes to the actual interview you want to focus on results and how the sales person got to those results. A good question would be “walk me through your prospecting to close sales process”. There are many things that you will learn from the candidate’s answer. You should get a sense of who was responsible for what ie. Did they generate their own leads, were their others involved in the sales process and in what capacity and their overall sense of

organization.

You also want to listen for any KPIs that a sales person mentions. Do they know what it takes to be successful in their job or is it just a numbers game; knock on enough doors and eventually something will stick?

Behavioural interview questions are a good tactic to use when interviewing sales people. It permits you ask questions where they will give examples of things that they have done, how they got to their results and what they learned from the experience.

You want to ask specific questions about sales results and how they ranked against others in similar roles. Ask the sales person why they think that they have been successful? Ask them “are you where you want to be at this stage of your career” and “why”.

Preparing is the key to a successful interview, knowing your client (hiring manager) and having scripted questions that you put all the candidates through is a basis for comparison and a good start. Some companies have their human resources partners spend sometime in the field with customers and their sales people to get a good understanding before recruiting.