How to Hire Top Sales Pros: Traits Trump Contacts

450537511When filling sales positions, companies tend to play it safe, favoring experienced professionals with deep contact lists and multimillion-dollar sales deals under their belts.

However, these shiny qualifications aren’t a fit for all companies. In fact, for a small, rapidly-growing business, they can be a prescription for disaster. We learned that the hard way.

Based on some early, unfortunate hiring decisions, my company has created a successful six-step screening process that can help staffing firms improve sales-hiring results.

1. Create a checklist of the essential traits of the organization’s top three sales employees. This company-specific profile likely will include intellectual curiosity, industriousness, confidence, previous success, a quick wit, and communications aptitude. In addition, a gift for numbers can help, and, surprisingly, a recent job loss can provide a motivating chip on the shoulder.
2. Filter resumes. Narrow as many as 1,000 resumes to four. Be open-minded. Seek any kind of sales experience, which could be with a retailer or even college fundraising. For an entrepreneurial company that prizes independent work, a record of stellar sales for a Fortune 500 company may not fit the bill.
3. Interview by phone. Ask questions to help determine if the candidate is appealing and bright, what motivates him, whether he is diligent, what attracts him to the company, and what value he would bring.

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4. Test technical and company knowledge. Ask 10 questions about the company to evaluate such things as whether the candidate is seriously committed, resourceful, and articulate.
5. Conduct a group interview. Schedule an interview with three to five senior sales team members. Use this conversation to gauge coachability, confidence and spontaneous thinking. See if the candidate can apply feedback to modify an elevator pitch in real time. Pool group members’ perspectives to form an opinion.
6. Assess job fit. Review the candidate’s personality and thinking style alongside your ideal profile. Have current top sales performers take a test to pinpoint their shared traits, administer that test to the candidate, and compare the scores.

This thoughtful, multifaceted approach, tailored to your company’s needs, requires more time and resources than conventional methods. However, considering the cost of recruiting and onboarding sales employees, as well as the risks of bad hires, this method is a superior long-term investment.

MORE: Finding your next sales superstar

Henry Schuck

Henry Schuck
Henry Schuck is co-founder and CEO of DiscoverOrg, a sales and marketing intelligence solution used by the top technology vendors, staffing companies and consultants targeting IT, finance and marketing departments of Fortune-ranked, mid-market and SMB companies in North America and the European Union. He can be reached at hschuck (at) Discoverorg (dot) com.

Henry Schuck

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3 Responses to “How to Hire Top Sales Pros: Traits Trump Contacts”

  1. […] Read the source article at The Staffing Stream […]

  2. […] When filling sales positions, companies tend to play it safe, favoring experienced professionals with deep contact lists and multimillion-dollar sales deals under their belts. However, these shiny qualifications aren’t a fit for all companies.  […]

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