Why Finding The Right Candidate For Sales Is So Challenging
By Lilach Bullock
Sales is arguably one of the most difficult industries to hire for, and this claim can be confirmed simply by looking at how quickly new employees get let go once they’re taken on. Does this mean hiring managers don’t have a strong intuition? In fact, it’s safe to say that a hiring committee’s intuition or bias towards the type of candidate they want to fit in with their company is what’s costing them. Though a candidate for an open position might seem strong on paper or deliver a fantastic interview, it doesn’t mean they’ll have developed the soft skills essential to finding success in sales, and these soft skills are almost impossible for people to pin down without first putting new employees on sales calls to see how they’ll fare. Here's why finding the right candidate for sales is so challenging.
Why Finding The Right Candidate For Sales Is So Challenging
It’s so easy for those doing the hiring to get blindsided by a candidate’s personable qualities; unfortunately, these say nothing to their sales personality – a candidate may not even know which soft skills they possess and which they don’t. Therefore, when it comes to hiring for sales, managers are cautioned to take a more detached approach, at least at the beginning of the process. They should look over resumes and meet with applicants only once they can clearly determine that their sales personalities match what the position requires.
Rather than going off instinct, they should utilize tools designed to make these qualities more transparent. One of the best tips for picking the right candidate is to utilize sales personality testing to find the right candidate for any sales job. First created by industrial psychologists, these tests are designed to cut through an applicant’s conscious or unconscious façade in under ten minutes. They are available for an affordable price through providers like SalesTestOnline, and measure traits like stamina, emotional maturity, sense of urgency, and assertiveness at a 90% accuracy rate. Candidates are scored against the ideal profile for the position they’re applying for, which is determined by the provider after doing a thorough analysis of the company and the needs of the position itself. Alternatively, companies can have their top sales personnel take a mock test for the purposes of fleshing out this profile even more thoroughly. Only the candidates achieving an excellent score of 80% or higher should be invited for an interview.
The test iisnon-invasive, only takes applicants ten minutes to complete and is accessible as it can be taken any time of day, in six different languages. Never have applicants refused one of these tests, and so companies satisfied with their results often re-order them; in fact, 97% of sales entities who’ve used it once have requested it again for future hiring.
Mitigate hiring risk once and for all and find the right candidate for your open position without having to succumb to the trial and error of it all. Get a clearer picture of who will be the best hire for long term employment with your enterprise, and save company time and resources at the same time by introducing a sales personality test at the beginning of your hiring process. You never know which of the strongest candidates could surprise you.
Forbes Top 20 Social Media Power Influencer. 21 years of marketing experience. Currently obsessed with AI implementation done well. Lives in London, speaks worldwide, writes a weekly newsletter that 15,000+ founders read on Sunday mornings.
