Sales Recruiting

Sales recruiting is one of the more critical aspects of growing a successful sales force. As a sales manager you need good sales people to address your business needs. And yet most everyone treats recruiting as a necessary evil only to be done when absolutely necessary.

Adopting a different philosophy about recruiting your sales talent can give you the edge you need to build the best sales team -- faster and for less money.

Start by understanding what recruiting is all about. Think of recruiting as an on-going process designed to develop a cadre of qualified candidates. There are two key take-aways from this approach.

First, sales recruiting needs to be an on-going process. You should constantly be on the lookout for new sales talent. If you recruit only when you have an open position, you are always in reactive mode. The best analogy I can give you is to think of recruiting just like you do selling. You are always on the lookout for new sales opportunities. The same holds for recruiting.

Second, you want to be able to choose from the largest pool of qualified candidates. To have qualified candidates you need to understand your needs and what skills and behaviors will be successful in your environment.

Knowing what you are looking for and relentlessly trying to find those people are the keys to finding and hiring the best.

Now that you understand the correct philosophy surrounding recruiting, your next step is to develop a recruiting strategy. Your strategy dictates exactly how you develop the cadre of qualified candidates. How much money to spend, where to look, who should do the job and the success metrics are just a few of the issues covered in a good employee recruiting strategy.

One absolute guarantee about sales recruiting is that there is no one best source for candidates. Successful recruiting involves using multiple sources for finding the best candidates. Part of your strategy will be to decide how best to deploy your resources.

Classified ads, online postings, headhunters, etc. are all legitimate sources but your specific situation will determine which is best for you. See the article on employee sourcing for a complete discussion of recruiting sources.

That said, you absolutely should consider having an employee referral program. Many studies have shown that candidates referred by your existing employees turn into consistently higher performing employees. Every recruiting strategy should have an employee referral component. See the article on employee referral for a complete discussion of employee referral programs.

Sales recruiting is not free. There are costs both in money, time and resources. It is too easy to throw a bunch of much money and time at recruiting without a return. Your first step is to make certain you are both planning for and tracking your expenditures. Tracking the metrics include monitoring what you spend and the results each activity delivers.

Finally, there are a number of recruiting services available to help you. These include headhunters, search firms, consultants and various online recruiting services. And, there are many software solutions available to help you.

It can be confusing.

See the article on recruiting services to help you understand the various options that are available to you.

The conclusion is that you cannot leave your sales recruiting to chance. Plan your activities, measure your results and have an on-going strategy to keep your candidate pool full.

Related Articles

• Sales Assessment Testing
• Interviewing Sales Candidates
• Reading Sales Resumes
• Sample Sales Questions

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