The winning formula for any Sales organization is hiring the right talent and enabling them such that they become your competitive advantage.
Before you start the process of hiring you should know everything about your current Sales team like
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Skill set composition of the team and what are the gaps to fill as per your GTM
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Detailed view of the high performers in your team and the reasons they are successful.
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Deep understanding of what top talent looks like in your organization and what drives the very best performers to produce results.
Based on the above you should design your Sales talent strategy which includes what top talent looks like, their traits and characteristics, and initiate the hiring process.
Your job description cannot be a generic one wherein every candidate feels they can be a right fit. It’s important that this details what your company deems relevant experience and mandatory expectations of the role. This should also cover what is expected out of this role in clear measurable terms. A good job description will help to screen the right candidates.
If you engage a Sales Recruitment Agency for sourcing profiles, then a detailed job description will help them source the right talent and support your hiring process. Most competent sales talents are passive job seekers, and you need to look at focused headhunting. From the candidate’s perspective, headhunting is odd when it’s not done in a swift manner. A comprehensive Ideal Candidate profile and where to source will help recruitment agencies to reach out to the right talent and able to reduce your time to hire.
The next focus area in conducting a Sales Interview where is a two-way process of not only you are assessing the right candidate but also ensuring why they should choose you.
Effective sales interviews are conversations, not interrogations. Your mission is to engage the candidate and keep them talking. This allows you to get below the surface and gain a more accurate view of the “true candidate.”
You should prepare for the interview just like how you prepare for a sales meeting and listen to candidates. Listening builds emotional connections: When you listen to another person, give them your full attention. You will make them feel important and appreciated. This builds an emotional bond.
When you build an emotional connection with a candidate, they will lower their emotional wall and talk to you.
Sales Recruiters play a vital role in preparing the candidate for the interview by sharing complete details and interview expectations and ensure end to end hand holding a great candidate experience. This will ensure there is no last-minute drop in candidates when an offer is rolled out.
Sales leaders can also depend on recruitment agencies to get insights into candidate expectations and potential risks in hiring the right talent. Even though it appears using a recruitment agency increase the cost of hire but it helps in reducing the time to hire and avoiding a wrong hire.