Month: February 2023

SaaS Sales Recruiting: 5 Essential Tips for Hiring the Right Talent

Posted on by hiredna

In 2022, the United States contained more than 17,000 SaaS companies within its borders. Those 17,000 companies serve over 59 billion global customers. In 2023, Statista projects the global SaaS market to exceed $195 billion in market value.

What’s the common thread pinning these statistics together?

They wouldn’t be possible without SaaS sales jobs.

Salespeople deliver results that directly contribute to company (and industry) growth. But, selling SaaS products and solutions is not easy. Tech companies are observing major issues with their SaaS sales recruiting and staff retention metrics—why?

SaaS Sales Recruitment: Obstacles & Challenges

Companies are finding it extremely difficult to source, hire, and more importantly retain competent, high-performing sales staff. Below, I’ll examine some of the key reasons why businesses are experiencing these issues, and then how to revamp your sales hiring strategy.

It’s a Skill Issue—Soft Skill Issue

One of my past blogs was on sales recruiting challenges. In it, I detailed one of the biggest challenges for sales recruiters and SaaS hiring managers: lack of soft skills in new hires. Why is that one of the biggest challenges? It’s notoriously hard to quantify a candidate’s actual soft skill competence with hard data. Companies often hire salespeople who have underdeveloped soft skills.

Empathy, collaboration, the ability to build rapport, and communication skills have always been difficult to quantify with hard data. However, there have been many innovations in this arena in recent years. For example, certain forward-thinking recruiting platforms are providing companies with the ability to accurately quantify a candidate’s soft skill competence level.

For example, HireDNA is able to measure specific sales competencies, such as emotional regulation, foundational beliefs, and resilience in the face of rejection. This enables precise determinations of one’s sales potential. This capability can have a significant impact on SaaS recruiting and hiring success.

Inefficient Hiring Processes

The top salespeople don’t often stay between jobs for very long. In one of my past blogs, I mentioned that it’s common to have a window of only 10 days to find and hire the cream of the crop sales candidates. This is why inefficiency can destroy an organization’s ability to hire the best talent possible. In the fast-paced world of SaaS sales and IT sales recruitment, this rings especially true. 

Below are a few of my recommendations to improve your recruiting and hiring processes:

  • Have a clear understanding of the role you are hiring for and the goals you wish to achieve through this hire.
  • Leverage both passive and active candidates: A lot of the industry’s top talent will not be actively looking for a job.
  • Use a thorough pre-screening process that includes state-of-the-art tools and science-based evaluations. Interviews that focus on behavior, and an in-depth examination of candidates’ past performance, are also beneficial.
  • Employ a sales-specific assessment tool to ensure a candidate’s “sales DNA” competencies are accurately assessed and measured against your organizational needs.
  • Simplify the application process: It’s possible you are losing great candidates very early in the process simply because your application process is too complex or drawn out. I wrote more on this topic here.

Recommended Tools to Source, Screen, Interview, Hire, and Onboard Top SaaS Sales Talent

The end-to-end process of recruiting and hiring top sales professionals can be overwhelming and time-consuming, especially for SaaS companies. But it doesn’t have to be. I want to share with you two powerful tools that can help streamline your hiring process and ensure you find the optimal fit for your team.

eSkill

 eSkill provides a detailed evaluation of a candidate’s communication and collaboration skills. These traits are critical in a sales role. Here are a few of the main advantages that eSkill can provide your company:

  • Gain a deeper understanding of how well a candidate will work within your sales team, increasing the chances of a successful hire.
  • Easy to use and can be integrated into your existing hiring process, making it seamless and efficient.
  • Wide range of assessments, including pre-employment assessments, behavioral assessments, and skills assessments, allowing you to assess a candidate’s fit for the role and your company culture.
  • Detailed reports on each candidate, allowing you to make more informed hiring decisions.
  • Identify potential red flags early on in the hiring process, saving you time and resources.
  • Cost-effective and can help you save money by reducing the need for expensive and time-consuming interviews.
  • Determine the strengths and weaknesses of your candidates’ emotional intelligence, so you can provide specific, targeted training and development after they are hired to help them (and your company) flourish.

HireDNA

Using HireDNA as a part of their recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and training processes, SaaS companies can gain access to a powerful platform that leverages AI and science-based assessments to find the perfect fit for their sales team. Custom-developed for the needs of technology sales teams, HireDNA enables a faster and more streamlined pipeline of qualified candidates, accurate and predictive sales assessments, and effective onboarding and training.

Here is a short overview of our platform’s features and service offerings:

  • Powerful AI matching technology coupled with a proprietary sales recruiting platform, ensuring companies can source and attract top sales producers who fit their ideal candidate profile and selling environment.
  • Crowdsourcing and candidate referral models provide access to an extensive network of sales professionals. This creates a faster pipeline of qualified candidates.
  • Partnership with Objective Management Group (OMG) provides access to sales-specific candidate assessments and salesforce evaluations. These evaluations have been independently verified at 95% accuracy.
  • Onboarding and training processes designed to help new hires ramp up faster and improve retention. HireDNA’s training includes micro-learning, videos, quizzes, and action plans. All are tailored to the new hire’s sales DNA.
  • HireDNA’s results speak for themselves. 50% faster new hire ramp-up, 80% of searches ending in a successful placement, and 92% of candidates recommended and hired reaching the top half of the salesforce.

Using a science-based approach to SaaS sales hiring will continue to become more prevalent over the coming years. As tools like HireDNA and eSkill continue to evolve, companies will be able to attract, hire, and retain more of the best candidates possible—candidates who fit perfectly into their sales ecosystem, company culture, and performance requirements. 

Top 5 Best Practices for SaaS Sales Recruiting and Hiring

1. Have a deep understanding of your “why”

What is your company’s “why?” What about your sales department’s “why?” Culture, vision, goals, objectives, etc.—these all play an important role in the formation of your company’s “why.” When you lack a clear understanding of your company’s vision, ideals, and mission, it can be extremely difficult to find the right talent that fits into your brand’s unique culture and sales ecosystem.

2. Streamline and use a data-driven approach

Having a long, over-extended recruitment process is a talent killer. Luckily, recruiting in SaaS has come a long way (even compared to just a few years ago). Platforms like ours empower companies to fully transform the way they source, recruit, hire, and retain top sales talent. The importance of streamlining your approach to recruiting cannot be overstated. Likewise, leveraging the power of data and AI-driven recruiting tools can be a real game-changer for SaaS companies. 

3. Use your company’s value proposition

One of the more overlooked sales recruiting tips is leveraging your company’s value proposition. Your unique value proposition is a strong selling point to potential sales candidates. Using your value proposition during the recruitment process is crucial. It makes sure that potential hires align with the mission, culture, and “why” of your company. By clearly communicating your unique value proposition, you can ensure you are only bringing on individuals who are genuinely excited about what your company has to offer. 

4. Leverage the power of incentives

Incentives, for both on-hire and performance-based, can make a large difference in attracting top talent that is able to perform versus mid-range salespeople that deliver lukewarm results. Another major reason why incentives are vital to elevating your hiring strategy—passive candidates, which are often top performers, will typically need to be coaxed out of their current roles. Incentivizing passive candidates is highly recommended. Examples of compelling incentives include:

  • Bonus upon hiring
  • Compensation increase
  • Stock ownershp
  • Flexible and/or hybrid work environments
  • Growth opportunities within your organization
  • Ongoing SaaS sales training using industry-leading frameworks, workshops, and resources

5. Consider using SaaS sales recruiters

Delegating the traditionally resource-intensive process of recruitment to SaaS sales recruitment agencies can be helpful for certain companies. Top-notch agencies and their rosters of recruiters are experts at matching top talent with the right companies. However, many recruitment agencies in the tech industry use outdated methods and source poor-quality talent, so I recommend doing your due diligence if you’re considering hiring an agency.

Wrap-Up

Salespeople play a vital role in the growth of SaaS companies and the industry as a whole. Finding and retaining the industry’s top talent can be difficult, but the advice laid out above can help transform your recruiting process. A quick recap of what we covered:

  • Leverage next-gen recruiting platforms (e.g., eSkill, HireDNA, etc.) to help weed out poor-fit candidates.
  • Restructure your offer – focus on your value proposition, incentives, and attracting talent.
  • Recruit both active and passive candidates.
  • Streamline your processes.

Although companies face many challenges in SaaS hiring and recruitment, the strategies outlined in this blog can help maximize your recruiting efforts and source tier-one talent for your organization.

The 3 Best SaaS Sales Candidate Screening Tools (And Their Key Features)

Posted on by hiredna

Bad hires, unfortunately, happen more frequently than most SaaS sales recruiters would like. According to research, 74% of recruiters say they’ve hired the wrong rep at some point. And with the average cost of a bad hire being at least 30% of the salesperson’s first-year annual income, it can be highly detrimental. That’s where SaaS sales candidate screening tools come in.

By using the right software, you can effectively filter through a candidate pool to find the cream of the crop while also saving a ton of time and money. Here are my top three picks for the absolute best SaaS sales candidate screening tools.

1. HireDNA

HireDNA is all about taking a scientific, data-driven approach to SaaS sales recruiting to ensure the best possible matches while avoiding common friction points. First, HireDNA evaluates your company’s unique hiring needs, goals, selling requirements, selling environment, culture, and more to create a digital profile of the perfect candidate.

Next, it uses cutting-edge technology to tap into a massive national network of hundreds of thousands of elite SaaS sales professionals. From there, HireDNA uses in-depth screening to objectively evaluate each potential candidate’s abilities based on your exact candidate profile to see how well they match. Candidates that receive a match score of 75% or higher are then qualified to ensure an ultra-high level of compatibility.

At that point, each eligible candidate is asked to complete a comprehensive skills assessment that tests 21 selling competencies to measure things like skill set, motivation, determination, and more.

Those that make the cut will then be shortlisted so you can schedule interviews and make your final decision. The streamlined, systematic, data-driven approach HireDNA takes makes it extremely efficient for SaaS sales candidate screening and has a very high success rate, with recruiters able to eliminate 96% of wrong hires. Further, 92% of candidates that are hired reach the top of their sales force within one year.

You can learn more about HireDNA’s screening process here.

2. Breezy HR

Like HireDNA, Breezy HR is an end-to-end SaaS recruiting tool that does the heavy lifting for you so you spend less time in the trenches looking for candidates and more time on shortlisting and interviewing.

It starts with advertising and attracting where you first create a professional, branded careers page to send candidates to. This can be fully customized and launched in less than a minute without any development knowledge and includes built-in analytics. Or, if you already have a careers page, you can use the Breezy HR widget to create a list of available jobs on it.

Once that’s set up, the software streamlines the process of getting your SaaS sales job in front of millions of potential candidates. After creating a job ad, Breezy HR will automatically post it on over 50 of today’s top job sites, such as LinkedIn, Indeed, Google, and ZipRecruiter.

As SaaS sales candidates start pouring in, Breezy HR has several different features to help you efficiently screen and manage them. For example, the AI-powered Candidate Match Score feature lets you identify the best of the best and instantly prioritize them for quick outreach.

Touchless pre-screening lets you send personalized questionnaires to top candidates, and “Breezy will automatically advance (or disqualify) candidates based on their answers.” Additionally, video screening lets you take it one step further by qualifying candidates with digital face-to-face recordings so you can get a better feel for their personality and style. Once you’ve created your shortlist, Breezy HR offers calendar integrations with Google and Outlook so you can effortlessly schedule interviews.

And with built-in analytics that measure pipeline performance, time to fill, and team productivity, you can identify inefficiencies to continually refine your SaaS sales recruiting process.

3. JazzHR

Let me start by saying that JazzHR is specifically designed for SMBs. So if you’re an enterprise company, this platform won’t have the type of scale that you need. But if you fall into the SMB category, read on.

JazzHR is a straightforward SaaS sales candidate screening tool that doesn’t have quite the same amount of features as HireDNA and Breezy HR, but it definitely gets the job done. It offers a custom careers page with branded templates to send candidates to.

There’s a streamlined candidate sourcing feature that lets you post a single job ad to numerous job boards and social networks. And there’s a built-in referral feature that lets you manage a company-wide referral program to tap into additional candidate leads. This combination allows you to build a strong initial candidate pool right from the start.

From there, JazzHR has ranking features that help you choose individuals who are best fitted for the position you’re hiring for and “organize your hiring pool based on your own criteria and decide who gets moved along in one centralized location.” There are comprehensive assessments with score-based evaluations that let you quantitatively compare top candidates. And after you’ve done your round of interviews, JazzHR assists hiring managers in ranking them one by one while implementing feedback.

Once you’ve made your decision, there are offers and eSignature features to expedite the formalities and ensure all the necessary paperwork is completed while staying fully compliant. In turn, this makes for a better candidate experience so you can get build strong rapport right from the start.

Put it all together, and this makes JazzHR a solid option that works well for many SMBs.

Finding Elite Talent with SaaS Sales Candidate Screening

Sales recruiting technology has come a long in recent years. While recruiters of the past often had to deal with a lengthy, convoluted process and rely on gut feelings that weren’t always accurate, SaaS sales candidate screening tools have been a true game-changer.

While there are numerous options available, HireDNA, Breezy HR, and JazzHR are three of the best overall and cover the full spectrum of candidate screening while also including other great features.

To learn more about why HireDNA is the industry’s number one sales skills assessment tool, check out this resource.

Why Creating a Clear Hiring Process Timeline Can Make Your Brand More Appealing to 83% of Sales Candidates

Posted on by hiredna

Searching for a sales job can be overwhelming and stressful. In fact, 73% of job seekers say it’s “one of the most stressful events in life.” As a recruiter, it’s important to simplify and streamline things to 1) improve the candidate experience and 2) increase your odds of acquiring A+ salespeople while building strong relationships right off the bat. And this often starts with creating a clear hiring process timeline.

In this post, we’ll look at some compelling data that shows just how important a hiring process timeline is, along with specific elements to focus on.

Putting Yourself in a Sale’s Candidates Shoes

Nearly everyone will perform a job search at some point in their career. And nearly everyone will experience the struggles that come along with it.

Searching for a new sales position marks a big life change. A person may need to give notice to their current company, figure out how to transition from their current job to a new one, switch up their daily schedule, or even move to a new city. Not to mention the potential financial strains it can create.

With this comes a lot of uncertainty and stress if a sales candidate is left in the dark about what’s happening with a potential employer. This is bad for everyone because, on their end, it hurts the candidate’s experience. And on your end, the friction it creates can sour what could have been a solid relationship.

Even if a sales candidate was initially excited about the idea of joining your team, they may end up going elsewhere simply because they weren’t sure about their status. In turn, quality candidates can end up slipping through your fingers, and in the long run, this can even hurt your brand equity if you get negative online reviews from resentful ex-candidates.

Looking it at like this, lacking a clear hiring process timeline is bad all around. However, when sales candidates know what to expect, it can create positive rapport and make things smoother for both parties.

What the Data Says

Now the question is, just how big of an impact can a clear hiring process timeline have?

According to SmallBizGenius, “83% of candidates say it would greatly improve the overall experience if employers provided a clear timeline of the hiring process.” Based on this data, you could create a pleasant experience for more than 8 out of 10 candidates by simply making the process more transparent.

In a world where many companies are struggling to create a positive candidate experience and 58% of job seekers say they’ve declined an offer because of a negative experience, this an extremely important stat to take note of.

To crystallize things further, here’s some additional data:

  • “52% of job seekers cite lack of response from employers as their biggest frustration
  • 75% of applicants never hear back from employers
  • 81% of job seekers say employers continuously communicating status updates would greatly improve their candidate experience” 

At this point, it’s clear that the vast majority of sales candidates want more transparency from employers and that offering it can have significant results. But how exactly do you go about that?

Elements to Include in the Hiring Process Timeline

For starters, you’ll want to give sales candidates at least a rough idea of how long your hiring process is. While the specific stages of recruiting can vary, the seven fundamental stages usually look something like this.

Seven Steps of Selection Process

So, for instance, when a sales candidate submits their application, you could send them an email outlining what to expect, what the next step is, and when they’ll hear from you next. Keep in mind you don’t necessarily need to include exact dates, but try to give them a basic overview of what your timeline looks like so you’re on the same page.

For candidates that make it to the interview stage, you’ll want to be more detailed with the upcoming phases in the process. This can include how many rounds of interviews there will be (e.g. an initial 15-minute Zoom call and a longer follow-up call if they pass), what will happen during each round, and how long it will take your recruitment team to make their decision.

This alone can make for a far better candidate experience and should help you avoid many of the common “friction points” that are detrimental to the process.

When it comes to sales candidates that have been disqualified, you’ll want to let them know as soon as possible that you’ve decided to move on. While this, understandably, can be difficult and no one wants to be the bearer of bad news, you never want to leave someone hanging when they’re no longer in the candidate pool. In this situation, you’ll want to thank them for applying and let them know that you sincerely appreciate their interest in your company, but you’ve decided to go with someone else who is a better fit.

If you’re not sure how to approach this, here’s a basic email template you can use.

10 Essential Recruiting Email Templates

Also, note that most experts suggest never going longer than a maximum of one week to follow up at any point in the hiring process.

Wrapping Up

A poor sales candidate experience can be toxic to everyone involved. It leaves a sour taste in the mouth of what could be a rockstar salesperson. And it can hurt your company if you lose out on top-tier talent to competitors. Fortunately, this is often avoidable by creating a transparent hiring process timeline.

Doing so puts you on the same page with sales candidates and drastically reduces the likelihood of friction arising, as they’ll know what to expect every step of the way. From putting in their application to scheduling an interview to making your final decision, you’ll have close communication throughout.

If you’re looking to fill your pipeline with leading sales talent while cutting your hire time in half, check out HireDNA. Recruiters that use it eliminate, on average, 96% of mistakes and lower turnover by more than 33%.