No matter how great your product is, if you don’t have the right sales team to close deals, you won’t experience success. Yet research shows that 46% of sales hires fail within the first 18 months on the job. This indicates that many companies are using ineffective recruitment strategies to seek out the right talent. In this post, we’d like to share some of the most effective sales recruiting strategies to help you find and hire the best salespeople for your organization.
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Most Effective Sales Recruiting Strategies
Top salespeople are rare and incredibly prized. They are often already employed and make a good living for themselves, which means recruiting them can take more than just posting an online job and waiting for the perfect candidate to find you. A sustained, full-channel recruiting strategy is needed to attract high performing salespeople. Here are some strategies to keep in mind:
Build Your Brand
A high performing salesperson will only work in a company that is as ambitious as they are. An established, maintained brand image could help to tilt the decision in your favor, especially if the salesperson has offers from multiple organizations.
The best way to create a positive brand image as an employer is to work on your website—most importantly, your careers page. Try to showcase what it’s like to work for your organization and what makes you better than the competition.
Social media platforms like LinkedIn are also excellent areas to build your brand and attract top talent. In fact, 70 percent of the people who follow a company on LinkedIn say that they would like to work for them. Be sure to regularly post and share content, and don’t be afraid to message candidates directly.
Plan Your Interviews Meticulously
Interviewing only when employee turnover pushes you to do so can be a dangerous practice. The pressure to fill a position may lead you to hire a sub-par employee. Instead, work to proactively build a roster of strong candidates. You should be in constant recruiting mode, seeking out and screening top candidates so you can reach out whenever a position needs to be filled.
During the actual interview, keep in mind that a conversational style is more likely to elicit gut responses that can help you to pinpoint the true skills of the interviewee. Check out our blog post on Top Situational Interview Questions for key questions to help you effectively assess candidates.
Don’t Give In To First Impressions
Around 80% of a salesperson’s success is a result of their mindset rather than their learned skills. The fact of the matter is, only around 26% of people have what it takes to succeed in this highly demanding field.
When you are working to recruit top talent, it’s important to keep an open mind. It’s important not to reject applicants or candidates outright based on a first impression from experience listed on their resume, as they might have something even better—a sales mindset.
A science-based sales candidate assessment is the best way to identify candidates with the right mix of sales DNA for your organization. At HireDNA, we use the OMG Sales Assessment Tool, which goes beyond personality traits to assess 21 core selling competencies possessed by top sales performers in your industry. Learn more.
Invest In Referrals
Referrals have long been one of the best ways to find exceptional talent. Unsurprisingly, great salespeople happen to know other top salespeople who may be looking for a new opportunity. Internal marketing is a great way to encourage referrals, which can be a very cost-effective recruitment strategy. You can even introduce a referral program where you reward employees for referring great talent that results in a successful hire.
Keep It Brief
A long, drawn-out hiring and recruitment process could be a deterrent. The top salespeople likely already have multiple offers in hand. They might take a job with your competitor while you’re busy trying to reach a decision. It’s important to keep your overall process short and practical, acknowledging that this is a talent-driven market.
Hire The Best Sales Talent With HireDNA
Finding and recruiting top sales talent is essential for future success. But this can be challenging. In fact, 53% of sales hires eventually fail to live up to expectations.
At HireDNA, however, we offer 10 years of recruitment and training expertise to help you find the right candidate. Our science-based predictive hiring process has resulted in an 80% successful placements rate.
Why Choose Us?
- 92% of our recommended candidates reach the top half of the sales force within a year
- Hiring mistakes eliminated up to 96%
- 79% candidate retention rate
- Our new hires ramp up 50% faster than the industry average
Do you need help recruiting top salespeople?