Here’s a sobering stat. 70% of SaaS salespeople failed to reach their quota in 2024. While there’s a laundry list of reasons why many SaaS salespeople fall short, it’s important to look to the very beginning — the initial hiring stage — when looking for a solution.

If a hiring leader fails to make the right decision and hire truly elite talent that not only has the skills and qualifications but also fits in culturally, problems will likely arise. Fortunately, many hiring mistakes can be avoided by using data-driven assessments to find the best of the best.

The Problem with Intuition

In the past, much of SaaS sales hiring relied heavily on intuition. The logic was that if a hiring manager knew the ins and outs of their product and industry and what it takes to succeed, they could use their expertise to find talented SaaS salespeople.

And in some cases, intuition works out. That said, it’s easy to get yourself in trouble with this approach.

That’s because relying on one person’s subjective judgment — something that’s often laced with bias — can lead to bad decisions and potentially high turnover.

For perspective, “When hiring is over-reliant on intuition and assumptions about candidates, we make successful hires only about 30% of the time. At that rate, you get better odds with a coin flip.”

As hiring technology has progressed, we’re now able to quantify things that previously were unquantifiable and objectively measure a SaaS sales candidate’s ability to make smarter decisions.

That’s where data-driven assessments come in.

The Power of Data-Driven Assessments

Rather than taking what a candidate says at face value and relying on intuition, data-driven assessments arm you with valuable information to help you make consistently great hiring decisions. Let me give you an example.

The Sales Skills Assessment by Objective Management Group allows you to thoroughly analyze a SaaS sales candidate on a granular level by objectively assessing multiple selling competencies, such as relationship building, consultative selling, presentation approach, closing, and much more.

This gives you a bird’s-eye view of exactly what each candidate brings to the table, which allows you to make a hiring decision with far greater certainty and accuracy. With it, you can compare candidates side-by-side to see who’s truly the most skilled based on the specific criteria you’re looking for when filling a role.

While it’s always been easy to compare candidates on factors like education, previous experience, and industry knowledge, core selling competencies have been trickier to pin down. But with data-driven assessments, you can know for sure just how capable each candidate is to dramatically improve your SaaS sales hiring.

If you’re looking for concrete numbers, 92% of candidates recommended by the Sales Skills Assessment went on to reach the top half of their sales force within their first year. And 72% became top performers.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The Sales Skills Assessment is just one example, and there are several other options you can use to zero in on the particular aspect of SaaS sales hiring that you want.

For instance, there are personality assessments that provide insights into a candidate’s true personality so you can get a sense of how well they would match your company culture. There are situational assessments that let you see how they would react in real-life SaaS sales scenarios.

There are behavioral analysis assessments that give you a feel for interpersonal skills. And there are psychometric assessments that provide insights into cognitive abilities and working style.

Whatever part of a SaaS salesperson you want to analyze, odds are there’s a data-driven assessment for it.

The Full Scope of Benefits When Using Data-Driven Assessments

At this point, it’s clear that using data-driven assessments can help you make better hiring decisions. But let’s go a bit deeper and discuss some specific reasons why.

First, it significantly increases your odds of choosing the right person for each role. By analyzing hard skills, soft skills, and everything in between, while factoring in the specific role you’re trying to fill and company culture, you can use the data to greatly improve hiring accuracy. That way, you’re far less likely to make the wrong hire, which brings us to our next key benefit — less turnover.

One study from Deloitte “found that companies leveraging data-driven approaches to hiring saw a 36% increase in employee retention.” And it’s easy to see why. Whenever you find the perfect person for a SaaS sales role — someone who was made for the position — it’s only natural that they’ll A) succeed and B) stick around for the long haul.

This means you don’t have to worry about excessive turnover, where you constantly have to rehire. By getting it right the first time, there should be greater stability and you can build a cohesive SaaS sales team, with some hires moving up the ladder into leadership positions.

It also streamlines your hiring process. Rather than having to meticulously sift through candidate after candidate the old-fashioned way, data-driven assessments help accelerate recruiting so you can create a shortlist of top candidates without eating up a ton of time.

And let’s not forget about sales performance. Whenever you hire the cream of the crop, where SaaS salespeople possess the essential core competencies it takes to thrive, you can expect increased performance.

Needless to say, that’s extremely helpful, as this often leads to a host of other benefits, including higher conversion rates, increased profitability, greater customer satisfaction, and a stronger bottom line.

Final Thoughts

We’re at an exciting point in history where hiring leaders now have access to cutting-edge technology that simply didn’t exist a decade ago. Case in point — data-driven assessments, which can be used to quantify and objectively understand even the most intangible of candidate traits.

By leveraging this technology, you can capitalize on a plethora of amazing benefits, including smarter hiring decisions, shorter hiring time, reduced turnover, better sales performance, and ultimately bigger profits.

Learn more about the Sales Skills Assessment feature above and how it can help you find A+ SaaS salespeople.