Use Sales Assessment Tests to Improve Hire Quality

Hiring is an art and a science. While first impressions are key, when it comes to hiring effective sales people, you need more than a gut instinct. You need a proven track record of success, a host of positive personality traits, the right selling skills, a fierce drive to succeed, and an organizational fit. You need qualities you might not even be thinking of. Learn how sales assessment tests can improve your hire quality.

HireDNA® offers leading sales recruiting services to help you build a winning sales team. Contact us for more information.

Why Do You Need a Sales Assessment?

Hiring managers can quickly fall into biases that impact hiring decisions. Objective assessments take the guesswork out of the hiring process. They provide a uniform set of standards and help hiring managers see the full picture of prospective sales candidates. Learn about how they work and how HireDNA can help you use them to build your strongest sales team yet!

Common Sales Hiring Pitfalls

It’s easy to fall into a hiring bias trap. After all, interviews are an inherently personal process. Candidates strive to make a good impression, and those responsible for hiring are looking for people they want to work with. With this kind of soft criteria, it can be hard to benchmark the ideal candidate and objectively decide who may be the best fit for the role.

Those making sales hiring decisions can fall into one of many biases, like:

  • “Similar to me” effect: If a candidate has a similar personality, similar interests, or a similar mindset to the interviewer, the interviewer is more likely to think positively about the candidate.
  • The contrast effect: Interviewing a stronger candidate after a weaker candidate can cause the interviewer to perceive the stronger candidate as the right fit for the job—when in reality, it’s just relative.
  • Halo and Horn effects: The interviewer allows one statement, fact, or gesture to overshadow their entire perception of the candidate. This could be positive (halo effect) or negative (horn effect).
  • Stereotyping: This may be the most common and most implicit bias that interviewers impose on candidates. Stereotyping involves making snap decisions and judgments about a candidate based on characteristics like race, gender, age, religion, etc.

The Cost of A Bad Hire

Most people interviewing for sales roles are already personable, competitive, and convincing. Knowing what biases to watch out for, you need to cut through the surface level, go deeper than the resume and degree, and really understand performance potential. With 50 percent of sales reps today consistently falling below their targets, the cost of a bad hire really adds up.

According to a study by PeopleKeep, a bad sales hire can cost between 50-75% of their annual salary. So, a sales person who make $60,000 per year could cost $30,000-$45,000 to replace.

A bad hire doesn’t just take a financial toll. A bad hire costs staff time, training resources, and general morale. It can cause top sales reps to feel disengaged and undervalued. It can also increase burnout and turnover, as other employees work harder to pick up the slack. One bad hire can make or break a team.

What will a bad hire cost you? Find out with this interactive hiring mistake calculator from Objective Management Group.

How Does a Sales Assessment Work?

So how do you make the right decision from the start? That’s where a sales assessment test comes in. HireDNA uses the Objective Management Group (OMG) Sales Candidate Assessment to screen sales candidates. OMG is one of the world’s most accurate and predictive assessments, with a success rate of 92 percent of recommended and hired candidates performing at or above expectations.

The OMG assessment defines exact hiring criteria for sales candidates, holds all candidates to the same standard, and gives your sales organization competitive hiring edge. Plus, it can be customized to your unique hiring criteria and sale environment.

The result is a tailored recommendation that shows how the candidate stacks up against industry standards, your own organization, and among candidates for the role itself.

Secure Your Hiring Success

Build your strongest team yet! HireDNA’s predictive sales candidate assessments give you a leg up on your hiring process. Our objective, proven tool goes beyond personality traits, first impressions, and gut feelings to assess 21 core selling competencies possessed by top sales performers in your industry.

Get in touch to learn more about our sales recruiting, evaluation, and training services. Let us help you build an exceptional sales team!

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Using Assessments to Develop Your Sales Team

When you have a high-growth business plan, you need a sales plan that can match it – one that will equip your reps to handle shifting market trends, meet evolving customer demands, and maximize effectiveness.

Creating that kind of winning sales plan starts with an in-depth understanding of the current-state of your sales people, process, management, and tools. Using a sales team assessment tool can help you identify critical skill gaps in your sales force, assess how your sales structure aligns with your business goals, and identify key strategies to keep your sales team competitive and ready to drive next level results.

The sales assessment should also answer crucial questions like, Are we reaching the right decision makers? Can we close more sales? Do our systems and processes support a high-performance sales organization? What must we change to improve? How long will that take? And what will the impact be?

Not All Sales Assessment Tools Are Created Equal

The most effective tools, like Objective Management Group’s Sales Effectiveness and Improvement Analysis (SEIA), use proven, scientific processes to collect and analyze data about your people, processes, systems, and management.

A recent Harvard Business Review report demonstrated that a scientific approach to sales force effectiveness – emphasizing data, analysis, processes and tools – can create dramatic results, including increasing rep productivity by as much as 200%. Our Science Behind Sales Success white paper provides a more detailed look at the effectiveness of this scientific approach.

The Benefits of a Sales Team Assessment

The results from a sales team assessment will not only help you better understand how your team is performing, but will also provide a prioritized game plan to help you improve. For example, if your sales team assessment reveals that your salespeople seem to hit their goals consistently but narrowly, this could indicate a need for a more consultative selling approach, or adjustments to your overall sales process. On the other hand, inconsistent sales and routinely missed sales goals could indicate a need for more training and coaching, as well as improvements to your sales recruiting and hiring process.

Your sales team assessment results should provide you with accurate data on your strengths, clearly defined weaknesses, and help you identify key opportunities for growth.

Identifying Weaknesses and Capitalizing on Strengths

One of the biggest benefits of a comprehensive sales team assessment is identifying the areas of your sales force that may be hindering your overall success. Tools like the Objective Management Group SEIA and Improve use the data collected from individual evaluations to reveal hidden problems in multiple areas, including weaknesses common to your salespeople, problems with your hiring criteria, and business being lost as a result of these challenges. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of the changes that must be made to your sales management systems, and what steps you should take to help your salespeople reach their potential.

A sales team assessment tool will also inform you about your team’s greatest strengths, and show you how to capitalize on those strengths to meet your overall sales and business goals. It’s no secret that people are more effective and productive when they’re able to tap into their natural talents and abilities. Your sales team assessment results will help you uncover those unique individual abilities, learn what motivates your team, and show you strategies for developing a strong sales culture that encourages people to bring their very best.

Developing Goals for the Future

Businesses change rapidly in the modern market, and you need to stay focused on your business strategy while also monitoring your sales team for inconsistencies, declines in performance, or shifting customer trends that may be causing them issues. Do you hire top talent regularly? What type of recruiting strategy do you use to find the best sales representatives? What type of compensation structure do you use to attract and retain top-performing sales reps?

Making business decisions backed by solid data is a great way to move your business forward with increased confidence. If you are curious about potential ways to enhance the effectiveness of your sales team, use our online Sales Readiness Assessment tool for a quick snapshot of your current status. Ready to go deeper? Schedule a consultation for our in-depth Sales Effectiveness and Improvement Analysis service to get a detailed playbook for driving sales effectiveness and performance.

Accelerate New Sales Hire Ramp-Up

Get actional tips to accelerate new hire ramp-up and maximize ROI. 

Many sales organizations have a typical ramp-up time of six months or more for a new sales rep. Reducing the amount of time needed to get new hires up to speed and closing their first sale is key to maximizing an organization’s investment. But how do sales organizations accelerate their new hire ramp up and still ensure their sales reps will be successful? Research shows that a well-defined and comprehensive onboarding program can speed up ramp time and improve performance by 11.5 percent

1.     Define Your Sales Strategy

Objective: Successful new hire ramp-up begins prior to hiring by having a clearly defined sales strategy, processes and tools in place within your sales organization.

Procedure: Identify and set a clear sales strategy for your sales organization. Establish sales goals and metrics. Develop a compensation plan that benefits both your sales rep and your organization. Document the sales process and procedures for generating new leads. Implement effective sales tools.

2.     Hire the Right Candidates

Objective: Effective hiring begins by having an ideal sales candidate profile for which to measure applicants against.

Procedure: Identify your sales candidate profile including education, sales experience, sales performance, sales competencies and behaviors. During your interview process, ask behavioral questions to help assess whether or not the candidate has the skills, attitude and competencies needed for the sales role. Behavioral questions are designed to evaluate a candidate’s suitability based on how they behaved in similar situations in previous positions.

3.     Deliver Comprehensive Sales Training

Objective: Comprehensive sales training sets new hire expectations and enables them to be successful.

Procedure:  Develop a comprehensive training program that includes both instructor-led and online courses. Training should cover a broad range of topics including products and services, tools and systems, and soft-skills they will need while interacting with customers. Sales training should be an ongoing and structured process. Let your new hires know upfront that your organization is committed to their success.

4.     Provide Coaching and Mentoring

Objective: Ongoing coaching and mentoring are vital to motivating and empowering sales reps once their new hire training is complete.

Procedure: Coaching and mentoring provides benefits to both the trainer and the new sales rep. The coach or mentor is given an opportunity to display their knowledge and skill within the company. This creates a sense of empowerment and increases retention for top sales reps. The new sales rep benefits by learning the intricacies of the sales process, inside organizational knowledge and the best way to interact with target customers from an experienced sales rep. Mentoring and coaching take place in a real sales environment with new hires learning the best sales practices. This results in a shortened learning curve and a faster ramp-up.

5.     Create Personal Development Plans

Objective: Provide new sales reps with ongoing feedback on performance goals and metrics to enable them to track their progress, issues and wins.

Procedure: Creating a personal development plan (PDP) provides a roadmap for new sales employees. The plan includes measurable goals and a timeline for achieving those goals. Review the PDP with new hires at specific intervals (30, 60, 90 days) to track how they are performing against sales goals. Sales managers should recognize early wins to reinforce the sales reps’ performance and address any issues to keep them from becoming discouraged.

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These five tips can help your organization accelerate ramp-up times, create motivated sales reps and increase retention. Interested in a thorough evaluation of your talent acquisition and new hire ramp-up process? Revecent can complete an analysis of your company’s hiring and onboarding strategies to identify areas of improvement. Request a consult now and start seeing powerful results.

We help companies get their solutions in the hands of more customers faster with a high-performance sales team built for successContact us today to see how we can help your organization recruit, train, equip and manage your sales force. 

Pre-employment Assessments: Identify Top Candidates, Save Money and Reduce Turnover

Pre-employment sales assessments play an important role in the overall hiring process.

They help organizations identify candidates that are most likely to excel in their sales role. Pre-employment assessments also provide additional benefits like decreasing time and cost in the candidate hiring process, reducing turnover and improving morale. These added benefits are crucial to sales organizations as they are facing an average annual turnover in their sales force of 25 – 30 percent, according to Harvard Business Review. This equates to hiring and training an entire sales organization approximately every four years. Talk about expensive!

There are a variety of pre-employment assessment tests organizations can use to screen potential candidates: personality, cognitive, skills and job knowledge, just to name a few.  According to the HireRight 2016 Annual Employment Screening Benchmark Survey:

“Sixty-five percent of businesses that responded planned to make investments in improving their ability to find qualified job candidates.”

But how do you know which assessment(s) your sales organization should implement? Below are a few tips on how to determine which pre-employment assessments would be best for your sales organization

1.   Valid

Analysis: Pre-employment assessments must be valid for the open sales role.

Methodology: Ensure that tests measure specific job-related abilities or skills. Assessment results should be quantifiable and predict the success or failure of the candidate’s future job performance. Sales organizations should be able to demonstrate that candidates who do well on the test perform well in their sales job, versus those that do not perform well.

2.   Relevant

Analysis: Pre-employment assessments must measure skills, abilities or characteristics that are relevant to the job the candidate is applying for.

Methodology: A simple way for organizations to verify relevancy on a pre-employment assessment is to perform a Job Requirement Analysis against the sales position being filled. Once an analysis has been completed of the objectives, skills and abilities needed to complete the sales role, organizations will be able to quickly identify appropriate and relevant pre-employment tests.

3.   Reliable

Analysis: Pre-employment assessments must provide consistent results.

Methodology: For a pre-employment assessment to be reliable in measuring a specific job skill or ability, a candidate’s score should be consistent each time they take the test. Significant variances in a candidate’s test results decreases the value of the assessment predicting future job performance. 

4.   Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)

Analysis: Pre-employment assessments must meet all EEO laws.

Methodology: Periodically, pre-employment tests are challenged in court. Organizations must verify their tests do not violate local, state or federal EEO laws, including Title VII

These are just a few tips sales organizations should be aware of prior to implementing pre-employment assessments. Revecent’s Sales Consultants can help your organization assess, recruit and optimize sales talent to accelerate revenue growth.

Interested in an evaluation of your organization’s pre-employment assessment process? Revecent can complete an analysis of your sales force hiring strategy to identify areas of strength and areas of opportunities. Request a consult now and start seeing powerful results.

Revecent is a national sales recruiting and sales enablement consulting firm. We help technology and professional service companies recruit and optimize sales talent to accelerate growth. Contact us today to see how we can help your organization’s sales team exceed expectations.

3 Proven Techniques for Assessing Sales Candidates

The hiring process for filling sales positions can be a lengthy and time-consuming process. 

According to a recent study on Global Recruiting Trends by LinkedIn:

“Finding suitable candidates is the biggest obstacle (46 percent) for hiring.”

Thus, the ability to identify early on whether a candidate is ideal for your organization is imperative for saving time and resources. One way to manage this is through screening candidates to identify their potential to fulfill your sales role prior to moving them into the interview process.

Did you know? A recent study of nearly 20,000 businesses

determined 46 percent of all new hires fail within their first

18 months, and 89 percent of the time it’s for attitude not skill.

Below are three screening techniques that can help your organization save time and resources by qualifying candidates and gauging compatibility prior to moving forward.

1.     Attitude Assessment Screening

Approach: During the screening process, ask the candidate what their expectations are for the sales position.

Analysis: Identifying the candidate’s attitude and aptitude for the role is equally as important as uncovering their qualifications or skillsets. Understanding the candidate’s mindset regarding the sales position is critical for ensuring whether or not they will fit into your organization’s culture and sales force. Poor attitudes can be destructive to overall team morale. 

2.     Behavioral Assessment Screening

Approach: Ask the candidate to complete a behavioral profile assessment as part of your organization’s screening process.

Analysis: A behavioral profile can provide your organization with information on how your job candidate will act or respond in different scenarios. The assessment can help identify what motivates a candidate, how they address problems and what their stress triggers are. While there is no one-size-fits-all behavior profile, assessment results can assist in identifying candidates that will mesh well and add value to your sales force. It can also help identify areas to focus on during the onboarding process for the candidate.

3.     Sales Assessment Screening

Approach: As part of your pre-screening interview process, ask your candidates to complete an online Sales Candidate Assessment.

Analysis: A sales candidate assessment can help your organization predict the candidate’s sales performance and role compatibility. Sales assessment data can identify a candidate’s natural selling

ability, communication style, strengths and areas for improvement. Sales managers can use the sales assessment data to provide coaching and guidance for new hires.

Above are just a few examples of screening techniques that can be used to identify the potential in your sales candidates. Revecent’s Sales Enablement Consultants can help your organization assess, recruit and optimize sales talent to accelerate revenue growth. 

Interested in an evaluation of your organization’s candidate screening process? Revecent can complete an analysis of your sales force hiring strategy to identify areas of strength and areas of opportunities.  Request a consult now and start seeing powerful results.Revecent is a national sales recruiting and sales enablement consulting firm. We help technology and professional service companies recruit and optimize sales talent to accelerate growth. Contact us today to see how we can help your organization’s sales team exceed expectations.