There is an increased demand for inside sales reps, and competition for hiring the best reps is more fierce than ever. If you need to build out your sales team quickly, you need to know how to find and attract the best talent. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to go headhunting for industry vets with years of experience. Instead, you should adjust your recruiting strategy to seek out candidates with the greatest potential for success, regardless of their experience levels. Learning how to identify the right candidates can help you to get an edge over the competition for top talent. Here are some key tips on how to recruit successful inside sales reps.
Take the right approach to sales recruiting and training by working with the experts at HireDNA. Contact Us
What Makes A Good Inside Sales Rep?
To succeed in their field, sales representative needs to be intuitive, engaging, competent, confident, resourceful, persuasive, and competitive. Let’s look at some ways you can find and recruit strong candidates for your inside sales team:
Seek Competent Reps
First, you need to ascertain the competency of the individual. Since sales is a field where one is bound to face a lot of rejection, it is important to determine how the individual handles rejection and if they are able to quickly bounce back. Beyond science-backed candidate assessments, a good way to measure this and other competencies is to use situational interview questions.
Another great way to assess a candidate’s selling skills is to ask them to make a sales pitch of your product or to conduct a mock call. This can showcase the candidate’s persuasive skills and how effectively they handle unexpected pressure.
At HireDNA, we have an 80% success rate for sales reps’ hiring and placement. Learn More.
Experience vs Potential
While someone who comes in with a glowing resume may look like an attractive candidate, remember that their track record matters. The world of sales is cutthroat. It requires experienced people who know how to navigate unpleasant situations and handle the pressure while consistently producing results.
That said, experience isn’t necessarily the defining characteristic of a great candidate. You shouldn’t necessarily hire a candidate simply because they have worked in the field for years. Instead, you should work to determine if the candidate has strong sales DNA. Whether or not they have the experience, if they have the right strengths and characteristics, they can be trained to succeed in your organization.
At HireDNA, we use the Objective Management Group (OMG) Sales Candidate Assessment to screen candidates. This is one of the world’s most accurate and predictive assessments. It has a 3rd party validated success rate of 92% of recommended and hired candidates performing at or above expectations.
Hire Candidates with Strong Desire and Commitment
How badly a salesperson wants to succeed in sales can be the deciding factor in their performance. Be sure to find candidates with a strong desire to perform at a high-level and the commitment to do whatever it takes to achieve sales success.
Almost half of prospects are only called once, while 93% of conversions happen by the 6th call: the last thing you need is a salesperson that quits when things get tough. This means that a good salesperson doesn’t only have to be persuasive—they also need to be patient and persistent. It is important to evaluate whether your sales candidate possesses these qualities or not.
If you hire someone who does not demonstrate perseverance in the face of rejection, you might have a demotivated employee on your hands very soon. This individual needs to understand that a few rejections do not equate to failure, and they should be able to learn from past mistakes.
Evaluate the effectiveness of your sales staff by working with HireDNA. We offer comprehensive sales team assessments to find performance gaps and identify opportunities for growth. Learn more.
Make Sure They Are Coachable
Candidates that are coachable will take responsibility for their actions, successful or otherwise. They will agree that there’s room for improvement and will be open to constructive criticism. Candidates that are not coachable may have a hard time implementing new systems and processes and acclimating to your sales environment. This can negatively impact performance and have an adverse impact on your sales culture as well. To determine if a candidate may be coachable ask questions related to their past failures and how they were able to move forward and improve. You can also ask the candidate about their current sales weaknesses and what they are doing to improve.
Gauge Their Listening and Questioning Skills
A good sales representative is someone who can sell consultatively, incorporating active listening and questioning skills to uncover the prospect’s pains and challenges to provide a custom solution to their specific needs. To gauge if your candidate has the right skills, pay attention to factors like the following:
- Are they able to maintain eye contact during the interview?
- Are they easily distracted by background activity?
- Do they keep interrupting you?
- Have they followed instructions throughout the application and interview process?
- Do they ask great follow up questions to get more information?
Find Reps Who Are A Good Culture Fit
There are two types of sales reps you can find: those who work great with a team and those who do their best work alone.
The rep you hire should be able to merge with your company culture and work well with a team—especially if you have a longer sales cycle. On the other end of the spectrum, if your company culture promotes a competitive environment between reps and offers incentives accordingly, a lone wolf might just be the person you’re looking for.
Build A Successful Sales Team
A multi-tiered, efficient hiring process can result in an effective inside sales team that can do wonders for your business. As a leading sales recruiting firm, HireDNA can help you find the right candidates for your company through science-based sales recruiting and training methods. With our services, you can find and hire the right candidate, maximize sales employee performance, and improve retention of top talent.
Get Results Backed By Statistics:
- Increase new hire ramp up 50% faster than industry standards
- 80% of our sales searches result in placement success
- Retain 79% of your sales members with our training program
- 92% of our suggested sales talent achieve success in the industry within a year
- Avoid 96% of hiring and recruitment mistakes
Do you want to hire promising sales talent?