Tag: SALES RECRUITING

Salesperson Turnover is Up 25%: What to Do About It

Posted on by hiredna

It’s an interesting time for sales recruiting. We’re at a point where the worst of the pandemic is over, and things have steadily gotten back to normal, albeit it’s “a new normal.” As you might imagine, this has created some significant changes, with the rise of remote work and video conferencing being some of the biggest.

Besides that, there’s been an alarming rise in salesperson turnover, where it’s up substantially from a couple of years ago. For this post, I’ll examine this trend in-depth to understand why it’s happening and how to respond.

A Sharp Rise, Then Gradual Fall in Unemployment

First, it’s important to understand the context of how things got to their current state. In early to mid-2020, when COVID got into full swing, there was a sharp rise in unemployment. It went from being just under 4% in February 2020 to nearly 15% by April.

At that point, many sales professionals were scrambling to find work, with many making the shift from a brick-and-mortar setting to remote. However, as things began to stabilize, so did the unemployment rate, and by December 2021 it was back to around 4%. This brings me to my next point.

A Surge in Flexible Work and SaaS Companies Hiring Salespeople Outside Their Industry

The backlash of COVID has had far-reaching implications, not all of which are currently known. But two particular changes that have impacted the sales industry are growing flexible work options and SaaS companies hiring outside their industry. With “the genie being out of the bottle” with remote and hybrid work models and stiff competition with high-paying tech companies looking for top talent, it’s created an employee market.

Now that the worst of the pandemic is behind us, salespeople with robust skill sets are looking for the best possible jobs. And this led to another trend — higher turnover.

Salesperson Turnover Increased By 25%

Under normal circumstances, the average salesperson turnover rate hovers around 10%. But that number has more than doubled over the past couple of years.

“One consistent theme we’re seeing,” writes Karin Kimbrough, Chief Economist at LinkedIn is that “workers across the globe are eager for change and are ‘voting with their feet’ by taking their experience and skills to new roles at an accelerated pace. Globally, the share of members changing roles in October was up 25% compared to the pre-pandemic period in October 2019.”

As a result, this has made it far more difficult for companies to retain top sales talent — an issue that can be frustrating and detrimental to their bottom line.

Why Has Salesperson Turnover Increased?

I touched on the reasoning earlier with the increased desire for sales reps to have more flexible work options and higher pay. But let me unpack this a bit more. According to LinkedIn, the three main reasons for increased salesperson turnover are better compensation (54%), better alignment with employee values (48%), and more opportunities to move up (44%).

It’s clear that elite salespeople in 2022 have far more leverage than they did during the height of the pandemic. This combined with the highest inflation rate in 39 years at 7% has basically created a bidding war that shows no signs of stopping any time soon. That’s why salespeople looking for better compensation is the number one reason for high turnover.

Beyond that, the added leverage today’s sales reps have has resulted in them seeking employers that have matching values and more career advancement opportunities.

How to Handle the Spike in Turnover

This begs the question. What exactly should you do about this trend?

The short answer is to make sure you’re offering competitive pay. Recent reports indicate that the average salesperson’s salary in 2022 is around $60,000. However, those in the top 25% earn closer to $89,000. So that’s a pretty good range to aim for when deciding how much to pay new hires.

Keep in mind, though, that the salesperson’s salary outlook has increased significantly since 2010, so you’ll likely need to keep raising it steadily as time goes on. Besides that, it’s helpful to offer the right benefits, as this can serve as an added incentive to pull in the best and brightest in your industry. I wrote a post about the top 10 benefits today’s salespeople are looking for based on concrete data, and that’s a great starting point.

Here’s an overview for reference.

But what if offering a high salary just isn’t an option?

In that case, I recommend focusing on two key areas as selling points — schedule flexibility and advancement opportunities. With many of today’s top salespeople valuing remote working arrangements, a healthy work-life balance, and the chance for growth, this can be very appealing and give your brand a competitive edge.

Wrapping Up

COVID turned the world on its head in more ways than one. And we’re still feeling the aftershocks long after the pandemic reached its peak.

The bottom line is that salesperson turnover has reached record highs in 2022 and won’t likely change any time soon. But with the right game plan and an understanding of what top reps are looking for, you should still be able to hire elite talent, and more importantly, retain them.

Looking to hire better sales talent faster? See how HireDNA can help using intelligent matching and science-based assessments. 92% of candidates recommended by HireDNA climb to the top of their sales force within the first year and turnover is lowered by an average of 33%.

Only 16% of Salespeople Have Skills for Current and Future Roles: Why You Should Focus on Long-Term Sales Recruiting

Posted on by hiredna

When you break it all down, there are two fundamental approaches to sales recruiting. One is to bake turnover into your recruiting strategy where you only think short-term and continually replace salespeople with little to no potential for internal growth. The other is a long-term sales recruiting strategy where you focus on finding quality talent with the end goal of internal promotion, providing a framework for rock stars to rise through the ranks.

For this post, I’ll explain why long-term sales recruiting is usually the best option, especially in today’s current sales recruiting climate. I’ll also provide specific tips on how to successfully adopt this approach.

Illuminating Data from Gartner

In a 2020 HR and recruiting study, technology research firm Gartner uncovered that only a small number of new sales hires are equipped with the skills for long-term growth. “Organizations are struggling to hire quality talent as only 16% of new hires possess the needed skills for both their current role and the future,” Gartner explains.

This means that for every 10 sales reps you hire, less than two will realistically have the ability to level up in their role and take on a more demanding position such as a sales manager or account executive. While that may be fine if you’re only looking for salespeople for limited roles and aren’t concerned with internal growth, it can be quite vexing if you’re hoping to create a rich culture with an emphasis on internal promotion.

In other words, this data shows that many companies end up “spinning their wheels” where they’re unable to successfully move salespeople up the ladder. Instead, they often get stuck in an endless cycle of hiring entry to mid-level reps who hang around for a while and eventually leave with no major progress occurring. As a result, these companies struggle with turnover and basically plateau without reaching their full potential.

So what’s the solution?

Taking a Long-Term Sales Recruiting Approach

It boils down to making a fundamental change in your sales recruiting approach. Rather than simply finding salespeople who match what you’re currently looking for in an entry to mid-level position, you need to think long-term and look for candidates with the potential for serious growth.

“To hire quality talent, recruiting leaders must shift their strategies from replacing the workforce to instead shaping the workforce,” Gartner writes. Recruiters “that excel in these workforce-shaping behaviors see a 24% increase in quality of hire.” And “high-quality talent can have a significant impact on business outcomes, including individuals who successfully perform in their roles 20% faster and teams that get a 19% boost in their ability to meet future challenges.”

For the rest of this post, I’ll explain exactly how to go about that.

3 Key Strategies for Long-Term Sales Recruiting

1. Clearly Define “Big Picture” Skills

It starts by first creating a robust sales candidate profile that focuses on both short and long-term objectives. Here’s an example.

Say you’re currently looking for a talented salesperson who possesses fundamental skills like establishing and building rapport with customers, successfully performing product demos, resolving customer complaints, and so on. However, you’re also looking for someone who has the talent for long-term growth as a sales manager later on down the road.

In that case, you would want to add additional skills to your sales candidate profile such as strong leadership, strategic planning, comprehensive CRM knowledge, and analytical abilities. Here are some other examples.

That way, whoever you hire should be equipped with the skills to grow beyond their initial role and be a bigger asset to your company.

2. Expand Beyond Your Traditional Talent Pool

Another way today’s companies get themselves in trouble is only targeting sales candidates using their traditional talent pool. But this approach can be limiting, especially in our globalized world where remote work has become ubiquitous. If your current sales recruiting strategies feel a little stale, it’s time to expand beyond and tap into other resources.

HireDNA, for example, is a helpful tool for filling your pipeline with qualified sales candidates at all levels. It uses innovative techniques like sourcing top talent from a massive network of top-level candidates, intelligent matching based on 20 key data points, and science-based assessments involving 21 core selling competencies.

Instead of limiting yourself to a small, local talent pool, HireDNA can help you connect with elite salespeople from all over the country.

3. Create a Strong, Adaptive EVP

In a recent blog post, I explained how to build a rock-solid employee value proposition (EVP). Simply put, this is a mix of the benefits, rewards, perks, recognition, support, and overall value you offer to your salespeople. And an EVP is something that’s absolutely vital to maximizing retention and creating an atmosphere for long-term growth.

If you haven’t done so already, I recommend reading that post to learn the ins and outs of constructing a winning EVP. Also, be sure to continually adapt with your EVP, ensuring it’s responsive and nimble enough to change as the sales recruiting climate inevitably changes.

Winning at Long-Term Sales Recruiting

I was personally a little surprised to find out that only 16% of new hires have what it takes to expand into future roles. This lack of talent and skillset in the vast majority of candidates imposes inherent limitations on sales recruiters and shows that the current game plan many companies use is insufficient for promoting strong internal growth.

By implementing the three strategies listed above, however, you should be able to create a better pipeline of sales talent who can grow alongside you.

Want to know more about how HireDNA uses cutting-edge technology to find A+ sales talent? Reach out to us today.

How to Build a Rock-Solid Employee Value Proposition

Posted on by hiredna

A well-crafted employee value proposition, or EVP, can have a huge impact on sales recruiting and retention. Recent data found it can improve new hire commitment by as much as 29% and lower turnover by 69%. Further, it increases the chances of a salesperson becoming a brand advocate where they help recruit other A+ candidates by up to 47%.

In this post, I’ll explain everything you need to know in order to build a rock-solid employee value proposition so you can attract and retain top-tier talent in your industry.

What Exactly is an Employee Value Proposition?

Definitions vary somewhat depending on who you ask. Traditionally, it’s been thought of as the benefits, rewards, and perks an employee gets in return for offering their skills, experience, and expertise to a company. However, in the modern context, it can extend into other areas, such as the recognition, support, culture, and overall well-being an employer offers to salespeople.

I think this pyramid by Mercer Thrive Research illustrates it perfectly.

Regardless of how you define it, the core purpose of an employee value proposition is to let sales candidates know what’s in it for them. And it’s designed to maximize their potential and encourage them to operate at their peak.

EVP Examples

In terms of conventional benefits, here’s an example from Gingr, a company that sells “user-friendly dog daycare, kennel, and grooming software.”

As for other areas such as support, culture, and so on, here’s an example from data platform Splunk.

The Step-By-Step Process for Creating an EVP

Now that we know exactly what an employee value proposition is and why it’s important, here’s a simple formula you can use to build your own EVP from scratch.

Tally Up Your Selling Points

First, I suggest “doing inventory” of what you have to offer that would be of interest to potential sales candidates. Start with the fundamental quantifiable selling points like competitive salary, health insurance, PTO, holiday pay, and so on. Then, move on to the less quantifiable benefits, such as career advancement opportunities, an amazing culture, and the chance to work with other innovative professionals.

This will serve as a rough draft that you can refine later on, which brings me to my next point.

Get Your Existing Employees’ Input

A big part of nailing your EVP is putting yourself in a salesperson’s shoes. Even though most recruiters have a decent understanding of what’s appealing to candidates, even a small rift can marginalize your efforts. That’s why I suggest getting input straight from the horse’s mouth — your existing employees.

Here are some potential questions to ask to gain insights:

  • Why did you choose our company?
  • What’s your favorite part of working here?
  • What does our company offer over others you’ve worked for in the past that stands out to you?
  • What are your favorite benefits?
  • What are some benefits we don’t currently offer that you’d like to have?
  • What are the best aspects of our culture?
  • Do you feel there’s a genuine opportunity for growth?
  • What type of support could we offer to improve your working experience?

Side note: Besides helping with the construction of your EVP, these insights can help you improve operations in general and address small issues before they escalate.

Collect Data from Exit Interviews

Another way to get valuable information is from exit interviews where you find out what prompted salespeople to seek different positions. Asking a few basic questions such as the following should help you get a feel:

  • What did you like most about your job?
  • What did you like least?
  • What motivated you to find another position?
  • What does our company do well in terms of providing value for employees?
  • What could we improve on?

Synthesize Your Findings

Once you’ve tallied up your selling points, gotten feedback from current employees, and added data from exit interviews, you should have everything you need to go on. At this point, you’ll want to synthesize your findings to pinpoint A) what you’re already doing well and B) potential areas for improvement. From there, it’s just a matter of using this information to create a realistic employee value proposition.

You may, for example, want to emphasize that you offer higher than average salary, outstanding health insurance, remote work opportunities, leadership development, and so on. For inspiration, I recommend checking out HubSpot’s Sales Careers page. It’s an amazing resource that provides a detailed overview of HubSpot’s EVP and addresses everything potential candidates would want to know in one convenient area.

There’s the “How we work” section, which explains how HubSpot sets its salespeople up for success.

There’s also a “benefits” section that highlights the exhaustive perks of working for HubSpot.

So with just a little browsing, sales candidates can get up to speed and see why HubSpot is a software company to seriously consider. While you don’t necessarily need to create as extensive a resource as this (and it may not make sense if you only hire occasionally), this shows how impactful a quality EVP can be.

Improving Recruiting and Retention with an Employee Value Proposition

There’s no lack of sales jobs out there. In fact, the sales industry is booming more than ever post-COVID, which means quality candidates have plenty of choices. That’s why it’s so important to stand out from the rest of the pack and show candidates what you bring to the table — something that can be done by building a great EVP.

Learn how HireDNA can help you attract and retain A+ sales talent while cutting your hiring time in half by using intelligent matching and science-based assessments. 92% of suggested candidates ascend to the top of the sales force within just one year.

70% of Job Seekers Use Google: How to Optimize Job Posts for Search

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I don’t need to tell you how ubiquitous search engines are in our daily lives. 93% of online experiences start with a search engine, and they’re used for just about everything, including finding a job. While there are countless search engines available ( about 160 worldwide as of 2020), Google is, hands down, the indisputable leader. In fact, a whopping 70% of people use Google to search for a job. To ensure qualified candidates can find you, it’s essential to optimize job posts for search, which I’ll explain how to do in-depth in this post.

Understand Google’s Logic

First, it’s important to have a basic understanding of how Google decides which job posts to display prominently and how their algorithm works from a recruiting perspective. There are, of course, countless variables and complexities, but recruiting expert Mortiz Kothe explains the nuts and bolts of it by saying the following:

“Google for Jobs works by pulling in job postings from a wide range of sources and choosing which ones to display. Those sources include company career pages and over 70 job boards, such as Monster, LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, and CareerBuilder. Google for Jobs filters through all those sources and chooses just one listing per job post.”

He then goes on to say that Google uses the exact same information found on job boards and boils it down to a single job post, which is why “posting the same job on multiple job boards is now a waste of money” — at least if your primary goal is getting found by sales candidates on Google.

The bottom line here is that Google chooses just one of your job ads to post on their network. So there’s no use posting on several job boards because your exposure will be the same.

Include Critical SEO Information

After performing a ton of research and from personal experience, I can tell you that optimizing job posts for Google is pretty straightforward when compared to optimizing an entire website. With the latter, there are a mind-bending number of elements you need to address such as keywords, meta tags, internal links, external links, URLs, headers, and so on. But with job ads, they’re fairly minimal.

SHRM breaks it down to the essentials, which include:

  • Name of the brand posting the job
  • Job title
  • Job description, including responsibilities, qualifications, skills, working hours, education, and experience requirements
  • Job posting date
  • Location information for the job including full address
  • The expiration date for the job posting

Beyond that, they recommend including:

  • “The unique identifier for the job, usually the requisition number from the ATS
  • The type of employment—whether full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.
  • Base salary information in either a lump sum or range, including currency type and frequency of pay period”

As long as your job ad has this information, you should be in good shape, and it will give Google everything they need.

Connect Your Job Ad

Today’s recruiters have a significant advantage over those of the past because of one specific tool — Job Search on Google.

With it, you can connect your job postings to make sure they appear on Google. And it offers all the resources you need to do that. There are two ways to go about it. You can post from your website and use structured data that integrates with Google. Or, you can see if the third-party job board you use participates in the job search experience on Google.

If you post from your website, simply click on “Get started”…

and you’ll be directed to a page called “Add structured data to job postings.”

There they explain how to add structured data step-by-step and provide helpful tips to ensure your job ads get indexed.

You’ll also find a link to their job posting content policies and a Rich Results Test so you can see how the structured data would look in Google search results. Basically, everything you need to know is there.

If, however, you’re using a third-party job board like Monster, LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, or CareerBuilder, you’ll want to check with them to confirm that they’re participating. ZipRecruiter, for example, has integrated with Google and saw 4.5x growth after doing so.

If the job board doesn’t participate, I suggest switching to a different one that does because it’s going to be difficult to gain any real traction with Google otherwise.

Follow SEO Best Practices

The last piece of the puzzle to optimize job posts for search is being aware of SEO best practices. If you’re familiar with regular SEO for optimizing websites, this should be straightforward, as there’s a lot of overlap.

These best practices include:

  • Performing keyword research to find keywords with a high search volume and low competition ( You can use the Google Keyword Planner for this)
  • Target those keywords by using them in the job title and peppering them throughout (without making it feel spammy)
  • Use bulleted lists (these make for easy skimming for job candidates, and Google loves them)
  • Include your location and salary as I mentioned earlier
  • Write simple, clear job listings, and avoid verbose industry jargon

I personally learn the best by looking at examples. That’s why I also recommend typing in a keyword phrase your target candidate would likely search for and check out the results. This will let you see what top-ranking companies are doing so you can mimic their approach. For example, after entering “saas sales representative jobs washington dc,” here’s what popped up.

And here’s what the first job ad looked like.

Optimize Job Posts for Search to Connect with Quality Candidates

With 7 out of 10 sales candidates turning to Google to look for jobs, it’s never been more important to maximize your exposure on this search engine powerhouse. While there’s no magic bullet, following the formula outlined above should give you the absolute best chance of ranking well. And that, in turn, should help you connect with quality candidates that can be assets to your organization.

Looking to fill your pipeline with A+ candidates quickly? Learn how HireDNA uses leading technology and science-based assessments to attract top sales candidates, with 92% reaching the top of their sales force within their first year.

4 of the Biggest Sales Recruiting Challenges in 2022 (And How to Overcome Them)

Posted on by hiredna

Let’s be honest. Finding quality salespeople has never been easy, and sifting a pile of resumes (the average position receives 118 applications), can be onerous. But 2022 has its own unique sales recruiting challenges that must be addressed.

In this post, I’ll break them down one-by-one based on recent data and provide actionable strategies on how to overcome them.

An Overview of the Top Sales Recruiting Challenges

In a joint study between LinkedIn and Jobvite, experts pinpointed a list of specific sales recruiting challenges based on feedback they received from recruiters. Here’s what their findings looked like.

Now let’s unpack the data from top to bottom.

1. New Hires Lacking Soft Skills

Above all else, a lack of soft skills among new hires is the number one challenge sales recruiters face in 2022 at 89%. This is something I covered in detail in my last post where I mentioned that hard skills are fairly easy to identify and quantify. But this isn’t usually the case with soft skills. In particular, soft skills like communication, collaboration, empathy, and rapport-building have been historically difficult to gauge.

Up until recently, most sales recruiters have simply relied on basic behavioral assessments and reading body language to analyze soft skills. But, unfortunately, that’s not always sufficient. Some ways to address this issue, however, are to first identify a handful of vital soft skills and make them your key areas of focus when recruiting.

There are also a few pieces of technology you can use to objectively analyze candidates. One example is eSkill which is ideal for assessing emotional intelligence such as communication and collaboration. Another is a sales recruiting platform like HireDNA which analyzes “sales DNA competencies” including emotional control, supportive beliefs, and the ability to handle rejection.

From there, HireDNA will provide you with a list of qualified sales candidates that are interview-ready.

2. Hiring Salespeople Who Didn’t First Appear to Fit

The second biggest challenge involves selecting candidates that didn’t initially seem to be assets to a company. According to the study, “77% of recruiters go back and hire candidates who at first didn’t appear to be a fit.” The issue is coming up with an effective way of pinpointing individuals who slipped through the cracks at first and incentivizing them to come on board.

As I mentioned in another article, there’s a small window of just 10 days on average in which you have to hire elite talent. After that, most have already found another position. So to be fully transparent, there will be many cases where the ship has already sailed and it’s simply too late.

That said, reaching out to quality candidates as soon as you realize their potential can sometimes lead to a hire. I also suggest focusing on the following incentives, if possible, as data shows they are the main things that attract candidates to new organizations.

3. Candidates Changing Their Minds

Here’s one of the sales recruiting challenges that can really drive companies crazy. You find A+ talent and get something lined up only to have a candidate change their mind at the last minute. And it’s an issue that happens more than you may think with 75% of sales recruiters saying they’ve experienced it at some point.

While there’s no magic bullet for ensuring this never happens to you, there are a few ways to reduce the likelihood of candidates changing their minds. First, be sure you have adequate incentives in place — ones that specifically zero in on what attracts candidates to a company (see the graphic above I just mentioned). Next, provide candidates with a clear outline of what the onboarding process looks like and make it as streamlined as possible. Third, maintain close communication with candidates from the start, making sure to “read their digital body language” so you can address any potential problems before they escalate.

Besides that, it’s helpful to have at least one backup in place just in case someone drops out unexpectedly.

4. Finding Quality Entry-Level Sales Reps

Finally, there’s the issue of attracting entry-level candidates, with 41% of companies saying these are the hardest positions to fill. Two main reasons why it’s notoriously difficult are because 1) entry-level positions don’t usually pay as much as more experienced positions and 2) candidates often lack the ideal skill set and experience a recruiter is looking for.

So what do you do about it?

When it comes to the pay, I suggest thoroughly analyzing what your competitors are offering for similar positions and either match or exceed it, if possible. You can find more information on current salesperson salaries here.

If that’s just not possible, here are some potential workarounds:

  • Offer plenty of advancement opportunities giving entry-level salespeople the chance to progress
  • Create an amazing culture, and emphasize it in your recruiting
  • Offer flexible work schedules and remote working opportunities as this tends to be effective for recruiting younger reps

As for addressing the issue of limited skill set, it’s all about finding the diamonds in the rough. This, of course, is easier said than done as many candidates will have minimal experience, but there are tools that can help. HireDNA, for instance, can come in handy here because it can be used to objectively screen candidates and predict their likelihood of success. In turn, it’s much easier to identify candidates that will thrive in your specific sales environment.

Overcoming Today’s Unique Sales Recruiting Challenges

To recap, here are the top challenges for sales recruiters in 2022:

  • Candidates lacking soft skills – 89%
  • Hiring candidates who didn’t first appear to fit – 77%
  • Candidates changing their minds – 75%
  • Filling entry-level positions – 41%

While these can be tricky to navigate, each problem has a corresponding solution, and implementing the right one should help your company thrive in today’s recruiting climate. To learn more about how HireDNA can help you select elite talent in your industry, get in touch with us today.

89% of Recruiting Experts Say Bad Sales Hires Lack These Skills

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Selecting salespeople based on hard skills is pretty straightforward. You see that a candidate clearly has the quantifiable abilities and experience required for a sales position, and often, you can easily verify it. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for the other type of skills I’ll discuss in this post — soft skills.

According to an in-depth study by LinkedIn, 89% of recruiting experts say there’s a common denominator between most bad sales hires. They lack the right soft skills.

LinkedIn’s Findings Behind Bad Sales Hires

In 2019, LinkedIn performed an exhaustive report where they surveyed over 5,000 talent professionals across 35 countries and analyzed comprehensive behavioral data. One of the primary areas they focused on was soft skills, as they found that it was the number one trend transforming the workplace that year. In fact, 91% of talent professionals agreed that soft skills were “very important” to the future of recruiting.

Going one step further, LinkedIn wanted to determine the impact soft skills had on the long-term success of candidates that were hired. And it turned out that the impact was quite immense, with their data finding a lack of soft skills to be a key contributor to most bad sales hires.

According to their findings, only 11% of recruiting experts said bad sales hires lack hard skills. However, 45% said they lack soft skills, and 44% said they lack both soft and hard skills. Put that all together, and 89% of recruiters said bad hires lack soft skills.

Why Soft Skills Are So Important in Sales

As you probably know, there is a wide range of factors that determine how successful someone is at selling. Obviously, having hard skills like product knowledge, knowing how to use a CRM, and performing sales demos is important. But this doesn’t always translate into success. To truly predict how good a candidate will be at their job, you need to see the big picture and also take soft skills into account.

Some examples include:

  • Collaboration
  • Communication
  • Rapport-building
  • Empathy
  • Quick problem-solving

Beyond that, it’s important for a salesperson to be nimble and think on their feet. You could even argue that having a certain level of likability is critical to building relationships and winning over customers. But there’s a problem.

Assessing Soft Skills is Notoriously Difficult

As I mentioned earlier, evaluating a candidate’s hard skills is fairly simple. A quick glance at their resume, for example, will usually give you a basic idea of what they bring to the table. You can also have them perform a test on their product knowledge, see how well they understand a particular business platform, perform a mock product demo, and so on.

“Identifying poor soft skills, however, is much harder, which is why they’re often discovered too late, after a hire has been made,” LinkedIn explains. “But as the data shows, bad hires are almost never a matter of hard skills alone.”

The main issue sales recruiters run into is that they lack a formal approach for assessing soft skills. In fact, 68% say they rely on basic behavioral questions or simply reading body language. “She seemed upbeat, so she’s probably a good collaborator; he seemed nervous, so he’s probably not a good leader. The problem is that these perceptions aren’t predictive, and worse, they’re often unconsciously biased.”

Given the inherent limitations of this commonly used approach, it’s unsurprising that so many sales recruiters struggle to accurately gauge soft skills in candidates. This brings me to my final point.

How to Effectively Evaluate Soft Skills

Given how tricky it’s been historically, how exactly should you go about assessing soft skills in sales candidates?

Here’s a four-step system that I feel is highly effective:

  1. Identify essential soft skills – Pinpoint four or five specific skills that are a must for being a successful salesperson at your company and make them a top priority when recruiting.
  2. Leverage assessment tools – Back in the day, recruiters had to primarily rely on behavioral cues and body language, but now there are several objective tools like eSkill and Pymetrics that can provide you with quantifiable data. eSkill, for instance, allows you to measure emotional intelligence to ensure candidates have a high level of communication and collaboration.
  3. Be aware of unconscious bias – LinkedIn found that unconscious bias often gets in the way of recruiters assessing candidates. You may, for example, be inclined to like a particular candidate because they have a similar personality as you. But keeping this in mind can help steer you away from this issue.
  4. Standardize your interview process – “Train interviewers to ask a standard set of questions suited to the skills you’re targeting. This allows you to easily compare evaluations, even if they’re done by different interviewers.”

Beyond that, many companies can benefit from using a sales recruiting platform like HireDNA. It uses science-based assessments that look at core selling competencies like motivation, desire, and coachability to predict success and can quantify what used to be unquantifiable.

Avoiding Bad Sales Hires

Having the right mix of hard and soft skills is critical to making good hires and building a strong team of salespeople. Unfortunately, the latter is more difficult to evaluate and has created a consistent problem for many brands over the years. Further, nearly 9 out of 10 recruiting experts say bad hires lack soft skills.

While assessing soft skills will, admittedly, always be trickier than assessing hard skills, it’s certainly possible. And the four-step process outlined above should help.

To learn more about HireDNA and how it can dramatically improve your sales recruiting, reach out to us today. 92% of candidates recommended through this platform become top performers within a year.

How to Avoid Costly Sales Rep Hiring Mistakes

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Hiring salespeople is typically among a company’s largest budget items, and the cost of a bad hire is immense. The average cost of a bad sales hire is more than $115,000, while the cost of a bad sales management hire can reach as high as  $3.5 million, as outlined in our recent blog post on hiring effective sales managers.

These numbers represent average costs; you can use this free Hiring Mistake Calculator to determine your organization’s specific bad hire impact, including your cost of recruitment, development and lost business.

And that’s strictly from a mathematical perspective – the overall impact is compounded when you factor in the loss of resources devoted to the bad hire, lowered team morale and performance, and the damage to your brand reputation among your clients and prospects. 

In this blog post, we examine why the wrong sales reps are hired so often, and what smart sales leaders are doing to reduce the risk and impact of hiring mistakes.

Wrong People Are Hired 77% of the Time

According to a recent evaluation by Objective Management Group (OMG), the wrong salespeople are hired 77% of the time. According to OMG, these bad hires: 

  • Make excuses for their lack of performance (60%)
  • Lack commitment to sales success (37%)
  • Are not motivated to achieve sales success (20%)

How to Avoid a Bad Sales Hire

When OMG compared data between all salespeople and the lowest-performing 50%, they found that the most significant differentiator among “good” and “bad” hires was their Sales DNA – the unique set of  traits and behaviors that influence a rep’s performance. 97% of weak salespeople lack the minimum required Sales DNA for success in their roles. 

In a detailed white paper exploring the science behind salesperson selection, OMG outlined five key components of a rep’s Sales DNA that signal a potential bad hire: 

  • Need to Be Liked – While it’s important for a sales rep to be likable, reps who demonstrate a need for approval usually have difficulty facing potential challenges like confrontation, rejection, and asking tough but necessary questions.
  • Tendency to Become Emotional – Reps with higher emotional involvement may struggle to listen and remain focused on the prospect, which can result in missing important details or losing control of a conversation.
  • Self-Limiting Beliefs – Ineffective sales reps exhibit a number of self-limiting beliefs that can sabotage their selling process, such as “I don’t like making cold calls” or “It’s impolite to ask a lot of questions.”
  • Bad Empathy – Sales reps who make their own major purchases using a non-supportive buy cycle (comparison shopping, heavy research, long decision timeframes, etc.) are more likely to empathize with prospects who engage in the same behavior, and are less effective at helping prospects move forward with the purchase decision.
  • Discomfort Discussing Money – When sales reps are uncomfortable asking questions about budget or a prospect’s financial position, they are unable to ask the necessary questions or make suggestions on solving potential budget-related objections.

Science-based sales assessments that identify a candidate’s Sales DNA, along with other sales competencies, can help sales leaders determine a candidate’s likelihood of success before making a costly hiring mistake. 

Build A Winning Sales Team

At HireDNA, we offer a range of science-based recruiting and assessment solutions for companies looking to hire and retain top sales talent. We help sales leaders determine candidates’ Sales DNA, among other competencies, and avoid costly hiring mistakes.

Why Choose Us?                

  • Our predictive candidate assessments eliminate 96% of hiring mistakes
  • Businesses hire 50% faster when they work with us
  • We have an 80% success rate for placements across organizations

Secrets To Sell Your Company To Prospective Employees

Posted on by hiredna

As the labor market tightens, companies are in search of new recruitment tactics that can attract top sales talent to come work for them. It’s easy to get caught up in what candidates have to offer, but the key to successful hiring lies in making the right offer. That’s because top tier candidates want to hear what makes your company the best place to work. In this post, we’ll teach you key strategies to sell your company to prospective employees so you can attract the best talent to your organization.

At HireDNA, our recruiting experts can help you attract, hire, and retain the perfect candidates for your company. Learn More.

Start By Setting Clear Expectations

Securing jobs is no longer as important for candidates your company is likely looking to hire. Unlike their older counterparts, millennials tend to look at their jobs as a form of advancement in their careers—just another stepping stone. According to a Gallup Report, 87% of Millennials said career growth was an essential factor in their job search. The bottom line? Prospective candidates want to know how they benefit from working for you.

To attract top talent, employers should outline the recruits’ learning journey at the company at the outset of the hiring process. Have an honest conversation on what resources your organization will provide for their learning and development. Talk to them about the nature of their work and the room for growth in the near future.   

Be Transparent

Be transparent about your hiring process. 83% of candidates say their experience would improve if employers gave a timeline of their employee acquisition processes. In a time where companies are competing to secure skilled candidates, being transparent can help retain candidate interest in your offering.

Distinguish Your Company Culture

Your work culture is a reflection of your company’s vision and values. Luckily, it’s also a marketable facet of your business as a workplace. Your company culture should attract candidates that would be an excellent fit for your work environment and repel those who seem unlikely to flourish.

It’s important to establish your culture through channels such as your company website and social platforms. Use social media to give future employees an inside look into what your company represents and create more transparency into how it functions.  

Remember, you’re selling a vision of where your company is and where you’re going. Help candidates see how your company culture will help them thrive. Aligning your company’s goals with your candidate’s goals will attract better talent.  

Revamp Your Employment Brand

Did you know that a poor company reputation can cost you approximately 10% more per hire? Your employee brand tells fresh hires precisely what they’re getting into and could help to strengthen the idea that your company as the ideal workplace for them.

Employment branding isn’t just renewing your company logo or boosting your advertising. Your employment brand needs to be just as strong as your consumer brand, and you won’t find better ambassadors for your company than your employees! Empower your employees to become brand ambassadors, engage them in your business, and inspire a commitment to your company mission.

Manage your employment brand, so it increases the value recruits see in working for you. Address poor reviews on employment sites like Glassdoor, touch up your LinkedIn profiles, and always put your best face forward as an employer.

Personalize Your Hiring Process

Accepting your job offer is an extremely important decision for job candidates. They have much to consider:

  • Will they have to relocate to come work for you?
  • How does your job affect their family?
  • Does it mean they spend less time at home?
  • What if they’re leaving a job? Will your company match any benefits they are giving up?

Candidates may consider refusing your offer because a job with you might render them unable to fulfill personal commitments. Recruiting teams must realize that their candidates have other options. You need to know what you’re up against, and how to make counteroffers that recruits simply can’t ignore. Ask the right questions regarding compensation needs and work closely with candidates to outline a competitive offer that they can’t refuse.

Build A Winning Sales Team

At HireDNA, we offer a range of solutions for businesses looking to hire and retain top talent. Our expert sales recruiters can help you find top talent, assess candidates, evaluate your current talent pool, and more.

Why Choose Us?                

  • Our predictive candidate assessments eliminate 96% of hiring mistakes
  • Businesses hire 50% faster when they work with us
  • We have an 80% success rate for placements across organizations

Ready to hire the best salespeople for your company?

Contact Us

Offer Stage Recruitment Tips to Win Over Top Candidates

Posted on by hiredna

Sales organizations are always on the lookout for standout reps that can boost their team’s performance. These exceptional individuals bring a proven track record of success, a wealth of experience and a role model presence to your team that positively affects the entire organization.

While recruiting top sales reps is a unique challenge on its own, the offer stage represents the last hurdle before you get them on board. Some recruiters mistake the offer stage as a mere formality, assuming the deal is already closed. Instead, it is arguably the most important stage where the candidate will make their final choice. Here are some offer stage recruitment tips to help you win over top candidates.

Do away with guesswork and hire the best candidates for your organization based on a data-backed predictive hiring system. Get in touch with a HireDNA sales recruiting expert today.

4 Offer Stage Tips For Top Candidates

If a candidate makes it to the offer stage, it means that they have been vetted, interviewed and passed all relevant organizational checks. Now is the time to close the deal effectively, and you should be well prepared. Here are some tips that can help increase your odds of attracting the best sales talent available.

Highlight The Details Behind Your Offer

Many times, sales managers simply parrot the offer details without attempting to extrapolate the value behind it and lend insight as to how your offer can truly benefit the candidate.

Simply repeating what you have been told by your HR manager is less likely to impress a top candidate that may very well have several other offers on their desk. Instead, you should take the time to help them understand the nuances behind the offer. For instance, if equity is involved, it is your duty to help the candidate understand the value of the equity being offered. Beyond the routine discussion involving vesting cycles and benefits, try to highlight how your offer can work toward their benefit down the line.

Of course, it’s important to have a detailed and realistic compensation plan available to walk the candidate through. Top candidates will want to know how existing reps are performing against targets and will want a clear roadmap for achieving success. No candidate wants to sign up for a role with unrealistic expectations.

Partner With Human Resources

Highly talented salespeople know their worth and often have the freedom to choose between several organizations. When seeking a new opportunity, the culture, onboarding process, and career growth opportunities are some of the commonplace concerns top sales reps share.

Partnering with your hiring manager or human resource manager can allow you to have a knowledgeable aid by your side who can answer pertinent questions with ease. They can help to elaborate on the individual growth prospects available at your organization and other key benefits available.

Eliminate hiring mistakes and improve retention rates with our proven hiring tools. Learn More.

Don’t Go Overboard

Asking too many questions, making too many calls or scheduling too many interviews are all signs of an organization going overboard with their recruitment process. Hiring top sales talent is a priority for many companies—and once you get to the offer stage, you are more likely to anticipate the deal as good as done. However, as the candidate is nearing their decision, they may become increasingly observant of their (potential) next employer.

Excessively nagging them to conduct multiple touchpoints will not only convey your organization as desperate but may adversely affect the candidate’s decision to stick with their current employer or go with another opportunity. Furthermore, asking repetitive questions regarding their desired role or salary can also work against you. You may come across as unsure, or unwilling—and when you’re aiming to recruit top sales talent, such ambiguity can work against you.

We recommend no more than three steps to the interview process before extending an offer. Any more is overkill. If you thoroughly screen candidates before the interview and use a sales specific assessment to predict compatibility and success, there’s no reason you need more than three interviews to make a decision. In today’s low unemployment market, you risk losing top talent to an overly complex, long, and unproductive interview process. 

Don’t Start From Your Lowest

The modern business world is highly competitive, and every company can benefit from having a high performing salesperson. Once you’ve found a top candidate and have managed to hold on to them until the offer-stage, don’t risk losing them because your offer couldn’t match their ambition.

Many organizations still deploy the age-old tactic of lowballing. However, there is one major flaw in this strategy—it doesn’t work with modern salespeople. Modern salespeople know their worth. By offering them a low starting offer, you are signaling that you don’t value them as much.

The best strategy is to present what you think is the strongest possible offer and elaborate on why you think it is right. It is important to remember that top sales talent may not be actively pursuing a new opportunity, so your offer needs to have the persuasive element that eases their decision in your favor.

There are online resources like salary.com that will provide insights on competitive comp plans. A good recruiting firm will also have data they can share and will identify each candidate’s desired comp in the screening process to help you determine what a competitive offer looks like. 

Build A Highly Talented Sales Team

Recruiting and retaining top sales talent is one of the greatest challenges sales managers face. HireDNA offers you a modern approach to the hiring process with our data-backed, scientific technology that allows you to discover top candidates, eliminate hiring mistakes, decrease onboarding ramp-up times, and grow your sales potential!

Why Choose Us?

  • 80% placement success
  • 79% candidate retention
  • 50% faster new hire ramp-up

CONTACT US