The 3 Best SaaS Sales Candidate Screening Tools (And Their Key Features)

Bad hires, unfortunately, happen more frequently than most SaaS sales recruiters would like. According to research, 74% of recruiters say they’ve hired the wrong rep at some point. And with the average cost of a bad hire being at least 30% of the salesperson’s first-year annual income, it can be highly detrimental. That’s where SaaS sales candidate screening tools come in.

By using the right software, you can effectively filter through a candidate pool to find the cream of the crop while also saving a ton of time and money. Here are my top three picks for the absolute best SaaS sales candidate screening tools.

1. HireDNA

HireDNA is all about taking a scientific, data-driven approach to SaaS sales recruiting to ensure the best possible matches while avoiding common friction points. First, HireDNA evaluates your company’s unique hiring needs, goals, selling requirements, selling environment, culture, and more to create a digital profile of the perfect candidate.

Next, it uses cutting-edge technology to tap into a massive national network of hundreds of thousands of elite SaaS sales professionals. From there, HireDNA uses in-depth screening to objectively evaluate each potential candidate’s abilities based on your exact candidate profile to see how well they match. Candidates that receive a match score of 75% or higher are then qualified to ensure an ultra-high level of compatibility.

At that point, each eligible candidate is asked to complete a comprehensive skills assessment that tests 21 selling competencies to measure things like skill set, motivation, determination, and more.

Those that make the cut will then be shortlisted so you can schedule interviews and make your final decision. The streamlined, systematic, data-driven approach HireDNA takes makes it extremely efficient for SaaS sales candidate screening and has a very high success rate, with recruiters able to eliminate 96% of wrong hires. Further, 92% of candidates that are hired reach the top of their sales force within one year.

You can learn more about HireDNA’s screening process here.

2. Breezy HR

Like HireDNA, Breezy HR is an end-to-end SaaS recruiting tool that does the heavy lifting for you so you spend less time in the trenches looking for candidates and more time on shortlisting and interviewing.

It starts with advertising and attracting where you first create a professional, branded careers page to send candidates to. This can be fully customized and launched in less than a minute without any development knowledge and includes built-in analytics. Or, if you already have a careers page, you can use the Breezy HR widget to create a list of available jobs on it.

Once that’s set up, the software streamlines the process of getting your SaaS sales job in front of millions of potential candidates. After creating a job ad, Breezy HR will automatically post it on over 50 of today’s top job sites, such as LinkedIn, Indeed, Google, and ZipRecruiter.

As SaaS sales candidates start pouring in, Breezy HR has several different features to help you efficiently screen and manage them. For example, the AI-powered Candidate Match Score feature lets you identify the best of the best and instantly prioritize them for quick outreach.

Touchless pre-screening lets you send personalized questionnaires to top candidates, and “Breezy will automatically advance (or disqualify) candidates based on their answers.” Additionally, video screening lets you take it one step further by qualifying candidates with digital face-to-face recordings so you can get a better feel for their personality and style. Once you’ve created your shortlist, Breezy HR offers calendar integrations with Google and Outlook so you can effortlessly schedule interviews.

And with built-in analytics that measure pipeline performance, time to fill, and team productivity, you can identify inefficiencies to continually refine your SaaS sales recruiting process.

3. JazzHR

Let me start by saying that JazzHR is specifically designed for SMBs. So if you’re an enterprise company, this platform won’t have the type of scale that you need. But if you fall into the SMB category, read on.

JazzHR is a straightforward SaaS sales candidate screening tool that doesn’t have quite the same amount of features as HireDNA and Breezy HR, but it definitely gets the job done. It offers a custom careers page with branded templates to send candidates to.

There’s a streamlined candidate sourcing feature that lets you post a single job ad to numerous job boards and social networks. And there’s a built-in referral feature that lets you manage a company-wide referral program to tap into additional candidate leads. This combination allows you to build a strong initial candidate pool right from the start.

From there, JazzHR has ranking features that help you choose individuals who are best fitted for the position you’re hiring for and “organize your hiring pool based on your own criteria and decide who gets moved along in one centralized location.” There are comprehensive assessments with score-based evaluations that let you quantitatively compare top candidates. And after you’ve done your round of interviews, JazzHR assists hiring managers in ranking them one by one while implementing feedback.

Once you’ve made your decision, there are offers and eSignature features to expedite the formalities and ensure all the necessary paperwork is completed while staying fully compliant. In turn, this makes for a better candidate experience so you can get build strong rapport right from the start.

Put it all together, and this makes JazzHR a solid option that works well for many SMBs.

Finding Elite Talent with SaaS Sales Candidate Screening

Sales recruiting technology has come a long in recent years. While recruiters of the past often had to deal with a lengthy, convoluted process and rely on gut feelings that weren’t always accurate, SaaS sales candidate screening tools have been a true game-changer.

While there are numerous options available, HireDNA, Breezy HR, and JazzHR are three of the best overall and cover the full spectrum of candidate screening while also including other great features.

To learn more about why HireDNA is the industry’s number one sales skills assessment tool, check out this resource.

Why Lead-Scoring Algorithms Can Increase Conversions By as Much as 20%

Not all leads are equal. Some are just entering the sales funnel and are at the top in the awareness stage where they’re just getting their bearings and doing preliminary research. Others are a bit further down in the interest or desire stages where they understand your product and are considering making a purchase. And others are at the very bottom in the action stage where they’re right on the verge of converting. One of the best ways to sort through leads and ensure you deliver the right outreach at the right time is with lead-scoring algorithms, which can increase conversions by up to 20%.

Here’s why lead-scoring algorithms are so potent and why they’re worth implementing into your sales operations.

The Rise of Sales Technology

First, let me point out that sales technology in general has seen a sharp rise in recent years. A 2020 LinkedIn study found that nearly half (47%) of sales professionals use technology at least once a day — a number that has presumably risen even more over the past three years. The study also found that “more than 52% of sales professionals said they planned to use more sales technology,” and “74% of those who use an intelligence tool state that it plays a critical role in closing deals.”

In 2023, technology is being used in nearly all aspects of sales, boasting impressive results. And lead-scoring algorithms are no exception. It’s taken a process that formerly had to be done manually and was quite time-consuming and given it a shot in the arm. While I’m not surprised that lead-scoring algorithms can have a positive impact on conversions, I was honestly amazed that it can be as high as 20%!

This shows the potentially game-changing nature of this technology and why it should be on every sales team’s radar, especially if lead management is something you’ve historically struggled with. Now that we have some perspective on exactly what lead-scoring algorithms are capable of, let’s look at two specific reasons why they help sales teams boost conversions.

They Help You Identify High-Value Leads

As I mentioned earlier, there can be a big disparity in where leads are in the sales funnel. Most initially start at the top in the awareness stage and have to be nurtured before they’re sales-ready.

But here’s what’s crazy. “61% of marketers send all of their leads to sales even though only 27% are actually qualified.” Not only is this a huge waste of time where reps reach out to a ton of leads that are unlikely to convert, it can be annoying to leads when what they need is more information rather than a hyper-aggressive sales plug.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of lead-scoring algorithms is that they help you identify high-value leads quickly and reliably. Here’s an example.

By using a points-based lead-scoring model, you can assign each lead a score based on specific actions such as visiting your homepage, clicking on a blog post, visiting your pricing page, or downloading an eBook. Actions like visiting a homepage and clicking on a blog post would show relatively small intent to buy and, consequently, receive fewer points than actions like visiting your pricing page or downloading an eBook, which would assign more points.

How to Create an Informative Lead Scoring System in 6 Steps : LeadFuze

In turn, you can objectively identify a lead’s current value and rank them accordingly. A lead score of 50, for example, would be just a basic lead.

A lead with 75 points would be a marketing qualified lead (MQL).

And a lead with 100 points would be a sales qualified lead (SQL), which would be a high-value lead that your reps would want to prioritize over all others.

The end result would be reaching out to hot leads right when they’re most receptive, thus greatly increasing your chances of converting.

They Streamline Lead Nurturing

The other key purpose of lead-scoring algorithms is that they can enhance lead nurturing so those that aren’t ready for a sales conversation can receive the right information to educate them and build rapport until they are ready.

Say, for instance, a lead received a score of 75 points using the model above are were identified as an MQL. You could put them in an email drip campaign and send them relevant newsletters, videos, and blog posts so they can learn more about your product and get comfortable with your brand. This could be followed by case studies, competition comparisons, testimonials, or free trials, gradually nurturing them until they become high-value leads.

Instead of “going for the jugular” prematurely and squandering employee resources while potentially turning off leads, this would allow you to get the absolute most out of everyone who enters your sales funnel, regardless of the stage they start out at. It’s basically a two-pronged attack where you’re able to quickly identify and reach out to high-value leads and effectively nurture those that aren’t yet sales-ready until they’re eventually prepared for a sales conversation.

All the while, you’re generating accurate, objective data and basing your decisions around sophisticated intelligence rather than “just a hunch.” When you put it all together, it’s easy to see why conversions can increase by as much as 20%. If you want to learn more about lead scoring software and get a comparison of today’s top products, I suggest checking out this resource from G2.

Revving Up Conversions with Lead-Scoring Algorithms

One of the biggest hindrances to reaching full conversion potential is treating all leads the same. As we’ve learned, the majority of leads aren’t initially sales-ready and each lead is at a different stage in the sales funnel.

Lead-scoring algorithms are one of the best tools for sorting out leads so you’ll know which ones to focus on right off the bat and which ones to nurture. That way, you can simultaneously optimize your sales outreach process and get your conversion rate as high as it can possibly be.

And if you’re looking to optimize your sales recruiting, check out HireDNA. 92% of recommended candidates through HireDNA climb to the top of the sales force within one year, and it eliminates 96% of hiring mistakes.