Hire the right sales candidate and your life is a dream. Hire the wrong one and it’s an unenviable nightmare.
Hiring is seen by many as a crap shoot. Here are some things you can do to tip the odds in your favour.
Begin by knowing what you are looking for. Draft a profile of the specific skills, experience and education that are the minimum ticket in to the interview process. Be ruthless when screening candidates for this. If you can’t tick all the boxes they don’t advance.
The longer a position remains vacant the hungrier and more lax in their standards hirers become. Resist the urge to find “a pulse” to fill the role. As painful as it might be, it’s better to run empty than run wrong.
When it comes to the first interview, prepare to allow each candidate to show his or her best.
Have your questions pre-planned. Focus on asking behavioural-style interviewing questions.
This approach is predicated on the belief that past behaviour and job performance are the best predictors of future behaviour and performance.
These questions ask “tell me about a time when you ...”
Rather than ask how they would handle a tough sale, an angry customer or rallying a group around a cause, ask job candidates how they did it.
Stories of actual performance give you far better reality and insight into the candidate than speculative answers.
When it comes to skills assessment, remain diligent. Make the second interview a “show me” interview.
Ask candidates to come to the interview prepared to sell you something generic [say, a computer].
Tell them you’re looking at how they handle the sales interaction, not their computer expertise. Then go to it.
Are you hearing well-phrased questions to understand your needs? Do you see a coherent structure to the “sales call?” Were they able to ask for the business at the end? Role plays like these feel contrived because, well, they are. They are, however, the best way to see for yourself if this person can handle pressure and, most importantly, sell.
Decide early on what character traits you need in a new hire. Here are a few that are critical.
•Integrity: this is the foundation. Low integrity, no hire.
•Assertiveness: your sales people need to be in the front seat helping a buyer navigate to a decision, not in the backseat hoping they get to the right destination.
•Competitiveness: for some reason this trait gets a bad rap. The best salespeople keep score. They want to be the best.
•Team player: keep the sandbox fun and productive. Hiring too many lone wolves compromises this.
The most under-hired-for trait is territory management literacy.
Does the candidate know how to take over a sales territory, keep existing customers happy and at the same time bring on new ones? If he or she doesn’t, you know who will have to do a great deal of hand-holding.
For the third interview ask your final candidate[s] to come with a detailed plan outlining how they will tackle their new territory.
Have them present it in a boardroom setting to you and a colleague or two using visual aids. Do this and you will see first-hand what your customers will experience should you hire this person.
Hiring is not easy. After spending a few short hours with a candidate you must decide if he or she is going to be part of the family. Enter into this task prepared and you will make this unsure process more tenable and successful. •
