Hire Only the Best Fit for Your Sales Team

How to Hire Only the Best Fit for Your Sales Team
If you want to hire only the best fit for your sales team, you can’t afford to make a mistake. Your hiring decision will make the difference between a fully contributing member of the sales team or another “below average performer” who drags everybody (and the team performance) down.

In fact, recent research by Korn Ferry discovered that a person whose attributes strongly match what is required for success in a role is about 8 times more likely to be highly engaged than a colleague with a weaker fit.

5 Tips to Hire Only the Best Fit for Your Sales Team
Here are our recommendations for an effective sales hiring success to find sales reps that fit in terms of competency, culture and performance?

1. Ensure the Strategic and Cultural Context for Success
   Organizational alignment research tells us that sales strategy and sales culture account for 71% of the difference between high and low performing sales teams. For sales hiring, that means you must get your sales strategy clear enough and your sales culture healthy and aligned enough to set your new hires up for success.  Otherwise, you are investing time and effort into finding and onboarding new sales hires that are not set up to perform at their peak.

   Do you need to improve sales clarity and alignment?

2. Use a Proven Sales Hiring Simulation
   Top sales teams go beyond first impressions with by using scientifically validated data to quickly identify top sales talent — especially for high stakes roles.  Because interviews and resumes often don’t tell the whole story, leading organizations use sales rep assessment simulations and sales leader simulation assessment centers to ensure not only a fair opportunity for candidates to demonstrate their capabilities, but to use predictive analytics select top sales talent is ready to excel in their new role.

   Would your hiring benefit from a more comprehensive assessment of your candidates motivations, competencies, and fit?

3. Use a Team Interviewing Approach
   Relying on a single interviewer can introduce bias — positive or negative — into the hiring decision. By involving multiple team members, you minimize prejudice and gain a more balanced, objective view of each candidate. A team approach also allows interviewers to focus on specific competencies that are critical for sales success.

   Assign each interviewer a particular area to assess, and provide a standardized evaluation form to capture observations consistently. After all interviews are completed, the team can consolidate ratings and discuss findings collectively.

   Keep the rating system simple — use pluses or minuses for each competency — and ensure notes cite specific examples from the interview. Discipline is key: interviewers must prepare thoroughly beforehand and complete their assessments while the experience is fresh. Finally, make sure each team member understands the significance of their role in hiring the best-fit candidates who will thrive in your sales culture and execute your sales strategy successfully.

4. Check Out Past Sales Performance
   A resume can list impressive titles, experiences, and metrics — but to uncover meaningful, repeatable success, behavioral interviewing is essential. You need to determine whether they’ve actively sold, met quotas, and closed deals themselves.

   The most effective interviewers dig beneath the surface, probing for concrete evidence of sales performance and the ability to sell solutions to target customers. By verifying their actual results, roles, and behaviors, you can more accurately predict a candidate’s potential to succeed in your organization and replicate that success with your customers.

   Are you validating what they are really willing and able to do?

5. Hold a Meeting to Make the Decision
   Compile reports on each candidate and share perspectives. Never settle. The best candidates should rise to the top — but are they good enough and will they fit in your unique organizational culture?

If you still have doubts, you can give them a chance to prove themselves — their abilities, their attitudes, and their experience.

• Team them up with a member of your sales team to demonstrate their selling capabilities.
• Test them with specific sales scenarios most common for your industry.
• Give them a 90-day trial period where both the sales team and the candidate can assess their fit for the job.

The Bottom Line
If you want to hire only the best fit for your sales team, do not settle.  It pays to be patient and demanding when you hire for critical sales positions. Do yourself, your sales team, and your organization a favor by taking the time to get it right from the beginning.

To learn more about how to hire only the best fit for your sales team, download 9 Traits to Avoid When Hiring Sales Reps