Managers know well that feeling of their throats tightening whenever a strong sales employee gives notice. It often means the beginning of an arduous hiring process, one where each member the committee, in addition to keeping on top of regular duties and operations, is often expected to be a mind reader and psychic.
Unfortunately, unlike in other industries, it’s very hard to tell whether a job applicant will find success in a given sales position without first observing them working in it; reading carefully through resumes and conducting even the most comprehensive of interviews often does little to give insight into a candidate’s true sales personality.
Instinct alone won’t do
When you’re trusted with company resources, and when the goal is to find employees that will remain with you, exceed quotas, and help the enterprise grow – going off instinct alone simply will not do, not if you don’t want to be back on the same side of the hiring table in just a few short months. What hiring managers need is a tool to help cut through facades and biases, showing clearly whether an applicant possesses the personality traits essential to sustaining a competent salesforce.
There are a number of tools to choose the right candidate but the most precise and efficient one any recruiter or hiring manager can employ is a sales personality evaluation, a short but decisive test designed to predict how a candidate will fare in a given position long term.
Hiring tool: Testing service
They are available for an affordable price from testing entities like SalesTestOnline; with a 90% accuracy rate, they measure qualities like assertiveness, emotional maturity and stamina, sense of urgency, sociability and motivational style. They only take applicants about ten minutes to complete, but the way the questions are designed help to give a clearer picture of a sales personality than a free form, unstructured interview. This is because each position is carefully analyzed for the purposes of creating a target profile.
The candidate who scores closest the benchmark is likely to be the best suited for the role, irrespective of their qualifications or interviewing ability. Bear in mind that many skills can be learned on the job, but the soft skills are rarely among them; an employee can learn to perfect their strategy on a call faster than they can overcome laziness, or having to be policed at the office.
Finally, the test has a 97% reorder rate meaning other sales departments at other companies that have used it before were satisfied by the results it provided, and have returned to it when hiring for positions at a later date.
Takeaway
When it comes to finding the right candidate the first time around, using your judgement of character alone can create hiring risks your company can ill afford. Take the proactive route and incorporate a non-invasive sales personality test at some point during the application process, ideally at the beginning for a better idea about who to meet in person. This way, you’ll rest assured knowing that every candidate you’re inviting in for an interview is a strong potential member for your dynamic team.