3 Tips when Hiring a New Sales Rep

Companies need top sales performers in order to grow revenue. But how do you recruit them? Where do you find top sales talent? What sourcing tactics work? What interview questions help to identify the right fit? What qualities and sales characteristics should hiring managers look for? Who should be involved in the process?

First tip, leave it to the pros!

Hiring a recruiting firm that specializes in sales is the first trick to making a great hire. It might sound obvious, but there are thousands of qualified candidates that will go unnoticed because of a poor recruiting process.

Sales recruiters are trained to find these individuals. Do not bog yourself or your HR team down with the burden of sourcing and sifting through hundreds of resumes. Crawford Thomas Recruiting is best known for our speed to fill open positions with the highest quality candidates. Having a recruiting firm working for you is the best way to ensure you’re making the right hiring decision. There are a lot of sales reps out there, our job at Crawford Thomas is to scan through those mediocre resumes, to find the top-level talent your company desires.

Second tip, humans are still better than AI!

We’re not there yet, folks. We’re not at a point where we can give up the human touch when it comes to recruiting. In-fact, we are still many years away from allowing computers to do all of the work when sourcing candidates. If you are one of those companies that prefers to go on this mission alone, with no help from Crawford Thomas Recruiting, we leave you with two tips. Humans need to scan the resumes and reach out to these candidates to build rapport, gain additional info, and to find out specifics regarding the candidate’s background.

Third tip, Don’t cut corners!

These are sales reps, while everyone in every industry plays some role in the company success, these are your front line soldiers. Don’t cut corners on your sales hiring. Spend a little extra time speaking with these candidates. Talk to them about their successes and obstacles they have overcome. You want to avoid hiring off of a “gut feeling”. Be sure to make the most professional decision possible with all of the information on each candidate.

Bonus tip!

Hire multiple sales reps at the same time. This will create a small competition between them, without ever bringing it up. How do we know? Because we do this for a living. Sales candidates, the really good ones, enjoy stack ranking. If you show them where they stand vs each other, you’ll see your monthly numbers increase!