Rapidly-growing companies are tasked with the urgent challenge of recruiting a great sales team, and doing so rather quickly. Fortunately for our thousands of clients, they have used the services of Crawford Thomas Recruiting. When interviewing candidates, keep these three qualities in mind when making your hiring decisions. It should be noted that if you find a candidate that possess all three of these qualities, they should be heavily considered for your role.
Hiring managers that are involved in the recruiting process from, step 1 to finish, tend to look for 3 main attributes from their sales candidates. Now, before we go further, I am aware there are hundreds of bullet-points to check off, however, it would be strongly advised to move forward with a candidate that meets all three of these qualities.
Stability, Proven Success, Presentation.
For the most part, you’ll find candidates that possess 2 of the 3 on a regular basis. Typically someone that presents themselves well (interviews well) and has proven success, are the most common. However, it is typical of these candidates to lack stability in their career. You’ll find that candidates with a great presentation and stability, don’t necessarily have the proven success that will be relate-able to your role. And lastly, a candidate with proven success and you may find a few candidates that have proven success and stability, but they are unable to maintain a solid presentation throughout the interview.
Stability
Stability in previous roles shows a candidate’s determination and dedication to that company. It is more and more common for candidates to have spent a shorter amount of time in a new role, as they feel it may not be a fit or they’re offered something better elsewhere. Therefore the candidates that provide a solid display of stability are more incline to give your company a true effort. They wont give up and look for something elsewhere, instead they will ask for guidance to become successful at your company.
Proven Success
Proven Success might be easy to determine, but not everyone measures success the same way. A true sales recruiter will hone in on numbers, rankings, growth percentages, and so on. When recruiting in sales, it is important to look for the similarities between your company and the candidate’s previous role. If you can compare and contrast these numbers, you will be able to determine the candidate’s previous success.
Presentation
You only have one chance at a first-impression. Your presentation says a lot about you. Growing up, we learned to not judge a book by its cover, but as a sales manager, your job is to find a candidate that will represent your company at a high standard. Presentation can be multiple things, from the way you dress, the way you carry yourself in an interview or meeting, these are things that hiring managers and interviewers will notice right away. While it is unfortunate that we judge books by their cover, sales managers typically do not want to put someone that doesn’t carry a good presentation in front of their clients.
If you are a sales recruiter or a sales manager, use these three qualities as a reference for your next hire. You may not find many with all three attributes, but when you do, that’s a solid bet to be a great addition to your team.