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The 5 Rules for an Effective Hiring Process

Every effective process has rules to live (and die) by.  Below are 5 Rules to follow that ensure a much higher probability of successfully building an elite sales team.

Rule #1 – You Must Have a Hiring Profile.

Companies with high performing hiring processes examine their top performers and failures to uncover what traits and backgrounds excel (and fail) in their environment.  From this base of knowledge, they develop a clear and objective profile to look for in prospective sales candidates.  The profile can be based on tangible qualities, such as requiring a college degree and intangible qualities, such as coachability.  There are 2 key reasons for establishing your profile.  1.) It’s almost impossible for your recruiting team (either internal or external) to consistently deliver quality sales candidates if you don’t have an agreed upon bullseye.  “I’ll know it when I see it” isn’t a profile.  2.) It’s also almost impossible to uncover what went wrong (or right) when don’t have a clear profile.  It will prove impossible to isolate an issue if your hires are all coming from wildly different backgrounds.

Rule #2 – The Process Must Be Repeatable.

If your hiring profile or any of the interviewing steps aren’t consistent and repeatable, they aren’t scalable.  They also won’t produce consistent results.  This means that you also need a consistent and methodical approach to your interview/candidate vetting steps.  We often see clients shorten their interview processes and skip steps when they fall in love with a candidate.  If that hire goes sideways, it will be difficult to determine what or where it went wrong.  Perhaps you found the right candidate but failed to set the right expectations.   I go into why that’s a problem below with Rule #5.

Rule #3 – Your Profile Has to Be Realistic.

Is your opportunity attractive to the candidates that you are seeking?  If your compensation is low, for example, it’s going to be extremely difficult to put together a sizeable candidate pool.  This means that it’s going to take some luck to make a hire.  Any process that requires luck isn’t repeatable and it isn’t scalable.

Rule #4 – Get Proof From Candidates.

Most sales professionals exaggerate their sales accomplishments.  Let me repeat that.  Most (well over half and closer to 75%, in my experience) exaggerate their sales accomplishments.  Think about it.  You’ll be basing their salary and your hiring decision on your estimation of their accomplishments.  Your only defense against this is to require documentation of sales accomplishments from EVERY candidate.  This works both ways.  It will weed out the 75% that are lying or exaggerating.  It will also elevate the top performers that lack that last bit of “it factor”.  I’ve met scores of legit top sales performers that don’t “feel” like a top performer when interviewed.  Sometimes top performers come across more like Clark Kent than Superman.

Rule #5 – Set Proper Candidate Expectations.

Nothing will ruin a great hiring process faster than failing to set the right expectations with potential hires.  The most common mis-representations are: over-stating realistic income #s, under-stating the time it takes to be promoted and under-stating how difficult it really is to sell the product or service.  Most top performers operate from the “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.” paradigm.  This means that their job search starts when they realize that you have set the wrong expectations.  Whether intentional or not, your mis-representation has created a serious doubt in your new hires mind.  Even if they don’t chose to start looking, they’ll certainly be open to listening when approached by a recruiter.

 

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Chris Carlson

My name is Chris Carlson and I’m the founder and President of Sales Talent. This blog grew out of my desire to document and share what I’ve learned in my two plus decades of sales recruiting and leading Sales Talent. Our posts are aimed at sales professionals and leaders that speaks to talent selection, team building, or career advancement. If you have a topic that you’d like my take on, please reach out to me.

You can find Chris Carlson on LinkedIn or contact him directly at:
chris@salestalentinc.com.