Sales Interviewing & Hiring Archives

How to Interview an Inexperienced Sales Candidate

Hiring managers often look for sales candidates who are fresh out of school and/or inexperienced in sales. A key benefit in doing so is finding a new recruit who has not developed bad habits and can learn the company’s sales process fresh. During the interview phase, it’s important to understand that the best predictor of future behavior is previous behavior. That’s why hiring managers use behavioral interview questions, which ask the candidate to provide several examples of his/her previous behavior in a variety of situations. But how do you use behavioral questions when you interview an inexperienced sales candidate? How

Pessimistic salesperson upset at bad sales

Sales Assessments

6 Reasons Why So Many Bad Salespeople Get Hired

Every company tries its best to recruit, interview and vet salespeople before hiring them. But way too many bad salespeople still get through, jump on the payroll and do not produce. As Seinfeld might say, “What’s up with that?” It is all too common to hire bad salespeople. Unfortunately, this is more than just a hassle. The time spent training and working with incompetent salespeople costs your company money. Bad salespeople can also tank the productivity of others, and the good members of your team may have to teach these bad salespeople how to perform better. Since many of these bad

salesperson-at-the-end-of-successful-interview

Sales Interviewing & Hiring

How to Hire a Salesperson for a Vacant Territory

One of the most frustrating challenges that hiring managers face is how to hire a salesperson for a vacant territory. The loss of revenue and opportunity costs can make the temptation almost overwhelming to quickly fill the territory with the first candidate they can find. However, although settling for just any salesperson may relieve some of their anxiety in the short term, it will inevitably cause even greater problems down the road. When hiring managers are in a hurry to hire a salesperson for a vacant territory, they can succumb to the temptation to short-change the critical evaluative steps along

How Important is Talent Acquisition in Building a Sales Team?

It starts with talent. Talent acquisition is the single, most important element of building a world class sales team, period. Without talent and the right personality, the best training and management cannot create miracles. All sports teams know that they can only go so far without great athletes. Yet you would be surprised how many companies settle for mediocre talent. Why? How Important is Talent Acquisition in Building a Sales Team? was last modified: October 30th, 2014 by Dr. Chris Croner

Drive is Not the Same as Obnoxious

Drive is a critical component of a successful salesperson’s personality mix. Drive is what internally pushes her to succeed. Drive is what causes her to love to compete. Drive is an internal element that generates innate optimism in a profession in which rejection is part of the program.And Drive cannot be taught . . . despite what motivational speakers would like you to believe. Salespeople need to start out with Drive, and then training can really have an impact. Drive is Not the Same as Obnoxious was last modified: October 16th, 2014 by Dr. Chris Croner

Can a Candidate’s Mood Lower Scores on a Sales Recruitment Assessment?

Hiring managers occasionally wonder whether a sales candidate’s mood can substantially affect his or her scores on a sales assessment test. These questions can arise when a candidate reports recent frustrations at work or other challenging circumstances and scores low on traits such as Need for Achievement or Optimism. The key here is to remember that we are measuring traits rather than states. A state is a more temporary mood or condition (such as temporary anxiety or sadness). A trait is a stable underlying characteristic or quality (such as Need for Achievement). So, although it can be appealing to attribute

Learn

Support

Watch Video

Learn

Support

Watch Video

Learn

Support

Watch Video

Lists*

How to Interview an Inexperienced Sales Candidate

6 Reasons Why So Many Bad Salespeople Get Hired

How to Hire a Salesperson for a Vacant Territory

How Important is Talent Acquisition in Building a Sales Team?

Drive is Not the Same as Obnoxious

Can a Candidate’s Mood Lower Scores on a Sales Recruitment Assessment?