What have you found to be a successful method to hire sales staff?
We currently advertise using road signs then do phone interviews and from there conduct in person interviews. We offer hourly plus commission.
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Nov 10, 2013
Recommendation from successful businesses.
If you are selling cars, then a used-car salesman with a good track record should be a perfect fit for you.
If you cater to a specific type of item, you should have a specific type of exam to give your qualified candidates to be able to assess or gauge their intra personal skills, persuasive skills, persistence, etc.
Job interviews still work as long as the interviewer is a great judge of character.
Nowadays with social media and other online business sources to choose from, you have more options.
Jul 25, 2013
I use job boards and LinkedIn. Posting an opening brings in a handful of candidates and then searching the boards for people is another avenue we also use.
Posting about the opening on groups in LinkedIn and then again on your personal profile works fairly well. Especially if you can get people in your network to 'like' the posts because it then becomes visible to others not directly in your network.
Jul 24, 2013
Being a sales professional myself, I have always been more drawn to networking methods to find a position. This includes LinkedIn, industry associations and events, and even this site. Given the nature of the position, networking opportunities will provide some of your better personality types for sales (not implying all sales people are outgoing at all).
Given you are looking for hourly, outside sales you may want to start with recent graduates and focus on training. Colleges everywhere have great career centers and will actually help you recruit. Either that or your local job center. I hope that helps!
Jul 24, 2013
I would read the paper that Susan recommends -- and then look for someone who has a business that does pre-hiring analysis of sales types. Their websites will usually provide some good information, and -- if you engage with on an honest basis -- you might find that it's worthwhile to use them to find the salespeople for you.
You can never tell on the way in the door if you have a hit, dud or a bad apple. It's best to get professional help BEFORE you have to find a lawyer!
Jul 24, 2013
Sounds like your method is typical of many companies today. As well, you may want to try some job fairs. This gives you a quick look at the individual and whether they will fit in your culture.
Jul 23, 2013
You certainly have many options. The key is to advertise where your target sales people are looking.
We have a free white paper that you may find useful. It entitled, “How To Recruit The Best Sales Professionals” which includes “11 Telephone Interview Questions to Find Top Performers”, and you can download from the B2B Sales Connections Download Centre at http://www.b2bsalesconnections.com/download_centre.php
Good luck!
Susan A. Enns
B2B Sales Coach & Author
Jul 18, 2013
First of all remember that you get what you ask for. Where are you looking for people and what is your message to them? Does your ad really appeal to your dream candidate or is it general and open to everyone, including all the non-qualified ones. A road sign may not be your best medium, unless one of your key criteria is that the candidates be local people that drive by frequently or maybe you are trying to poach candidates from a local competitor. The other issue that I find in hiring is to use on-line assessment tools that provide an objective assessment of the persons qualifications. These serve as a supplement to the in-person interviews. There are many available but for sales I like the OMG assessment.
Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.
Bernie
Jul 17, 2013
Find people who truly love selling from their heart with passion by developing your message targeting your ideal customers and let them program their subconscious with the sales message
Jul 17, 2013
My professional advise is to outsource this to another company, which brings your cost of operation down. This is not including the nightmare of the Healthcare system, that will be on your head to stay in business once 2015 comes around.
Jul 16, 2013
Totally depends on what kind of sales person you're looking for. If in search of the guy twirling the sign on the side of the road, you may be fine searching with road signs, etc...
If appointment setting is what you're looking for (one of your tags I believe), there are several services online that outsource that kind of thing. You could try oDesk, or ExpatAssistants - both offer cheap virtual employees for things like that.
For higher level sales, I've had the most success with LinkedIn and, believe it or not, Craigslist. Other job sites are so expensive that many SMBs have turned to Craigslist and the talent out there has noticed.
Best of luck!
Jul 16, 2013
To be completely honest — I think that using road signs is going to attract the wrong type of talent.
Think about where those sales persons might interact online. Are there job boards on LinkedIn that you can peruse through? We've used www.glassdoor.com before where you write up a detailed description of what the hire will be doing, and what skill set you are looking forward to getting.
I think that Adrian below makes a good point. Different types of sales people need different types of approaches.
I'd also talk to your local universities too so that you can tap into the talent coming out of schools.
Jul 16, 2013
Different sales needs different sales people needs different hiring approach...
What are they selling?