The biggest challenge in sales recruiting is the pressure of filling a vacancy quickly with a low supply of top-performing sales candidates in your talent pool. Because of the high cost and amount of time associated with ramping up a new hire, you don’t want to mistakenly hire the wrong candidate.

The best strategy to avoid this blunder is to create a job posting and an interview process that attracts the best talent. It is also essential to make sure this talent is going to drive revenue for your company and make a long-term commitment to your organization. In order to attract top sales representatives, you must have a consistent process in place and leverage recruiters who share the sales mentality.

Here are some ways you can attract “A” players for your company:

1. Describe your vision of a perfect sales performer.

When your organization has open sales positions, you must have a “perfect” candidate in mind. Start by looking at the most successful sales reps at your company. What personality traits are similar among the top performers? Find out about their background and what motivates them to be a top performer.

2. Tailor your job description.

When creating your job description, the goal should be to attract the reader to want to sell at your organization. In addition to describing the day-to-day responsibilities in the job posting, define the incentives offered for doing an outstanding job. Explain what can be “won” for being a top performer, whether it’s a president’s club trip, year-end bonus or company party. Last but not least, post the job where prospective sales talent searches. Build talent communities and share your company culture via videos or pictures through social media platforms.

3. Make the interview process short and effective.

Sales reps don’t like spending time on a drawn out interview process. To determine whether candidates should land an initial interview, observe their timeliness, business acumen and follow-up, and make sure the questions they ask prove they’re goal driven. Role playing is also a great way to see how they handle pressure and indicates how well they can close sales. Remember that your competitors could potentially be pursuing your candidates as well, which is another reason to streamline the interview process and make it more efficient.

4. Follow through with your onboarding process.

Once you’ve hired your future top sales performers, create an onboarding process that will generate motivation and excitement and keep them with your company long term. Provide your reps with the training they need to hit the ground running. Never stop acknowledging their success and hard work, and follow through on your commitment to reward them with the perks of being a top performer.

The sooner you create a process that attracts the best sales talent in your market, the faster you’ll fill your vacant territory with a sales rep who creates positive relationships with your clients and rakes in revenue for your company. For a few additional best practices on recruiting top sales talent, be sure to join WilsonHCG and Jed Milstein, Executive Vice President of Human Resources at TransCentra for a free webinar to learn about “Sales Recruitment Strategies: Missteps and Mends.”

REGISTER: HERE
WHEN: April 9th, 2013 at 12:00 P.M. ET

Written By: Jessica Lang

Jessica is the Business Development Specialist at WilsonHCG. She strives daily to deliver the best in RPO resources and knowledge available to all of her prospects and partners, from mid- to large-sized multinational organizations. A former outside sales rep herself, she has recruitment roots planted in sales and has a passion for helping her clients find the best sales talent in North America. In her free time, Jessica enjoys hiking, traveling and exploring the local scene in both Scottsdale and San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn!

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The concept of diversity incorporates the acceptance and respect for individuals in a workplace, and in order for companies to be successful they need to be aware and demonstrate an understanding of this. Having a diverse workforce not only affects your internal operations, but also your clients, vendors and stakeholders.  By showing top down support, it can potentially increase their diverse candidate pool.  With a few key people in place, companies will potentially be on the path to having their diversity goals met.

Chief Diversity Officer:  This position can report to the president to collaborate with all company opportunities to create and sustain a diverse and inclusive environment.  This CDO can ensure that elements of diversity and inclusion are infused in all areas of the company including sales and delivery.  With this position in place, a support committee can be established.  This committee can mentor and build community involvement to focus on internal and external participation.

Diversity Subject Matter Expert: Having a few diversity SME’s in place will ensure all of your bases are covered. They can create diversity awareness trainings, community building programs and further aid recruiters in their diversity recruiting efforts. This also allows employees to get involved in an extra resume building program, thus improving employee engagement.

Diversity & Inclusion Specialist: A go-to expert who can assist a CDO and lead a group of SME’s would be an ideal position to add to your diversity team. This specialist could assist the business development  and marketing teams to execute diversity strategies, create associate inclusion activities and assist subject matter experts in their efforts.

As with any position or team, communication between diversity experts and the needs of HR is crucial. These positions should fall under the HR department to ensure collaboration and diversity goals are met. By investing in your company and showing diversity and inclusion is important not only externally, but also internally, employees and clients will want to invest in you.

Written By: Sandy Farida

In partnership with human resources and business leaders, Sandy drives leadership accountability for developing, retaining and advancing diverse, global talent and moving forward diversity initiatives within a company. Having the belief that a diverse workplace is better able to solve problems and implement new ideas, is to realize the greatest potential of a company. Sandy comes to WilsonHCG with 10 years of talent acquisition, training and development. She also has a master’s degree in human resources with a concentration in labor law and selection and screening. Follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn!

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