Sales is a popular occupation. In North America alone, there are over 22 million sales reps. However, if you work in sales, you know that hiring a sales rep who will not only do a good job, but will stay with the company long term, can be an extremely challenging endeavor. On average, the yearly turnover rate for a sales force is 40%– far higher than for most other occupations. As well, unlike new hires for many other jobs, when hiring a sales rep there is a high likelihood that the new hire will not work out.
Although there are many excellent sales representatives, there are just as many who are not good at what they do. 40% of North American sales professionals miss their quotas; 22% are incapable of being trained; only 10% of sales representatives provide their employers with a return on the original investment of hiring a sales rep– an investment which can be quite costly. To illustrate that point, the price tag on making a mistake when hiring a sales rep can be anywhere between 6 and 10 times the base salary of the unfortunate hire.
Hiring a sales rep who turns out to be a successful addition to your company seems like a crapshoot. Many organizations have a hard time telling the wheat from the chaff during the hiring process. This is not the case when it comes to executive recruitment firms. Sales recruitment firms are up to the challenge of hiring a sales rep who is guaranteed to be a good investment. These firms employ sales headhunters who have amongst them a huge amount of experience in the sales representative hiring process. The headhunters with whom you work will manage the entire HR process from start to finish when hiring a sales rep on behalf of your company. Headhunters can rely on their wide-ranging professional contacts when hiring a sales rep for your business.
Something that headhunters keep in mind when hiring a sales rep is that the candidates who do best in sales jobs are not necessarily those with much previous sales experience. A newbie sales rep is just as capable of doing a bang-up job a professional with years of sales experience. This is especially true if the new hire, besides exhibiting natural charisma, personal warmth, research, and organizational skills, is granted appropriate training and mentorship. A good executive recruiting firm employs recruiters who know how to suss out whether a candidate has these qualities.
The vast majority of a sales rep’s job relies on intangible talents, i.e. strong communication skills, a genuine smile, and a firm handshake. These are qualities that sales management headhunters look for during the interview process. These skills that are so important to obtaining a good outcome when hiring a sales rep, and they are not necessarily going to be obvious from viewing a candidate’s resume. When hiring a sales rep, a headhunter therefore relies rely in part on her well developed intuition about whether the candidate has what it takes to succeed. Having shepherded the process of hiring a sales rep numerous times, a successful headhunter has developed an intuitive ability that serves her– not to mention you– well. When the headhunter spends time with the candidate in person, she will be able to tell whether he is a good fit for your business.